The only person who at one time was in possession of the confidence of the Czarina to a limited degree, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, wife of the Grand Duke Nicholas, tried, without success, to get her to look upon people with more indulgence, and not in such a morbid way. My mistress would not hear reason, and at last declared that it was useless to be an Empress of Russia if one could not do what one liked, and that all she craved was the privilege to be left alone and allowed to enjoy, unrestrained, her taste for solitude. In that respect the Empress was certainly not quite normal, and at times she most undoubtedly suffered from what is called the mania of persecution. People abroad have attributed this abnormal condition of hers to the dread of revolution, the spectre of which was supposed to haunt her constantly. This, however, was not at all the case, because long before any one had an idea that revolution might break out, my mistress was already affected by that strange fear of seeing strangers approach her. The fact is that she had become morbid, thanks to the latent dislike which she knew but too well was felt in regard to her, and which worried her to the extent that she felt disgusted with the world in general and had come to the conclusion that it was not worth while to try to conciliate it, but that the best thing to do was to avoid seeing too much of it. People have spoken at length of her tastes for occultism and spiritism, and said that she looked for consolation for imaginary woes to the practices of turning tables and other rubbish of the same kind. Unfortunately this was true to a certain extent, because it is a sad fact that the Empress liked to sit at tables for hours in the hope that they would begin turning, and she firmly believed that people could come back from the other world and manifest themselves to their friends. But what is not so generally known is that it was the Grand Duke Nicholas, the future generalissimo of the Russian armies, who first set her to do so. He it was who brought to the Palace of Czarskoi Selo a man called Philippe, who professed to be a powerful medium, and who certainly inspired the Czarina with great confidence. For a year or two he remained in favour, then was dismissed quite suddenly because he had been found out by accident, but so completely that even Alexandra Feodorovna could not defend him.