hemhorrhage which for weeks resisted every remedy employed to stop it. These were anxious times for the parents, and the Empress’s hair changed colour and showed streaks of grey before her son was at last pronounced out of danger. I have spoken at length of this serious illness of the little Alexis because so many ridiculous tales were put into circulation concerning it, tales which were as malicious as they were foundationless. The small heir of Nicholas II. was never the object of any attack of nihilists, and all the detailed circumstances which some newspapers related concerning him were all of them pure invention. It is sufficient to say that when he became ill the Imperial family were not on their yacht, but were staying at one of the Czar’s shooting boxes at Spala in Poland. I have often wondered who could have had an interest in giving publicity to the ridiculous and distressing tale which is to this day firmly believed by many people outside of Russia. When the Grand Duke was able to be moved his parents returned to Czarskoi Selo, whence they went for many months to the Crimea, the mild climate of which was considered to be necessary for his convalescence. But for more than two years after this attack the boy was not allowed to walk, and was constantly carried about in the arms of a sailor from the Imperial yacht whom he had taken into his affection, and who to this day is with him, having chosen to accompany him to Siberia. This necessity of having to exhibit, so to say, a sick child, was most painful to the feelings of the Empress, whose maternal pride was hurt by the knowledge that the whole of Russia was commenting on it and pitying the Emperor for having an heir in such a sad state of health. She was also continually subjected to the railleries of her husband’s family that reproached her for having, as one of the Grand Duchesses once expressed it, “contaminated the Romanoffs with the diseases of her own race.” There was some truth in the accusation, because the illness from which the boy suffered was hereditary in the Saxe-Coburg family, and had been brought into the House of Hesse by the Princess Alice, the mother of the Empress, whose own brother, the Duke of Albany, had died from the effects of it at Cannes. The worst thing about it was that one could never know when it was going to break out afresh. The slightest knock was sufficient to bring on an attack, and one can imagine how far from easy it was to watch over every movement of a lively boy full of fun and high spirited, such as Alexis proved to be. On the other hand this physical infirmity (for it could hardly be called anything else) had this result that the child got to be inordinately spoiled. The mother was afraid to contradict him or to refuse to submit to any of his caprices, because she had been told that it was dangerous for him even to cry, as any exertion of his lungs or throat might bring about the rupture of some blood vessel. One may