The first really great sorrow and anxiety which fell on my beloved mistress was the Japanese war. I am not writing here a political book, and indeed understand nothing about politics, but what I do know is that no one could have been more affected by the disasters which destroyed the Russian army and fleet than was the Empress. She used to spend hours weeping in her room, where she allowed no one, not even her children, to enter, and it was from that time that dated the terrible headaches which later on were to prostrate her so utterly. She was then in a delicate state of health, and the Emperor wanted to spare her as much as possible the news which was brought of one sad event after another concerning all that went on in this distant Manchuria, where Russian soldiers were fighting such a hard battle. The whole country was exasperated at the lamentable organisation, or rather want of organisation, which was revealed so unexpectedly, and it was dating from Mukden and Tsushima that the Revolutionary elements in the country raised their heads and began to threaten the throne which they were to destroy twelve years later. The whole of Russia was in the throes of an insurrectional movement, and perhaps the only persons who were not aware of its strength and magnitude were the sovereigns themselves. Nicholas II. had not realised the possibility of the fall of his dynasty and seriously believed that he could stop the torrent that was flooding the country. The Empress was ignorant of the details of the convulsions which were fast destroying the old legends and traditions which had presided at the government of the Empire for such a long time. She had a few illusions left still, and one of them was in regard to the strength and the spirit of devotion of the army. It was therefore a terrible shock to her to find that this army which she had believed to be invincible had allowed itself to be beaten by the troops of the Mikado whom she had regarded as savages. She felt cruelly the loss of prestige which this disastrous campaign entailed, and she also felt humiliated in her pride as a Sovereign and as a woman. Added to this weight of anxieties was another—the dread that the child whose birth she was expecting would prove another daughter, whose advent into the world would add to the unpopularity of its mother. Sometimes my heart used to ache for her, when I saw her dragging herself through the park of Peterhof, looking so ill that one wondered whether she would be able to stand the trial which was awaiting her. In her cruel anxiety she found no one to encourage her or to whisper words of encouragement in her ear. Her husband was himself absorbed by the saddest of preoccupations and she did not care to add to them by speaking to him of her own personal griefs and sorrows. So the time went on, bringing every day new subjects for alarm, and new causes for discouragement. At last one morning I was called to the bedside of the Empress, together