had been almost impossible, but I had dropped into an uneasy slumber soon after dawn. I dressed at once, hoping to be ready for the Empress, but she was before me, and at half-past eight she entered the red drawing-room. We went at once to the Grand Duchesses, and drank our _café au lait_ in their room. The Empress told me that she had wired repeatedly to the Tsar, but had received no reply. Later in the morning she received Count Benckendorff and Colonel Grotten, who informed her that matters were becoming more alarming and that the Garde Equipage had better remain inside the Palace, as there was a report that the mob, supported by the Duma, was even now marching on Tsarkoe. The Empress immediately consented; she was really delighted at the thought of having the Garde Equipage at the Palace, and the Grand Duchesses were frankly overjoyed. “It’s just like being on the yacht again,” they said. The Garde Equipage, which was now augmented by the Mixed Guard, and by sentinels taken from the Cossack Convoi, took up its quarters outside the Palace and in the vast souterrains. One part of the Palace was arranged as an ambulance station. We were very busy, but the Grand Duchesses made light of danger and showed none of our agitation. The Empress was always awaiting a reply to her telegrams. None came. Tuesday was a day of general unrest. It seemed as if the weather were in sympathy with man’s savage mood. The blue sky of Monday had vanished, an icy blizzard swept around the Palace, and a north wind drove the deep snow into still deeper drifts. In the afternoon, on my way back from seeing Anna, I encountered Baroness Ysa Büxhoevgen on one of the corridors. She was almost running and she seemed very much disturbed. “I must see the Empress,” she said. “I’ve just come from Tsarkoe Selo (the town): everything is awful--they say there is mutiny and dissatisfaction amongst the troops.” Ysa’s terror was general: panic seized the dwellers in the Palace, but none of the servants left us. Mlle Schneider’s maids, it is true, fled, but they came back again the next day. The Empress was very anxious to see the Grand Duke Paul, but I believe that at first there was some misunderstanding, as the Grand Duke thought that etiquette demanded that the Empress should ask _him_, and he declared that he would not come unless she did. I had received a hint of this, so, when next I saw the Empress, I suggested that perhaps the Grand Duke was waiting for her invitation.... This had not occurred to the Empress; she told me to ’phone at once and ask the Grand Duke to come and see her after dinner. I was placed, unwillingly, in a very awkward predicament. I had no official position at Court, but the Empress seemed to think that my duty was to act as her mouthpiece, and to assume an authority which I was far from desiring.