and, this is the point which has always seemed so incomprehensible in his character, he even appeared to view with a certain pleasure the admittance into the intimacy of his home life of this uncivilised and uncouth creature called Rasputin, whose hand Alexandra Feodorovna bent down to kiss with a reverence that she had never before in the course of her whole life shown to any one else, not excepting Queen Victoria of England, whom she had tried to snub during the official visit which she had paid to her after her marriage. The complete indifference of the Czar as to what was going on around him and under his own roof, combined with his weakness of character and his unreasonable love for his wife, did not add to the feelings of respect that his subjects ought to have entertained for him. In a very short time extraordinary rumours began to circulate concerning all that was supposed to take place at Tsarskoie Selo, rumours which, disseminated as they were among the population of Petrograd, contributed in no small degree to the promptitude with which it rallied itself to the cause of the Revolution that put an end to the reign of Nicholas II. It was related amongst other things that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Grand Duke Nicholas, had one day told his Imperial nephew that if he did not lock up Alexandra Feodorovna in a convent, he would come himself at the head of his troops, to carry her away, and confine her within the walls of the monastery of Novodievitvchy. True or not, the story was repeated everywhere, and it procured for the Grand Duke a considerable number of friends and sympathisers.