Part of letter of March 2/15, 1918 " 245 Note from the Empress " 208 Part of letter on day of departure for Siberia " 234 Letter from the Empress (1916) " 235 Part of letter of 30th July, 1917 " 241 Christmas Card drawn by the Empress " 242 FOREWORD In giving to the world my memories of the Empress Alexandra of Russia, I do not wish to pose as one who is biased by a long and intimate friendship. I write of the Tsaritsa as I knew her: the real Tsaritsa. I was not acquainted with the heroine of the films, the hysterical devotee, or the pro-German who, it is asserted, betrayed both her country by adoption and the country which knew her as a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and the daughter of a much loved English Princess. Part I--Old Russia CHAPTER I I was born on the beautiful estates in South Russia which belonged to my grandmother and my uncle. My father was Ismail Selim Bek Smolsky, whose ancestors hailed from Lithuanian Tartary, and my mother, before her marriage, was Mlle Catherine Horvat, whose grandfather had been invited by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna to come from Hungary and assist in the colonization of South Russia. Colonel Horvat, who was half Serbian and half Hungarian by birth, was appointed general of the armies of the South by the Empress, and there is a story in our family that when he first arrived in Russia he was taken to the summit of a high mountain and told to look at the panorama of fields and forests lying beneath him. Colonel Horvat dutifully admired the view, but an unexpected surprise awaited him. “Look well around you, M. le Colonel,” said his guide, “the country, as far as you can see, is yours; it is the gift of the Empress!” Truly an Imperial gift, but all that remains of those great possessions are the estates where I was born. These properties were situated on the Dnieper, in the country known as “Little Russia,” which in former times was the seat of the Ukranian Government. My forefathers became typical Russian noblemen; they were lavishly generous where their inclinations were concerned, and it is asserted that one of them once exchanged a large forest for a sporting dog which he especially coveted!