But in general she did not care for society. Her Mistress of the Robes was about the only woman admitted to her intimacy as long the post was occupied by the Princess Galitzyne, but after the death of the latter and the appointment of Madame Narischkine, the relations of the Empress with the head of her household became purely formal, and the only real confidante she possessed during the last six or seven years which preceded the war and the Revolution was a woman who was destined to do her an infinity of harm and whom she would have done much better to have kept at arm’s length—the too famous Madame Wyroubieva, about whom I shall have something to say later on. CHAPTER IX THE COURT AND ATTENDANTS OF THE CZARINA When the Empress married, her household was formed in a hurry, which was a great pity, because it was not composed entirely of the best people from an intellectual point of view. The Empress Dowager was so absorbed by her grief that she could not give to the subject the attention she otherwise would have done. The Emperor, on the other hand, knew very little about St. Petersburg society, and especially about its gossip. When the name of the Princess Galitzyne was mentioned to him as that of the best lady for the difficult position of Mistress of the Robes, and chief adviser of his young wife, he accepted it as a matter of course, having only in mind the great name and the prominent position of the Princess. She was a woman with a past in which had figured most of the _jeunesse dorée_ of St. Petersburg. She had been married when quite a girl to a man much older than herself, and had very rapidly found a number of people willing to console her for the great difference of age which existed between her and her spouse. He had made her an indulgent husband, and by reason of his great standing, riches, and other worldly advantages, had constantly sheltered her from the evil effects of the gossip which was but too often busy with her name. When she had become a widow, she had mourned him quite sincerely, but had pretended a grief greater than she had really experienced. It was discovered that he had left his business affairs in an entangled condition, and the Princess had retired to her country estates, to try to bring some kind of order into their management. She had an only daughter, already married, who became the object of her greatest care and affection. When the post of chief adviser to the young bride of Nicholas II. was offered to her by one of her former admirers, Baron Fredericks, then already Minister of the Imperial Household, she had snatched at the chance with alacrity, seeing in it a possibility of re-establishing, quicker than by a strict economy, her shattered finances.