The Tsar's Coronation/Chapter 2

IT should be premised that the dates mentioned in this article are all Russian style, i.e., twelve days behind time. The Government has so many urgent and important duties to attend to, that it has never yet found opportunity to revise the calendar. The Poles (who themselves have the new style) say that it accords with the eternal fitness of things, that, with its Government, Russia should be twelve days behind the rest of Europe.

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At last the preparations were as nearly ready as possible; though rust and moths and thieves do not cease their labours, even for a coronation.

The activity of the police was amazing, and the inspection of hotels, lodging-houses, and even private houses, to discover people whose passports were not in order, had for weeks past been twice as vigilant as usual. Many a wretched Jew shopkeeper, who ​had crept up to Moscow from the provinces to make his purchases, was detected, and packed off at twenty-four hours' notice. Occasionally, however, the wheel of fate gave an unexpected turn; as in the case of a German Jew who, having been expelled from Moscow last year by the police, returned now as correspondent for a Berlin newspaper. His name was passed (probably by mistake), he received the authorisation and badge of a privileged press-man, and was treated with the greatest consideration throughout his stay, being honoured even by a visit of congratulation, by deputy, from the minister responsible for the press arrangements.

The regalia had been brought to Moscow in great state. To describe all the ceremonies attached to this important function, would leave me but little space to tell of the rest of the coronation. The order in which crown and sceptre and orb and other gewgaws were counted, and put into boxes, and taken out again, and re-counted, was all elaborately arranged with far more care than was devoted to the feeding of starving men during the famine.

On the 4th April, in the Imperial rooms at the Nicholai Station in Moscow, the highest nobles and civil and military officials appointed for the task, including the Civil Governor and the Grand Duke Sergè Alexandrovitch, awaited the arrival of the special train, in a saloon carriage of which, men, under ​the command of an adjutant-general, guarded the precious burden. On its arrival it was much saluted by the soldiers on guard, and was conveyed in state carriages, under escort of cavalry with drawn swords, to the Kremlin Palace, where it was re-saluted and passed on to other generals to be stored and guarded. From this palace it was subsequently moved with like pomp to the cathedral, and from the cathedral back to the palace, then from that palace to another, and ultimately (once more with the assistance of soldiers and generals and the governor) it was conveyed in another special train back to Petersburg, where it had again to be met, and conducted, and received, and counted, and stored, and guarded, as though the lives and labour of men were a slight matter compared with the safe-guarding of shining stones and useless metal-work.

While the Government could spend so much time, money, and care on these things, it is estimated that more than sixty thousand of the inhabitants of Moscow live in cellar lodgings; that the dwellers in Moscow have, on an average, only half a room each; and out of every seven lodgings one has more than four people to each room. What is most surprising is, that the Government takes money to spend on this childish pomp from the people who live more than four to a room. Take a single example: tea is a ​luxury which every Russian indulges in, if he can afford anything beyond black bread, and the Government, which can afford special trains and generals and grand State carriages for its playthings, takes a tax of about one shilling and sixpence on each pound of tea drunk; which is three to five times as much as the quality of tea drunk by the Russian people originally costs in China.

The Emperor reached Moscow on Monday 6th May 1896, in a magnificent special train. Some slight conception of what the transportation of the Imperial family costs, may be gathered from the fact that the Moscow-Brest Railway recently spent £3500 on the upholstering and decorating of one single carriage for Sergè Alexandrovitch, Governor-General of Moscow and uncle to the Emperor. This carriage was intended to carry him to and from his country palace, some eighteen miles from Moscow on the Brest line, but as it is badly balanced (the furniture at one end being too heavy) it will probably be thrown out of use before long. It remains to be added, that the Moscow-Brest Railway Company keep an account for Sergè Alexandrovitch; but the directors have never mustered up courage to have the account presented, and it has never occurred to the gentleman in question, during the years that he has been Governor-General of ​Moscow, to inquire what expense he has put the company to.

In contrast with Imperial trains which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, it is curious to read of the transport of the sheep these Imperial shepherds are supposed to feed. These extracts, for instance, from the Russkiya Vedomosti of the 4th June 1896, explain themselves:—

"Do you know that the peasants call the emigrants who leave Little Russia to seek fortune in Siberia 'living corpses'? And really, for nine-tenths of the people who form that wave which rolls across the Oural Mountains, the road to Siberia is not unlike the path of death. A considerable part of their sufferings are due to the railway companies, who consider 'fourth-class passengers' not as human beings at all, but as goods to be delivered when and how the convenience of the company may dictate." "The goods-trucks used for emigrants at the Bakhmatch Station were seatless, and in many cases windowless also, so that the doors had to be kept half-open, which was dangerous, no sort of door-guards being provided. There were no steps or other means of egress, so that the passengers had to jump or climb out from the trucks (standing some five feet from the ground) as best they could. In these carriages the whole party of eight hundred men, women, and children, with their baggage for the ​journey, had to pack themselves. There were about seventy people per truck, the inscriptions on which said they were built to carry each eight horses or forty men. At last the crowd, groaning and grumbling, climbed into the cars, where they were packed like herrings in a barrel. They had been kept at Bakhmatch from six in the morning till late at night. What they ate it is hard to say, for the station refreshments were far beyond their purses. Remember that these are the conditions in which a journey of some thousands of miles had to be accomplished, and you will not wonder that the emigrants reach their destination in Siberia, to commence their hard pioneer labours, like 'living corpses.'"

The paper goes on to speak of the terrible mortality of children on these dreadful journeys; and of the suffering from hunger, cold, lack of shelter, of food, of advice, and of assistance, which are endured by thousands of emigrants.

Whatever may be the defects of the railway system (and they are serious), there is no doubt that thought and labour have been spent, and have resulted in enabling people and goods to be moved about from place to place more rapidly and easily than was possible a generation or two ago. The rapidity, exactitude, and luxury with which the Emperor and his family travel—as well as the Grand Dukes and ​Grand Duchesses and their respective suites the chefs and chefs' assistants; their ladies-in-waiting and housemaids; their lackeys, and generals, and secretaries, and coachmen, and ministers, and guards, and footmen, and babies, and nurses; the court musicians, and princes, and court physicians, and chaplains-in-ordinary, and the painters, upholsterers, contractors, and architects, and lords-in-waiting required for their satisfaction; as well as the wives and daughters, the uncles, the cousins, the sisters, and the aunts of many of these people, not to mention other hangers-on (I know of a lady, handsome and well dressed, who has no official connection with the court, but who has a first-class compartment reserved for her, free of charge, on any of the State lines of railway, when she merely produces a card)—shows how remarkable the results achieved by the efforts and the intelligence of the men who have worked at this problem of transportation really are.

We need not object to comfort, or wish people to travel in dangerous or painful fashion; but the question which does force itself on the mind, in view of such contrasts as that between the railway accommodation provided for the emigrants and that provided for the Emperor, is, whether the thought and labour devoted to transportation are well apportioned under the present system; whether the class of men who ​provide themselves and others with food, clothes, and houses, and who do the rough work of building the railways and the carriages, should not in justice have a larger share of the benefits of the railway; and whether those people, who having "taken the trouble to be born," now want others to feed them, educate them, dress them, carry them, praise them, pray for them, fight for them, die for them, crown them, should not in decency put up with somewhat less than they take to-day.

Had Palestine in the time of Christ had the advantage of railways, it would have been Herod and his courtiers, not Jesus and his disciples, who would have got the benefit of them. "Employment for the people" would have been increased, but they would not have had more time to listen to him who spoke to those who "labour and are heavy-laden."

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On reaching the Smolensk Station in Moscow, at 5.30 P.M., the Emperor was met by six Grand Dukes with the blue ribbons of some order over their uniforms, and by a great number of other notables. He was conducted to a splendid pavilion, which the railway company had put up specially for the occasion. This building with its galleries measured seven hundred feet long, not counting the special platform erected for the Emperor's reception. The ​central part of the pavilion formed a drawing-room, with soft French furniture, and rich decorations, and expensive exotic plants and flowers. The newspapers contained glowing descriptions of the beautiful arrangement of the electric light, the crystal lamps, the wall decorations, the velvet drapery with gold fringes and tassels, the carpets, etc. etc. To left and right were glass-covered terraces—one for the guard-of-honour, and the other for the personages privileged to await the arrival of the Imperial train.

Externally the pavilion was designed in Old Russian style, and above it was erected a large gilt double-headed eagle. Which recalled the saying of Erasmus: "Of all birds the eagle alone has seemed to wise men the type of royalty; a bird neither beautiful, nor musical, nor good for food, but murderous, greedy, hateful to all, the curse of all, and with its great powers of doing harm only surpassed by its desire to do it."

The Imperial eagle was the most conspicuous and oft-repeated trade-mark (if I may use the expression) of the coronation festivities throughout.

The particular uniform the Emperor had on was reported in all the papers. One lost count of the number of different uniforms he wore during the ensuing fortnight; but truly, if a man's life consisted in the abundance of the clothes that he possesses, then the Emperor would be a happy man; whilst many ​of his subjects are badly in want of garments with which to cover their nakedness.

Of course "God save the Tsar" was played, and the crowds that had collected to catch a glimpse of the young man who has so many clothes and palaces and trains and soldiers, cheered enthusiastically, as most crowds have cheered their kings in all ages and in all countries, and as the Paris mob cheered Louis XVI. not long before the Revolution commenced.

The Emperor drove to the Petrofsky Palace, where he was met by the priests of the three neighbouring churches, a Proto-presbyter at their head, carrying crosses and holy water. A deputation also presented him with "bread and salt."

It is not to be supposed that the Emperor is always hungry whenever he arrives anywhere, but the important thing about the "bread and salt" always presented to him is the plate it is on. "Unto him that hath, much shall be given;" and it is curious how anxious people of a certain type are to present the Emperor with gold and silver dishes, for which he can have no reasonable use. So infectious is this malady, that I have, on more than one occasion, myself contributed towards the cost of these works of supererogation.

As a parallel, one may call to mind the inexplicable desire many English people have to feed "royalty." ​Last time I was in England an infirmary was to be opened in a certain town in the north. For some reason (not, so far as I know, that any sort of apostolic succession has endowed him with a power of healing) the Duke of York was invited to open the hospital, and a regular quarrel ensued between the mayor of the town and the chairman of the infirmary as to who was to give the Duke lunch.

There were many people more in want of lunch than the Duke; but neither of the would-be hosts called to mind the advice, "When thou makest a feast, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich neighbours; lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, bid the poor … thou shalt be blessed."^[1] In these matters there is not much to choose between Russia and England.

The Emperor also graciously accepted a holy image (an icon) from the army of the Moscow district. Some of my English friends may be rather shocked at the notion of presenting an icon in the name of that Christ who considered that even the Jews paid too much attention to externals, and had too little of the free spirit of devotion in their religion. But why strain at the gnat after swallowing the camel? Surely war and armies, the greed and jealousy that cause them, the ​wholesale murder that attends them, and the savage hatred that follows them, are as antipathetic to the spirit of sweet reasonableness and of self-sacrifice which characterised the leader who would not let his followers use violence even to save his life as any graven image can be. Moreover (as my High Church friends are fond of pointing out), the icons are not graven images, strictly speaking. They are really fancy portraits, done usually in a dark, cadaverous, Byzantine style, and covered up (except the faces and hands) with a gilt embossed cover, which gives them their image-like appearance. Moses cannot have denounced these (so people argue), for they are neither pictures nor images, nor like anything that in his day existed either in heaven above, or in earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.

Really, when one considers the matter, there is a certain harmony and propriety about an icon presented by an army to a prince of this world.

At the Petrofsky Palace the preparations for the Emperor's arrival had been elaborate (though it was only one of the four palaces used by him during the month of May), and the newspapers described at much length the furniture and decorations. Such descriptions no doubt find readers, which illustrates the truth that often no portion of a man's time is more completely wasted than that which he spends in reading. ​Suffice it here to mention that the late Emperor's rooms in the Petrofsky Palace remained untenanted, and that the baby Olga Nicholaevna had a guard-room, a playroom, a bedroom, and a nurse's room, so that the overcrowding of Moscow does not appear to have reached the palaces.

On this same Monday the Governor-General of Moscow presented his nephew the Emperor, whose twenty-eighth birthday it was, with an address from the inhabitants of Moscow, which said, among other things:—

"In lucid recognition of the grandeur of the historic moment we are surviving, Moscow lays down before you, Most Autocratic Monarch, its most loyal congratulations and its prayerful wishes that the coming year, in which an intensified blessing from the Holy Ghost will descend on your holy head, may be the entrance to a long range of tranquil and glorious years, to the gladness and happiness alike of your Imperial family, and of the hundred million family of your faithful subjects."

That is a fair average specimen of the style in which people consider it reasonable to address a young man of twenty-eight, who differs from other young men chiefly in this, that having been cut off from the actual business of life—the task of wringing from nature food, clothes, and shelter, for the support of ​human beings—his views of what is good and what is bad, of what is important and what is trivial, are probably rather more artificial and contrary to the nature of things than even those of the poor peasants, for whose deception he has to be crowned and to kiss wonder-working icons, too ugly to be attractive and too dirty to be savoury.

The next day, Tuesday 7th May, there was to have been a military ceremony on the Khodinskoe Field, but this was abandoned on account of the death of the Austrian Grand Duke Charles Louis. A few days later not one of a series of splendid balls and receptions was given up, though thousands of people had perished in the frightful catastrophe which took place on that very Khodinskoe Field. But to be able to make head or tail of the coronation proceedings, one has to grasp the idea that human beings are not brothers, sons of one Father as Jesus taught, but that they are made of various qualities of earth, and therefore an Austrian Grand Duke may well, in the sympathies of the court of Russia, outweigh thousands of moujiks.

On Wednesday 8th May twelve hundred people went out to the Petrofsky Palace to sing various songs to the Emperor, and they finished up with "God save the Tsar" and an extract from the opera, "A Life for the Tsar." Nicholas II. is not likely ever to be called ​upon to give his life for a Tsar,yet people seldom seem to miss any opportunity of impressing that sacred duty upon his attention. As to God saving the Tsars, the average age at death of Russia's twelve rulers since Peter the Great has been about forty-five years. From all nations petitions continually arise to the Eternal to save their rulers and to confound their enemies; but as the nations are continually at enmity one with another, and are making preparations to fight each other, we may suppose that heaven's clearing-house has much work to do in cancelling these contradictory petitions one against another, and that the nett cash balance (so to speak) which ultimately remains to be settled is but small; so that the average age of kings, in spite of prayers and court physicians, does not exceed the span allotted to the men who should (we are told) be ready to die for them.

Wednesday 9th May was the great day of the Emperor's triumphal entry into Moscow. What there was to triumph about is not obvious. The police precautions had overstepped the bounds of the ludicrous; even the iron fire-escape ladders in the yards of the houses along the route of the procession had to be boarded up, lest someone should ascend them, get on to the roof of a house, and throw a bomb at the beloved Tsar.

​From 6 A.M. ninety-two thousand okhrana (special citizen guards) lined the route on both sides of the way, and at ten o'clock the soldiers supplemented this first line of defence. Along the whole road, at intervals, richly-decorated pavilions had been erected for the occasion, in which specially-privileged people, very carefully dressed, were allowed to await the Emperor, who would stop at these points to be greeted. Ladies in exquisite toilets, men in all kinds of uniforms, sisters-of-mercy devoted to the service of him whose "kingdom is not of this world," nuns, priests with holy images and khorougvi (those heavy gilt ecclesiastical standards under the weight of which their orthodox bearers stagger so ungracefully in church processions), awaited the arrival of him whom they all delighted to honour. The windows of the houses, and the streets below, were thronged with people to see the sight; many of them were genuinely enthusiastic, and such a feeling in such a crowd is infectious. Those who had thought seriously about the matter, and had realised how stupid and how wrong such frivolous misdirection of men's minds and such costly waste of men's labour is, had for the most part stopped away. Personally, I knew several people who did so; but I doubt whether the whole number of such abstainers can have amounted to many thousands, and certainly their absence was scarcely noticeable in comparison ​with the multitudes who pressed and struggled to get a glimpse of the great show.

The houses on both sides of the way were gay with drapery and carpets hung out, and coloured flags and transparencies prepared for the illumination. The initials N. A. (Nicholas Alexandrovitch), which appeared everywhere and were constantly repeated seemed sometimes, where the stops were omitted, to form the name NANA, and served as a timely reminder that emperors are knit up with other people who love luxury and display, who scatter in vanity the fruits of the toil of those who labour productively.

At noon the cannons on the Tainitzky Tower fired nine signals, the bells on the Ivan Veliki boomed, and the troops who were to take part in the procession began to form. In the Petrofsky Palace, lunch was served to the Emperor and to the notables, Russian and foreign, who were invited to it. Among these figured Ferdinand, Prince of Bulgaria, a Roman Catholic, whose patriotic love for the country he adopted a few years ago is so strong that it has led him to risk the spiritual welfare of his son and heir, the little Boris, who was "converted" to Russian orthodoxy last year. Such self-sacrifice in the father was fitly rewarded by permission to take part in the festivities of the Tsar's coronation.

At 2.30 P.M. the procession started: the police-​master with twelve mounted gendarmes headed it, then came Cossacks; deputies from Asiatic Russia, with the Kalmuck chief-mullah in a red dressing-gown; representatives of the hereditary nobility; sixty court lackeys and four court Arabs, marching two by two in their finest liveries embroidered with gold and stuck over with eagles; farther on were twenty-six huntsmen in red and green liveries, with the Master of the Imperial Hunt, His Highness General-Major the Most Illustrious Prince Golitzin; then court musicians with curious instruments, and the choir manager, General-Major Baron Stakelberg. Behind these came the great sight—the gilt carriages. In the first gilt carriage, drawn by six fine white horses, rode two coronation ober-ceremonie-meisters with rods; in the next came the grand ceremonie-meister with a big gold stick, with a large emerald on the top of it. Then followed twenty-four mounted kammer-junkers and twelve kammer-herrs led by a ceremonie-meister, all in uniforms covered with gold and in three-cornered hats with white feathers.

It requires some effort to keep in mind that all this is part of the mechanism of Government, and that Government is supposed to exist to protect the lives and property of its subjects. The puzzle is to find out how these processions help to do it. If the Government existed to compete with the circuses in giving shows ​to the people at the people's expense, it would all be easier to understand.

The whole number of gilt carriages with their occupants would take too long to enumerate, and I will here anticipate by mentioning that the carriages were all carefully sent back to Petersburg by special train duly guarded a few days later. At last the Emperor himself came, on a fine white horse, followed by ministers, grand dukes, foreign princes (including Ferdinand), ambassadors, etc. etc.

Next came a gilt carriage with eight fine white horses with gold harness, each horse led by a groom in State livery. On the top of the carriage was stuck a crown glittering with precious stones. Altogether, it was a turnout that any respectable woman from a circus might have blushed to ride about in, and in it rode Her Imperial Majesty the ex-Empress Marie Feodorovna, with the Ober-Stalmeister Count Orloff-Davidoff riding on horseback on the right, and the Stalmeister Count Steinbok-Fehrmor on the left, and four kammer Cossacks walking two on each side of the carriage.

Then followed another gilt carriage, beautifully ornamented with paintings, and displaying several eagles, and also drawn by eight horses; in it sat the present Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, also accompanied by kammer Cossacks to guard her.

​Then came more gilt carriages with six horses each (giving one the impression that their occupants were not quite so heavy as the two empresses), cavalry, ladies of the court, maids of honour, hof-meisterins, hussars, etc. etc. etc.

As the cortège approached the Triumphal Gate of Moscow seventy-one salutes were fired.

Before reaching the Iberian Gate of the old city, His Imperial Majesty the Emperor dismounted, and their Imperial Majesties the Empresses descended from their two gilt carriages. Great as their Imperial Majesties are, and fitting as it seems that men should labour and die for them, there is still something so high and holy that they set their subjects the example of bowing down before it in worship. Humbly on foot, the young man, his wife (who had lately, just before her marriage, come to see the errors of the Protestantism in which she was educated, and had been converted to the Holy Russian Orthodox Church), and his mother (who had years ago, shortly before her own marriage, also been converted from the errors of Protestantism), approached the holy shrine of the wonder-working image of the "Iberian Mother of God." There they were met by the Most Holy Tikhon, Bishop of Mojaisk, with a cross and holy water. Having received the blessing of his Most Holiness, and having kissed the cross and bowed down ​in worship before the holy image, Their Highnesses resumed their former places, having accomplished an important part of their day's work.

Farther on, at the Ouspensky Cathedral in the Kremlin, Their Majesties were met by the Most Holy Synod and the cathedral priests with a cross and holy water. As Their Majesties entered the cathedral the cannon on the Tainitzky Tower began to fire, and the choir sang, "This day hath the grace of the Holy Ghost assembled us." The cannons continued to fire, while Their Majesties kissed the holy images, and also some dried bits of the corpses of Moscow's saints. Their Majesties then went across to the Archangel Cathedral to kiss some more images and to bow down before the tombs of their "ancestors." (That, of course, is a conventional way of speaking, for it is a matter of conjecture rather than of history, which of Catherine the Second's lovers was the father of the Emperor Paul, and no Russian Tsar can trace back his ancestry, in the male line, farther than to that madman.) From this cathedral, accompanied by priests and by a court choir, they made their way to the palace, where they were met by more priests and another cross and some more holy water; from all which they at last escaped to their private rooms, leaving it to some of their loyal and patriotic subjects to discuss the impression that would be made on ​Europe by the grandeur of the day's proceedings; while others of their faithful subjects laboured hard all night to get the tram lines ready for next day's traffic, by relaying what parts had been taken up, by scraping off the asphalt where it had been poured on, and by gathering up the sand that had been thickly strewn to make things more comfortable for the great procession.

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On the 11th, 12th, and 13th, proclamation was made that the coronation would take place on Tuesday 14th May. Two companies of heralds traversed the city, assisted by an adjutant-general, a lieutenant-general, two ober-ceremonie-meisters and some ceremonie-meisters, most of them princes or counts. There were also cavalry of two regiments, with kettledrums and trumpeters. Some of the trumpets were adorned with red velvet bearing the Imperial N and the inevitable two-headed eagle embroidered in gold. Twelve fine horses in rich gold saddle-cloths, with ostrich feathers on their heads, were led each by three grooms in red costumes ornamented with gold. It may be doubted whether the men reflected more than the horses did, as to the wisdom of the performance they were engaged in. Then there was a gilt carriage with illuminated copies of the proclamation for free distribution to the people; and this was the real centre ​of attraction. The people had to work so much, and they saw wealth (the produce of their labour) spent so prodigally on this coronation, that it is perhaps not wonderful that they showed an intense anxiety to secure something tangible for themselves out of it all. There was an astonishing difference between the comparative placidity of their loyalty when the spectacular part of the business was going on, and the eager greedy nature of their enthusiasm as soon as anything palpable was to be got for themselves.

At the command of the adjutant-general, the heralds raised their gold wands in sign that the many thousands assembled should uncover their heads, and the secretary of the Senate, Khodobai, mounted on horseback, then read the proclamation, which commenced:—

"The All-super Illustrious and Most Autocratic Great Monarch the Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovitch, having ascended the hereditary ancestral throne of the Russian Empire, with the indivisible Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland, according to the example of those pious Monarchs His Ancestors, has graciously indicated that the most holy coronation of His Imperial Majesty, and the anointing of Him with holy oil, shall take place, with the assistance of the Almighty, on the 14th day of this month of May."

The two companies of heralds took different ​directions through the town, stopping at various places to distribute copies of the proclamation. So great was the crush and throng to obtain them that several accidents occurred; the gilt carriage was carried by storm and wrecked, its lining was torn to shreds, and even one of the eagles disappeared from its panels. Report says that the decorations were stolen from the breast of the ceremonie-meister who was distributing the proclamations, but I have had no opportunity to verify the rumour. It was therefore ultimately found better to give up the processions and let the proclamations be given away at the police stations. So great, on the other hand, was the anxiety of the authorities that the coronation should pass off with éclat, and that the "people" and "foreign nations" should be duly impressed, that no hint of these misadventures was allowed to be published in the Russian newspapers; and though we knew of the disturbances, it was only after the overwhelming disaster on the Khodinskoe Field (and then from German papers) that I, in Moscow, heard that eighteen people had been crushed to death in the scrambles that took place for these illuminated proclamations. It was just this habitual practice of ignoring, denying, or making light of any misfortunes which befel his meaner subjects, while attaching a preposterously exaggerated importance to every rod or jewel or ​feather that related to the Emperor, which (by giving the whole official world a perverted conception of what is important and what is trivial) prepared and paved the way for the terrible catastrophe which blackened the latter part of this wretched coronation. And it is just this which is tending to produce a collapse of the whole existing order—a disaster which threatens to be the more dreadful in proportion to the degree in which the present régime trusts to violence and builds upon a foundation of lies.

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On Sunday 12th May, in the Hall of Arms in the Kremlin, the consecration of the new Imperial Standard took place, in the presence of the Emperor and Empresses, the members of the Imperial family, the foreign princes, the generals of the Imperial suite, the maids of honour of the empresses, etc. etc.

The new standard is made of magnificent gold brocade woven in one piece, and on both sides of it figures, of course, the two-headed eagle. At 3.20 P.M. the ceremony began. A Proto-presbyter officiated, assisted by the court clergy and the choir of the court chapel. He sprinkled the standard with holy water, and addressed Their Imperial Majesties in an oration which concluded with the following not very lucid sentences: "May this standard, we pray the Heavenly Father, unite all Thy subjects in unlimited loyalty to ​the Throne and the Fatherland, and in self-sacrificing fulfilment by each of his patriotic duty. Terrible to the foes of Russia, may it be to Thee a sign of help from the Lord God to the glory of His Most holy name, by the path of the orthodox faith of goodness and truth to lead Thy people, not regarding any obstacles, to prosperity, greatness, and glory. Let the nations know that God is with us." The choir then sang "God is with us; let the nations understandand be subdued, for God is with us."

My Quaker grandmother, when one of the children made a statement lacking confirmation, was fond of saying, "My dear, remember that thy saying so, doth not make it so." And methinks this saying may well be applied to the Proto-presbyter; for if "the Eternal that changeth not" be on the side of military monarchs, He cannot be with the meek, the poor, or those who proclaim peace on earth and goodwill towards men, for even Omnipotence cannot steer in two contrary directions at once.

The example set by the Emperor of doing good to the people by consuming the fruits of their industry was imitated on this same Sunday 12th May by a number of his faithful subjects. Long ago, among primitive people, those who wished to do good to their fellows fed them, clothed them, visited them when sick or in prison, and in fact laboured and did what ​was unpleasant, that others might have what they produced, and stinted themselves that others might have what they spared. To-day, with the progress of civilisation, all that has been changed. Charitable people now do good by taking rent, interest (forbidden even by Moses, among the Jews), or profits from their fellow-men, and by spending a part of the income so derived on fancy bazaars. I am told (but cannot say that I believe) that "much good is done" in that way by many of the London churches; and this modern way of improving on the example of Jesus and his disciples has reached Moscow, and is practised by many—among others by the "Society of Guardians of the Poor," who (taking advantage of a holiday evening when the theatres were closed and Moscow was overthronged with the idle-rich, many of whom could be got to come in fine clothes and serve as bait to draw in the lesser fry) organised a fête for this coronation time, in the handsome premises of the Upper Trading Rows. A varied programme with music, a coloured fountain and a lottery, in addition to the inducements mentioned above, ensured a success even apart from the object of the fête.

At about 10 P.M. in the day, ladies, delicately scented, dressed in silks and satins, with beautiful jewels and ornaments, white kid gloves, and expensive head-gears, accompanied by men in new uniforms or ​in black clothes with well-starched shirts and also with gloves, got into fine carriages with well-dressed coachmen and well-fed horses, and drove to the bazaar to do good to the poor, many of whom would gladly have eaten the good stuff of which the starch was made wherewith the shirts were stiffened. There some of the fine ladies sold champagne at an extravagant price per glass, and many of the men and women drank it. All sorts of trifles and more or less useless knick-knacks, which had been made at much cost of time and trouble, were offered, and flirted over, and sold. And in this way, forsooth, good was done to the poor. The bazaar was a great success; more than £1100 was taken at the doors for admission money alone, besides tickets sold in advance and profits on the sales.

If only everybody could be induced to spend their days in preparing for such bazaars and their nights in participating in them, poverty, it seems, ought to disappear, and the woe denounced by Christ upon the rich might be withdrawn! Meanwhile, these experiments in doing good, not by bearing one another's real burdens, but by self-indulgence, go on year after year, praised by priests and indulged in by the infatuated. Yet the results are not conspicuous; and we are still left face to face with the dictum of economists, that "whether they like it or not, the un​productive expenditure of individuals will tend to impoverish the community."^[2]

This fancy bazaar has been specially mentioned, because it was a "charitable" undertaking. Such examples of extravagance naked and not ashamed, of luxury without hypocrisy, met one at every step. The papers mentioned a choir which was engaged to come from Germany for 24,000 marks, to sing before a select audience one evening, and then to return to Germany. The decoration of one room, and that not a large one, in the apartments prepared for the Chinese ambassador, cost over £4000, and amidst the general prodigality such expenditure passed almost unnoticed.

Next day, Monday 13th May, the Emperor and Empress returned in an open carriage from the Alexandra Palace to the Kremlin. They attended vespers, confessed and fasted, in anticipation of the approaching mysteries of the coronation. At this ceremony several passages from Isaiah were read to them which did not seem to apply very well to the case, but others that would have applied better were omitted—such for instance as this:—

"Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure and oppress all your labourers. … Ye fast not this day so as to make your voice to be heard on ​high. Is such the fast that I have chosen? … Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? … If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedly; and if thou bestow on the hungry that which thy soul desireth; then shall thy light rise in darkness, and thine obscurity be as the noonday."^[3]

The next day, Tuesday 14th May, was the date appointed for Their Majesties to be crowned, anointed, and receive communion in the Ouspensky Cathedral. The effect produced on some of us by entering a Russian church or cathedral is merely that of passing from the fresh air into a structure where the light of heaven is obscured. The illumination given by the wax candles and the oil lamps that burn before the images is but a poor substitute for the light of the sun, and the air is heavy with the fumes of incense, the smoke of candles, and the smell of vegetable oil. Is not this an ​outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual truth? Do not the churches, age after age, shut out that truth which would set men free, and offer instead antiquated and artificial dogmas, creeds, and ceremonies which it is the merest irony to call "glad tidings for the poor?"

At 7 A.M. the big bells of Ivan Veliki boomed and the cannons on the Tainitzky Tower fired, to announce that a service for the health and long life of Their Imperial Majesties was commencing in the Ouspensky Cathedral. At 9 A.M. these prayers were over, and the priests in golden attire, headed by the three Metropolitans of Petersburg, Kieff, and Moscow, awaited in the porch the arrival of H.I.M. Marie Feodorovna, who, preceded by courtiers, walked from the palace dressed in a purple mantle, wearing a crown sparkling with diamonds, and shielded by a canopy, though she might have done the short distance without so much as putting up a parasol. Entering the cathedral, Her Imperial Majesty seated herself on a gaudy chair, a throne, still protected by a canopy.

All was expectation. At last the chaplain of Their Imperial Majesties, the Proto-presbyter Yanisheff, helped by two deacons carrying a gold dish of holy water, sprinkled the whole path to be trodden by Their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress, and the assembled crowd reverently crossed themselves while ​this primitive and ineffectual substitute for the modern watering-cart was being shown off.

At 9.30 A.M. the cavalry guards, who were to lead the procession, appeared at the red wing of the palace. Then came twenty-four pages and as many kammer pages, in red uniforms trimmed with gold and hats with white feathers. Then came a long line of deputies from all ends of Russia, the nobility distinguished by their red collars sewn with gold. Then came the ober-procurator of the Most Holy Synod, secretaries of State, ministers and members of the council of State. (It may be mentioned, in passing, that the Senate suspended the performance of its duties as the high court of appeal in judicial cases for several weeks, in order to allow the senators to take part in these coronation proceedings; the schools also had four months' holiday this summer, in honour of the great event.)

Next came the regalia, which had been brought to Moscow with such excessive care and pomp, and which was soon to go to Petersburg in a special train with like state, attended by a general, and met by a governor and a crowd of officials.

Behind the regalia came some more cavalry, and then, preceded by gold rods in the hands of a coronation ober-ceremonie-meister, a supreme ceremonie-meister, and a high marshal, walked Their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress, the bands playing "God ​save the Tsar," the people shouting enthusiastically and the bells ringing. The two were protected by another canopy supported by sixteen adjutant-generals, with another sixteen adjutant-generals holding on to the gold cords. It would be interesting to know whether these thirty-two adjutant-generals were at all ashamed of wasting their time, holding an unnecessary covering in fine weather over the heads of two young people who were taking a short walk. Perhaps, however, their ordinary tasks (for doing which they are so well fed and clothed) are not more useful.

At the south gate of the Ouspensky Cathedral, Their Imperial Majesties were met by the three Metropolitans with holy water and incense. They entered the building while the 101st Psalm was being sung:

During the singing they piously bowed themselves before the throne of the King of kings and before the wonder-working icons of the Saviour and of the Mother of God, and then passed to their thrones. Before the ​Emperor stood a brocade-covered table with the regalia spread out upon it, and behind him stood a colonel with a drawn sword to guard it. Four more colonels were near by in case of need.

At the request of a Metropolitan, the Emperor said the creed, whereupon the Metropolitan put up a petition to the Almighty for the Emperor, concluding with the words: "Let the Lord of hosts strengthen his weapons; oh, subdue under his feet every enemy and opponent; and oh, may his coronation and that of his spouse, the Most Pious Sovereign Empress, be blessed by the King of kings and Lord of lords!"

Then some parts of the Bible were read. In the Old Testament and in St. Paul's epistles it is possible to select some bits which are pretty much to the minds of court chaplains and of their audiences. In the Gospels, however, they had to confine themselves to their favourite passage, containing the verse, "Renderunto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, but unto God the things that are God's," with as much accentuation of the first clause and as little of the second as possible.

As to Paul's apparent approval of the deeds of governments, this much may be said in his defence. No doubt, in communistic societies, such as the early Christians formed, and among people who had broken the trammels of their former creeds and were persecuted ​by Government, and had little reason to be patriotic, a type of men appeared like our modern violent anarchists or nihilists, who, seeing the evils of existing institutions, burned with a fierce desire to destroy them even by force, and sought to cast out devils as it were by the aid of Beelzebub. Paul had, no doubt, to meet this anti-Christian spirit, which strove to effect reforms, not by appealing to men's reasonable consciences, but by that mistaken use of force as a remedy for evil to which mankind owes so many of its miseries. And he met it by reminding them that "the powers that be are ordained of God," who sends His rain upon the just and the unjust. That this means that Paul approved of the Roman Government under the successors of Augustus, or would have lifted a finger to support it, may well be doubted. Still it is to Paul rather than to Jesus that Cæsar appeals with best chance of success.

Then the Emperor bowed his head and was blessed by the Metropolitan, who laid his hands cross-wise on his head, and pronounced a prayer in which he besought God "to strengthen his sinews, to subdue before him all the nations of the barbarians … to keep him in the perfect faith, to show him as a defender of the dogmas of His Holy Catholic Church." Later on, the Emperor signified that the crown should be handed to him, and proceeded to put it on his own ​head, the Metropolitan Palladius making the somewhat incongruous exclamation, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen"; to which he added the following remarks: "Most Pious and Most Autocratic Great Sovereign Emperor of all Russia, this visible and palpable ornamentation of thy head is an outward sign that thou, the head of the people of all Russia, art crowned by the King of Glory—Christ!" The Emperor then received the sceptre in his right hand and the orb in his left, and, in this ridiculous plight, balancing a crown on his head, and with both hands engaged in holding the costly baubles, he took his seat upon the throne, incapacitated by his circumstances from doing anything better. He then called to him his most august spouse, who came and knelt humbly before him. Putting down the baubles, and taking his crown off his own head, he placed it for a moment on the head of his wife, but quickly (as though afraid that she might keep it) replaced it on his own head again, and gave her a smaller one in exchange. He then, with the help of four maids of honour (who fixed on the crown with gold pins), draped her in a purple mantle.

One wonders whether, at this third politico-religious performance which the Empress took part in on her path to the throne of Russia, either she or her husband bethought them of another woman whom she, the ​Empress, had supplanted in the affections of Nicholas. Mme. Kshestinsky (whose sister is still a ballet-dancer, as she herself used to be), like many other wealthy people, came to Moscow for the coronation. She had a fine lodging in the Mamonoff Pereoulok, where she gave parties and participated in the fêtes. Does her prior claim to the Emperor's love, established without any ecclesiastical play-acting, or the priestly benedictions which accompanied Alexandra Feodorovna's apostasy from Protestantism and "conversion" to the orthodox faith, her subsequent marriage and her coronation, count for most in the judgment of the Eternal?

The senior Proto-deacon now gave out the full titles of the Tsar, and the chant "Many years" went up from the choir on their behalf. At this tremendous moment the bells again began to ring, the cannons to thunder, and the Dowager-Empress descended from her throne and congratulated her son and his wife, as did the other members of the Imperial family and the foreign princes assembled.

The Emperor then knelt down and offered up a prayer in the proper ecclesiastical, mongrel, semi-Slavonic, semi-Russian dialect, in which he informed the Almighty that He (the Almighty) had chosen him (the Emperor) "to be Tsar and judge of Thy people." This was in one sense, no doubt, true enough, since ​all that exists, including earthquakes and rattle-snakes, may be said to come from the Eternal; but it seemed slightly ungrateful to the officers, officials, and priests, who certainly seemed to have something to do with the making of the Emperor.

On the conclusion of this prayer, the Emperor, crowned and purple-robed, stood up majestically, while everyone else in the cathedral knelt before him. The Metropolitan humbly, on his knees, in the name of all the people, read a prayer to God, "to endow with wisdom the Most Pious Emperor," that he "should be victorious over and terrible to his foes."

That is as near as we go nowadays to the deification of mortal man. He is dressed up in clothes and jewels that far exceed in cost the total produce of the life's labour of many of his most industrious subjects. The highest dignitaries of church and state, men who were fathers before he was born, his own wife and mother, all bow down abjectly before him, while God Almighty is evoked to decree that (right or wrong) he shall triumph over all who oppose him. The church bells ring, the cannons thunder, the people cross themselves; and anyone who should openly denounce the falseness and the folly of the whole performance would suffer physical violence from paid or unpaid supporters of the Tsar, as surely as the prophets of the Lord were persecuted in the days of Ahab.

​These perversions of the human intellect, in which men stifle their reasonable consciences and agree, for the sake of expediency, to call good evil, and evil good, do not pass without results. Men cannot attach immense importance to that which is trivial and false, without ceasing to attach due importance to that which is serious and real; but it is seldom that so dramatic a cataclysm follows so closely on the heels of so conspicuous a blasphemy as on this occasion, when only four days elapsed between the scene just described and the massacre on the Khodinskoe Field, which was obviously due to the reckless neglect of necessary precautions for the lives of thousands of human beings, while thousands upon thousands of trained men were engaged in securing the safety of one young man, whose business is supposedly to serve the people by "protecting their lives and property."

The coronation being accomplished, the next part of the performance was the anointing. Velvet was now spread out from the throne to the holy gates that hide the altar, and over this velvet was spread brocade for His Imperial Majesty the Emperor to walk on. The choir sang; the gates of the holy of holies opened, and two prelates issued forth, one of whom announced to the Emperor that the time for his anointing had arrived. The Emperor then approached the holy gates, and took his stand on a piece of gold brocade. The ​Metropolitan Palladius, taking a costly vessel of jasper containing the holy oil or myrrh, proceeded to oil the Emperor's forehead, eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, breast, and hands, while to the holy Metropolitan Joanicius of Kieff was entrusted the sacred duty of wiping the oil off again. Once more the big bells boomed, the cannons thundered, and tens of thousands of simple people believed that something important had happened.

The Empress now drew near, but she was only oiled on the forehead and wiped by the Metropolitan Sergius.

Next, the senior Metropolitan led the Emperor through the holy gates (which closed behind them) to the altar, where he knelt before the sacred host, and received communion as participated in by Tsars and priests. When he had again passed out of the holy of holies, the Empress approached the holy gate (which she might not pass through), and received communion according to the ordinary rite.

Their Majesties then kissed a cross, and having received the congratulations of the hierarchs and clergy, and the Emperor having resumed his crown and sceptre and orb, they left the cathedral soon after one o'clock and returned to the palace.

What contrast could be greater than that between the last supper in the upper chamber at Jerusalem and this gorgeous ceremony? He, of whom it is ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/65 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/66 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/67 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/68 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/69 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/70 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/71 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/72 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/73 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/74 ​Page:De Monte Alto - The Tsar's Coronation (1896).pdf/75 ​Even high up in the fourth tier of galleries sat the officers of the horse-guards and hussars, as well as kammer-junkers in ball uniforms. The very orchestra was specially costumed for the occasion, and the "highest personages" sat in the best boxes on gilt chairs.

It is almost superfluous to mention that such an audience was treated to "God save the Tsar," several times repeated, and that they cheered it enthusiastically as though it brought glad tidings of great joy to all people. They also had a scene from "A Life for the Tsar," containing those lessons of patriotism and loyalty which Jesus omitted from his moral code. For loyalty, in the sense of obsequiousness to the richest and most powerful of our neighbours, and patriotism, in the sense of an eagerness to seize advantages for our own nation though it be to the hurt of another, were not inculcated by Christ, but are incompatible with the two great commandments taught by him who claimed to be "anointed to preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."