But the expected baby delayed his arrival, and, when the Imperial family returned to Tsarkoe Selo, the Emperor’s first words to my husband were: “Has the baby come?” “No, Sire, not yet.” “Well, well, don’t worry, Dehn, these things will happen, you know.” However, the baby arrived next morning, and shortly afterwards Anna Virouboff came to make enquiries on behalf of the Empress, bringing with her two lovely ikons, and a package done up in tissue paper and covered with masses of rambler roses. The package contained a thin, fleecy shawl, and my happiness was complete when Anna told me that the Empress wished to be my son’s godmother. This was a great honour, but it presented difficulties, inasmuch as the Dehns, in order to benefit from certain family monies, were obliged to be baptized as Lutherans. The Empress was told about this, and, although she made no objection at the time, I was to discover later how deeply she was imbued with the faith of her adopted country. At the first christening, the Empress attended in person, and held the baby, now known as Alexander Leonide. She gave me a beautiful sapphire and diamond brooch, and all kinds of presents, and for seven years the question of the child’s religion was never mooted between us. But, at the end of that time, the Empress told me that her dearest wish was that “Titi” (as she called him) should be received into the Greek Church. “It is more than a wish, Lili,” she said earnestly, “it is a command. I insist upon my godson being Orthodox. He must be baptized before Christmas.” This quiet persistency seems to me to afford one of the most conclusive proofs of how Russian the Empress had become. It may be argued that most converts are usually fanatics, but this was not so in her case. With that “thoroughness” which I have mentioned as one of her chief characteristics, the Empress was now more Russian than most Russians, more Orthodox than the most Orthodox. She was intensely religious. Her love of God and her belief in His mercy came before her love of her husband and her children, and she found her greatest happiness in religion at a time when she was surrounded by the panoply of Imperial splendour. She was to derive consolation from her religion throughout the Via Dolorosa of the saddened years, and, if it is indeed true that she met death in the noisome cellar-room at Ekaterinburg, I am sure that the same ardent faith sustained her in that last moment of agony. She told me that she had hesitated to accept the Emperor’s offer of marriage until she felt that her conscience would allow her to do so and she could say with truth: “Thy country shall be my country, thy people my people, and thy God my God.”