The only brother of Nicholas II., the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitsch, saw the influence of the Empress exercised against him in a manner which was even more odious, because she contrived to deprive him of the control not only of his fortune, but also of his personal liberty to manage his estates. With her mother-in-law, the Dowager Empress Marie, Alexandra Feodorovna showed herself absolutely abominable in her disdain, haughtiness and pride. With the persons composing her court and household, she was unpleasant and bitter. Even in regard to her own daughters she proved herself heartless, and she never once during the twenty-three years which followed her arrival in Russia until the day of her downfall, tried to do any good around her or induce her husband to accomplish one of those actions full of generosity and mercy which unite a nation with its Sovereign, and make their hearts beat together for some noble cause or other. Then again there occurred the Rasputin incident. I have discussed it at length in the first part of this book, and shall therefore not enter here into a second description of the career of this strange personage, this low Cagliostro of a reign that did not deserve to have any great nobleman or even gentleman for its favourite. The only thing which I want to point out to the reader, is the responsibility which devolves upon the Empress in this disagreeable story, which more perhaps than anything else hastened the fall of the old Romanoff monarchy. Whether she was really persuaded of the holy character of the sinister adventurer who had contrived so cleverly to exploit her credulity, or whether there was in this curious infatuation for an unworthy object a question of hypnotism, combined with the extravagance of a badly balanced mind and imagination, it is difficult to say, especially when one has not followed otherwise than by hearsay the different incidents of this almost unbelievable tragedy. It is probable that the mystery, such as it was, will never be quite explained, but one may reasonably suppose that the perpetual invocations to spirits of another world, which Alexandra Feodorovna had practised for so many years, have had a good deal to do with the obstinacy with which she insisted upon imposing this personage upon all those who surrounded her, and with which she allowed him to interfere with the details of her family life, a thing which went so far that one day the governess of the young Grand Duchesses, Mademoiselle Toutscheff, a most distinguished lady, went to seek the Emperor, and told him that she could no longer be responsible for the education of his daughters if Rasputin was allowed to enter their apartments at every hour of the day and night. The only reply which was made by Nicholas II. to this communication was that the Empress ought not to be crossed, on account of the state of her nerves. He seemed to approve of everything that was going on in his house,