The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-11
The Childhood of Alexander II.


The unfortunate Emperor whose person is
styled sacred in the dispatch announcing his
death to the Russian Embassy, was the son of
a German mother-Charlotte Frederika of
Prussia. Her maternal tenderness alone rem
dered tolerable in his boyhood the military
strictness in which Nicholas reared lin. AS
he was her eldest child, her influence extended
over him the best part of his life. She died
when he was forty-four years old. This Prin-
cess had vivid recollection of the sufferings
inflicted by Napoleon on her fatherland; her
sensibilities naturally keen-had been inten-
sified by the sorrows which the French inva-
sion had brought upon her family, and the un-
timely death of her mother, the heroic and
talented Queen Louisa. These severe trials
knit close to each other the members of the
House of Hohenzollern. The family tie was
hardly relaxed by the marriage of the Princess
Charlotte with the Grand Duke (since Emper-
orr Nicholas.
Those acquainted with her private life we'll
know that she taught her children, whom she
kept under her own eye as much as the obliga-
tions of her high position admitted, to love
and venerate their ancestors on her 81 ls of the
house. She disliked the Frenchified notions
which had come in under Catherine, and
headed the reaction against French literature
and language. German became the tongue of
the highest circle at Court. The mother of the
Gar also nourished toward France sentiments
analogous to those prevalent in England when
the Battle of Waterloo was counted our great
est national anniversary. France was the
birthplace of revolution and all its attendant
horrors. Ii a storm cradla and
manent disturbing influence in Europe, and
the close union of Russia and Prussia would
be necessary to keep French turbulence in
bounds. There was much affectionate inter-
course kept up, though rthe Czarina, wife of
Nicholas, between the Imperial family at St.
Petersburg and the Royal family at Berlin.
This intercourse helped to shape the
tragical end of the Gear Alexander, who, when
the Slav race was stimulated by the military
successes of the Germans in France to over
bear Turks, Magyars and Roumanians, was
felt to be an obstacle, his heart being drawn
towards his mothers kindred at Berlin. And
it was no wonder that it should have been so
inclined. Whenever members of the Hohen-
Nicholas and mother of Alexander the natural
feelings OF the heart were allowed to expand at
informal teas and early dinners. They appeared
to bring something with them corresponding to
the atmosphere OF Spring. When they came,
the Empress dressed in simple muslin, and un-
less at reviews and public ceremonies laid ct
lquette aside. Her children were suffered to
act according to their childish instincts with
their relations from Berlin. German senti-
mentality dominated courtly grandeur.
So far as she could the Prussian-born EN-
press placed youthful Grand Dukes and Grand
Duchesses under German tutors and govern
eSSeS, who made war on the Swiss rig
idity which had passed at ST. Petersburg
for the French rationalism of the eighteenth
century. Whatever was humanizing and soft
enlng and OF nature to command the sympa-
thy OF an ingenious prince came to the late
Emperor, when Czarewitch, in German
form. His military governor was a priggish
Russianized Swiss, who talked French. His
tutor was the benevolent Moerder, pious Lu-
theran, who endeavored to impress upon Alex
ander that the meanest peasant with a good
conscience was higher in the favor of a Sr.
preme Being than the highest potentate who
neglected the duties of humanity. Then the
Czarewitch Alexander had an aunt-in-law, the
Grand Duchess Helena, who was a native of
Wurtemburg, and had an eloquent tongue to
descant on its romantic hills and dales, old cas-
ties and legends. When oppressed and brought
to state of settled gloom and apathy by the
stern discipline which his father imposed
upon him, Alexander recovered in making a
tour in Germany healthy interest in life. In
the course OF this tour he fell in love with the
Princess OF Hesse-Darmstadt and was indebted
to his mothers taste for poetry and romance
for the leave given him two years later to
marry according to his fancy. The Emperor
Aiexander's mind was entirely subdued. His
will had been crushed out by his fathers dis
cipline, and he took refuge from the oppression
OF which he was the victim in vague dreams
and castle-buildlpg in the air. These aerial
castles were generally benevolent institutions
One OF them he brought down to the region of
fact in emanclpating the Serfs