Among the other members of the family the Grand-Duke Constantine is called the poet. His interest in art and science is said to be sincere. He has also great personal attractiveness. In sharp contrast with him stands the Grand-Duke Sergius, governor-general of Moscow, and brother-in-law and uncle of the Czar. The things commonly reported of his private life are unsuitable for repetition here, since in general I avoid giving space to scandal in a chronicle of important matters. The things worthy of publicity and important for the weal or woe of population are the opinions and abilities of princes, not their liaisons. It is difficult, however, not to speak of the passions of the Grand-Duke Sergius, since they form such a violent contrast to his former bigotry. He is unanimously pronounced an unprincipled man with a black record--a man whose pleasure consists in the sufferings of others. His influence at court is second only to that of the Grand-Duke Alexander Mikhailovitch. I found in all Russia no trace of a dynastic sentiment. The loyalty to the House of the Hohenzollerns in Prussia, or to the House of the Hapsburgs in Austria has no counterpart in Russia. If the personal influence of the occupants of the throne may be estimated, the Czar means to the masses of the people the essence of temporal and spiritual power, to the intelligent class an element of fate. The grand-dukes are people who can aid and harm, and who are therefore persons of importance for all Russians. The bond of loyalty between dynasty and people, however, which in the West has assured the safe existence of the royal houses through all revolutionary convulsions, does not exist in Russia. On the contrary, people speak freely in private of the "Saltikov dynasty," in unmistakable allusion to the well-known first lover of the Empress Catherine II. Thus the many murders in the imperial house are received by the people without great excitement. Only the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces are faithful to the dynasty; the spirit of feudal loyalty runs in their German blood. Even there, however, it is being slowly but resolutely destroyed by the ruling anarchists.