Whether the provisional government believed these stories or not, the Duma members who forced the revolution evidently believed Anna Virubova to be one of the most dangerous of the inner court circle, or camarilla, which was planning a German peace. For when the Czar was forced to abdicate, and all the accused men of the camarilla were arrested and thrown into the fortress of Peter and Paul, Madame Virubova was also arrested and sent to the fortress. She was taken out of a sick bed--there had been an epidemic of measles in the royal family--thrown into an underground cell and kept there for three months. At the end of that time she was in such a state of collapse that the prison physician recommended her removal to a hospital. To this the provisional government consented, but when the order for her release was presented to the governor of the fortress, and he ordered her cell door unlocked, the soldiers on duty refused to obey the order. It was days before they were persuaded to let her go. Madame Virubova was sent to a hospital for a month, and then they set her free. That is, they permitted her to go to the home of her brother-in-law, who is a stepson of the Grand Duke Paul, and to live there under strict surveillance. They had searched her house in Tsarskoe Selo, and her rooms in the palace. They had put her through every kind of cross examination, not once but many times, and they were forced to admit that they could not discover a single incriminating circumstance, or any evidence of poisoning or conspiracy. They had to release her, but she was not allowed to leave the country, or even her brother’s house, without permission, which, of course, would not be granted. She was watched all the time, and might be rearrested and given the third degree at any time if the least bit of evidence seemed to warrant it. Anna Virubova is considered a very dangerous woman. She is one of two things, very dangerous or very much maligned. She gave me the impression, after two long, intimate talks, of a woman absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing. If she is a criminal she ought to be put in prison for life, for her powers of deceit are simply marvelous. I liked Anna Virubova, and I don’t think I could possibly like a woman capable of poisoning little boys or handing innocent young girls over into the claws of a lascivious monk.