Yurovsky was right. We had been betrayed. Poor Father had had no part in it. It was clear to us then that the leaders in Moscow knew of Father’s firmness, but Yakovlev, who was in charge of Father on the train, felt that if Father came to Moscow, he might be persuaded to compromise with the leaders--Mirbach, Ludendorff, Lenin, Kamenev and Trotsky. My Father never would have done anything to harm his people. Father made Yakovlev understand that he could expect no appeasement from him; that he would rather have his right hand cut off than sign anything that would harm Russia. He also told Yakovlev that he was prepared to sacrifice his life for his country. Yakovlev, Father said, had telephoned Moscow of Father’s stubbornness. They knew that Father was dangerous to them and that his people wanted to have their Emperor back on the throne. They decided that Father’s presence would ruin their negotiations and that the best thing to do would be to keep him in Ekaterinburg. Yakovlev however had disobeyed the orders from Moscow and kept the train that carried Father shuttling back and forth for four days till they were finally detained in Ekaterinburg. Yakovlev had given Father to understand that he himself was against the foreign invaders and the traitors. The Emperor and his family were clearly not their own masters--they belonged to Russia. He was the father of all Russia and the children were the children of Russia. He tried to impress his family to be simple and not to show importance and conceit, but to be humble and kind toward the people and serve them in good faith. It was decay and disunity that poisoned and divided the people from the Emperor and split the Imperial family into factions. It was not a cyclone that ripped apart and ravaged the Empire, but a disaster and robbery planned from abroad years before by insidious men, and when the first opportunity presented itself, they struck a deadly blow to this great Slavic Empire. How many other great ancient empires suffered the same fate--Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome, and others. It was an epoch of short-sightedness on the part of the people who were not able to see with their own eyes what the Emperor and Empress saw, and failed to recognize the accomplishments they had achieved for Russia. But they looked blindly in trust to the very ones who were murdering their country before their very eyes.