During the years following I had increasing opportunities of seeing Alexis Nicolaïevitch, who made a practice of escaping from his sailor nurse and running into his sisters’ schoolroom, from which he was soon fetched. And yet at times his visits would suddenly cease, and for quite a considerable period he was seen no more. Every time he disappeared everyone in the palace was smitten with the greatest depression. My pupils betrayed it in a mood of melancholy they tried in vain to conceal. When I asked them the cause, they answered evasively that Alexis Nicolaïevitch was not well. I knew from other sources that he was a prey to a disease which was only mentioned inferentially and the nature of which no one ever told me.
As I have already said, when I was released from my duties
[Illustration: THE CZARINA, A FEW MONTHS BEFORE HER MARRIAGE.
[Illustration: THE CZAREVITCH AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN MONTHS. (1905.)
as tutor to Duke Sergius of Leuchtenberg in 1909 I could give more time to the Grand-Duchesses. I lived in St. Petersburg and visited Tsarskoïe-Selo five times a week. Although the number of lessons I gave had considerably increased, my pupils made but slow progress, largely because the Imperial family spent months at a time in the Crimea. I regretted more and more that they had not been given a French governess, and each time they returned I always found they had forgotten a good deal. Mademoiselle Tioutcheva, their Russian governess, could not do everything, for all her intense devotion and perfect knowledge of languages. It was with a view to overcoming this difficulty that the Czarina asked me to accompany the family when they left Tsarskoïe-Selo for a considerable time.
My first visit under the new dispensation was to the Crimea in the autumn of 1911. I lived in the little town of Yalta, with my colleague, M. Petrof, professor of Russian, who had also been asked to continue his course of teaching. We went to Livadia every day to give our lessons.
The kind of life we led was extremely agreeable, for out of working hours we were absolutely free, and could enjoy the beautiful climate of the “Russian Riviera” without having to observe the formalities of Court life.
In the spring of the following year the family again spent several months in the Crimea. M. Petrof and I were lodged in a little house in the park of Livadia. We took our meals with some of the officers and officials of the Court, only the suite and a few casual visitors being admitted to the Imperial luncheon-table. In the evening the family dined quite alone.