The Empress said nothing, but I felt her hand grasp mine; it was, for her, an agonizing experience. After an interval, she spoke.... “We’ll go back to the children, Lili; at any rate we can be together there.” The Grand Duchesses were delighted to know that their father had returned, and I think the knowledge of his safety acted on them like a tonic. Poor Marie, who had so longed to be the first to welcome the Emperor, was now delirious, with intervals of consciousness. When I entered her room, she recognised me. “Well, Lili, where have you been?” she exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. Papa is really _here_, isn’t he?” The next moment she was back in the fantastic and terrible kingdom of fever. “Crowds of people ... dreadful people ... they’re coming to kill Mamma!! Why are they doing these things?” Alas, poor child, others have since asked the same question. That day the Emperor and the Empress dined and spent the evening together. The Empress told me afterwards that the Emperor lost his self-control when he was alone with her in the mauve boudoir; he wept bitterly. It was excessively difficult for her to console him, and to assure him that the husband and father was of more value in her eyes than the Emperor whose throne she had shared. * * * * * I cannot say that the Revolutionaries treated us with excessive discourtesy, but some of their methods were reprehensible. For instance, when certain complications ensued with Marie, it became necessary to have another medical opinion. This request was at first refused, but afterwards the authorities agreed, on condition that an officer and two soldiers were present at the medical examination! Colonel Kotzebue, the first Revolutionary commandant, had formerly been an officer in the Lancers, and, as he was a distant cousin of mine, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him in this official capacity, and I asked him to come and talk to me in Anna’s room, as I considered he owed our family some explanation of his conduct. “I can’t imagine why I was nominated for the post,” said Kotzebue. “All I can tell you, Lili, is that I was awakened in the middle of the night, and told to report myself at Tsarkoe Selo. Will you assure Their Majesties that there is nothing I will not try and do for them. This is really the happiest moment of my life, since it enables me to be of service to them.” When the Empress sent for me on the morning of March 10th, I found her lying on the couch in her boudoir. The Emperor was with her; she motioned me to come and sit beside her, and the Emperor talked to us.[7] He first described an incident which had impressed him most strongly that very morning.