The child himself understood it, and he was perhaps the one who suffered most from the consequences of the change which had transformed him into an ordinary little boy, after he had been the most important personage in his family. He fretted over this change, and I fancy that at times he felt resentful against his father and mother for having so easily acquiesced in their own degradation. He would have liked to see his father make a stand against the Revolution, and at least refuse to surrender the rights of his son and heir. One day he betrayed something of his feelings when he told Count Benckendorff that if he had not been ill but with the Czar at Headquarters, as he generally was, he would never have allowed him to abdicate. The Count did not reply, but I imagine that he regretted such had not been the case. Indeed to this day it is incomprehensible to me how Nicholas II. could have been induced to sacrifice the rights of his son, and not to have insisted on the latter being proclaimed Emperor in his stead. In the meantime the days dragged on, and we were all wondering whither all this was to lead. The feeling that a change of some kind was bound to take place floated in the air, but no one could guess of what nature this change was to be. At times the fear would seize us that the Government would remove the Czar and his Consort to the fortress, which would have meant that they would be tried, and perhaps condemned to terrible penalties for their imaginary crimes, but hard as we all tried to penetrate the secret of the future, we did not succeed in doing so, and when this future was revealed to us, it surpassed in horror all that we had ever imagined or dreaded. CHAPTER XXI EXILE—I AM DISMISSED Towards the middle of the summer vague rumours reached us that in consequence of the agitation which was already shaking the country to a considerable degree, the Government had decided to remove Nicholas II. to another and safer residence than Czarskoi Selo. It was feared that if an insurrectionary movement took place at Petrograd, the mob might proceed to the Imperial Borough and murder the former Czar. At least this was the pretext put forward by the ministers, to explain the reasons which had induced them to put out of the way the unfortunate Emperor and his family. Of course no one believed them, because it would have been relatively easy to have controlled the populace in case it had tried to attack the Palace where the prisoners were confined. And if this had been thought impossible, surely there were other places than Siberia where they could have been sent. I am not here, however, to blame or to excuse anybody. I wish merely to relate facts such as I have known them, and nothing else. So I shall proceed with my story, which is now drawing to an end.