After the _Entente Cordiale_ between France and England in the forties, the visit to Queen Victoria of Louis Philippe was promptly followed by the arrival in London, in 1844, of Alexander’s father, Nicholas I of Russia, who, during his stay, was conducted over the Exhibition by Madame Tussaud’s elder son, Joseph. In the course of his tour round the galleries the Tsar’s attention was arrested by the great Frenchman’s wonderful chair. Being struck by its ingenious construction, he examined it very closely, and then, as so many persons have done, gave himself the pleasure of occupying the seat in which the famous satirist had spent many an industrious hour. The chair was intended by Voltaire to facilitate his literary work, and, evidently taking account of his incessant labours, he had the arms extended without supports so that he could sit in any attitude and facing any direction, while a movable writing-slope was attached to be always within his reach. So keen an interest did the Tsar take in the chair that we decided to make a replica and send it to him as a pleasant surprise. This was done, but no direct acknowledgment of the chair’s delivery was ever received. Months afterwards, however, two cases--one containing a splendid gallery portrait of Nicholas and the other a beautiful statuette of the same monarch--arrived at the Exhibition. These presents were accepted as a recognition, in practical form, of the chair. They could not have signified an Imperial bid for a place in the Exhibition, for a most lifelike model of His Majesty was already there. [Illustration: NICHOLAS I., EMPEROR OF RUSSIA Gallery portrait by Bothmann presented to Madame Tussaud’s by the Tsar.] Nearly forty years later, on the assassination of Nicholas’s son, Alexander--to which allusion has been made--there appeared in one of our leading English illustrated papers, which gave pages to the story of the assassination, a full double-page picture of the Imperial study at St. Petersburg, and, behold, therein stood the identical chair which we had sent to Nicholas I. It is interesting to note that on Wednesday, the 20th of October, thirty-six years later, a number of Princesses came to the Exhibition; and among them was Princess Alix of Hesse, then a happy young girl of eight, and now mourned as the late Tsarina, who, as reported, shared with the Tsar and his family a terrible death at the hands of diabolical assassins during the recent Russian Revolution. Among the royal party which came on that day were our own Princesses Louise, Victoria, and Maud of Wales.