This unintentional slight was too much for the Princess. She, metaphorically and literally, put on her hat, and departed never to return, remarking as she did so: “_Quand une Bariatinsky met son chapeau, c’est pour sortir_.” The Empress detested any form of snobbism. One day, during the Japanese war, she was busy at one of her working parties at the Winter Palace; the windows of the salon opened on to the Neva Quai, and from where she sat the Empress could see the soldiers and officers passing to and fro. Suddenly she looked intently out of the window--an expression of distaste on her countenance--and she sighed impatiently. An officer ventured to ask her what was the matter. The Empress pointed to the Quai: “_That_ is the matter,” she said, indicating an officer who had just been saluted by some soldiers, but who had not returned the salute. “Why cannot an officer recognise the men by whose side he may one day fall? I detest such snobbism,” she added, coldly. The scandals about the Empress, circulated by propaganda and rumour, will be believed, alas! for many years. She is credited with dabbling in occult practices, with a belief in Spiritualism, and of even attempting to call up the illustrious dead in order to influence the Emperor, who is supposed to have indulged in various dramatic séances at the Winter Palace. Perhaps these stories originated in the more or less retired life led by the Empress. This retirement was often enforced--she was a delicate woman, but, although many writers state that she suffered from the hereditary malady of her father’s family, she never mentioned its existence to me. Her heart was weak, owing to rapid child-bearing, and at times she experienced great difficulty in breathing. I never saw the slightest trace of hysteria. The Empress was apt to get suddenly cross, but she usually kept her feelings well under control. Apart from her delicate health, there was another reason for these periods of retirement. The Tsarevitch and the Grand Duchesses were often ailing, the Empress was a devoted mother, and she insisted upon being with her children and sharing the duties of a nurse. The maternal element was strongly developed in her; the Empress was never so happy as when she was “mothering” somebody, and, whenever a person had gained her affection and her trust, she never failed to interest herself in the smallest details connected with him and his.