An hour later a State carriage with outriders drove the newly wedded couple from the Winter Palace to that of Anitchkoff where they were to take up their residence with the Dowager Empress until their own apartments were made ready for them. The bride was greeted with vociferous cheers by the crowds. It was the one solitary occasion in her life when she could have the illusion of being popular with her newly acquired subjects. Eighteen months later these were to show to her in an unmistakable manner that such was far from being the case, when she was making her entry into that old town of Moscow, where the Imperial Crown was to be put on her brow, to replace the orange flowers which had adorned her head on her wedding morning. II MARRIAGE AND LONELINESS One must be fair. The first months of the wedded life of the young Empress Alexandra were not months of unmixed happiness. This, though partly her fault, was also due to circumstances and the people who surrounded her. Though the Consort of one of the mightiest monarchs in Europe, she yet found herself relegated to an absolutely secondary position; she discovered very quickly that no one considered her to be of any importance whatsoever beside her mother-in-law, the Dowager-Empress Marie. The latter had been one of the most popular Sovereigns who ever graced a throne, and from the very first days after her arrival in Russia she had applied herself to the task of pleasing the people. Like her sister, Queen Alexandra, she identified herself completely with the nation that now claimed her as its own, and she entered into all its interests and pursuits, without any exaggeration, but with that quiet, lovely dignity which never failed her, no matter in what position she found herself. Her influence over her husband had been immense, but no one had ever noticed it; on the contrary, she had persistently remained in the background and tried to pass for a pleasant, amiable, and just a little frivolous, woman who cared for balls, pretty clothes, fine jewels, and the pomp which surrounded her at every step she took. She held very properly the idea that it lowers a Sovereign to appear to be under the sway and influence of his wife, and so, though Alexander III. never took any decision of any importance without having first of all discussed it with her, in public she avoided not only talking politics, but even the appearance of being interested in them.