There is, therefore, nothing surprising if those who had come to look upon Rasputin as upon a national danger should at last have made up their minds to remove him by fair means or foul. Of course what lay behind his assassination was the desire to put an end to the influence of the Empress over her Consort, and to pave the way towards her internment in a private asylum or in a convent where it was felt that she would be happier than anywhere else. So long as Rasputin existed such a thing was not to be thought of, but it was secretly hoped that if he were finally put out of the way the mind of the Czarina would snap altogether and it would then become a relatively easy matter to persuade Nicholas II. to separate himself from her, when it was hoped that the dynasty would recover some of the prestige which it had lost. This, so far as I know, is the real key to the murder of the adventurer whose career constitutes a unique episode even in the annals of Russian history that has recorded so many queer things. In describing it I have anticipated events, and must now return a few years back and speak of the outbreak of the great war, even if superficially, because its declaration sounded the knell of the Romanoff dynasty and, in a certain way, sealed the fate of the illustrious lady at whose side I spent so many years before misfortune overwhelmed her. CHAPTER XVII THE GREAT WAR It is useless to repeat that when the great war broke out no one in Russia expected it, the Czar least of all. I shall not touch upon the serious part of this awful drama; I only mention it in so far as it has to do with the unhappy Empress. She was quite overpowered by it, and thought it the culminating point of her misfortunes. Apart from her apprehensions for that Russia whose Sovereign she was, she felt deeply the fact that she was going to be at war with her own kith and kin, and with her beloved brother of whom she was so fond. No one doubted among her surroundings that France and Russia united together would surely and quickly beat the Germans, but the Czarina knew very well that whatever the outcome of the struggle she would become one of its principal victims. She was perfectly aware that the nation which disliked her so intensely called her the “German” quite openly, and that she would probably be suspected of favouring the land of her birth in preference to that of her adoption; she chafed beforehand at the injustice of the accusation. Everybody noticed her intense emotion on the day which followed the declaration of hostilities, when, during the religious ceremony which took place in the Winter Palace, she stood beside the Czar, and listened to the reading of the manifesto announcing to the nation that Germany had challenged it to mortal combat. Before she left Peterhof (where the Court was spending the summer) for St. Petersburg, I ventured to express to her my hope that she would have sufficient strength to bear the fatigue and emotions