THIRTEEN YEARS AT THE RUSSIAN COURT [Illustration: IN CAPTIVITY AT TSARSKOÏE-SELO March to August, 1917 THE CZAR CLEARING A PATH THROUGH THE SNOW IN THE PARK OF TSARSKOÏE-SELO AT THE END OF MARCH, 1917. {_Frontispiece._] THIRTEEN YEARS AT THE RUSSIAN COURT (A Personal Record of the Last Years and Death of the Czar Nicholas II. and his Family) BY PIERRE GILLIARD (Formerly Tutor to the Czarevitch) TRANSLATED BY F. APPLEBY HOLT, O.B.E. WITH 59 ILLUSTRATIONS _THIRD EDITION_ _LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW_ INTRODUCTION In September, 1920, after staying three years in Siberia, I was able to return to Europe. My mind was still full of the poignant drama with which I had been closely associated, but I was also still deeply impressed by the wonderful serenity and flaming faith of those who had been its victims. Cut off from communication with the rest of the world for many months, I was unfamiliar with recent publications on the subject of the Czar Nicholas II. and his family. I was not slow to discover that though some of these works revealed a painful anxiety for accuracy and their authors endeavoured to rely on serious records (although the information they gave was often erroneous or incomplete so far as the Imperial family was concerned), the majority of them were simply a tissue of absurdities and falsehoods--in other words, vulgar outpourings exploiting the most unworthy calumnies.[1] I was simply appalled to read some of them. But my indignation was far greater when I realised to my amazement that they had been accepted by the general public. To rehabilitate the moral character of the Russian sovereigns was a duty--a duty called for by honesty and justice. I decided at once to attempt the task. What I am endeavouring to describe is the drama of a lifetime, a drama I (at first) suspected under the brilliant exterior of a magnificent Court, and then realised personally during our captivity when circumstances brought me into intimate contact with the sovereigns. The Ekaterinburg drama was, in fact, nothing but the fulfilment of a remorseless destiny, the climax of one of the most moving tragedies humanity has known. In the following pages I shall try to show its nature and to trace its melancholy stages.