Six Years at the Russian Court #219918

The English daily papers described the Emperor and his family as having fled in their yacht, at a time when the yacht was deeply embedded in ice outside Kronstadt. I could multiply such stories ad lib., but merely wish to draw attention to the fact that so much that is written regarding Russia and the Imperial family is absolutely untrue, so little is really known about the Court life, that I am emboldened to offer my slight sketches of life in the Palaces. It would be very easy for me to pile on the agony, to represent the Emperor as a much ridden man; to picture plots and counter plots; to speak of hairbreadth escapes from death; of hidden bombs; of life made horrible by fears but no such things have occurred in my six years at the Russian Court, and I am a truthful person, and have not started forth to write fiction, but plain, unvarnished truth.