The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) (8 page)

on rue Daru in celebration of the tsaritsa’s safe delivery. But the

British press was quick to note an element of dismay in Russian

political and diplomatic circles: ‘A son would have been more

welcome than a daughter, but a daughter is better than nothing’,

observed the
Pall Mall Gazette
.39 At a time when Russia and England were still to some extent political rivals, the
Daily Chronicle
wondered

* The Russian equivalent of Obstetrician-in-Ordinary.

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whether baby Olga ‘might be made a peg to hang an Anglo-Russian

understanding on’ at some future date. The seed was sown for a

rapprochement between the Russian and British royal families, and

what better way than through a future dynastic marriage?

On 5 November 1895 an Imperial Manifesto was issued in St

Petersburg greeting Grand Duchess Olga’s birth: ‘Inasmuch as we

regard this accession to the Imperial House as a token of the bless-

ings vouchsafed to our House and Empire, we notify the joyful event

to all our faithful subjects, and join with them in offering fervent

prayers to the Almighty that the newly born Princess may grow up

in happiness and strength.’40 In a magnanimous gesture to celebrate

his daughter’s birth, Nicholas announced an amnesty for political

and religious prisoners, who were given a free pardon, as well as

remittances in sentence for common criminals.

But not everyone shared the optimistic view of little Olga’s future;

early in the new year of 1896 a curious story appeared in the French

press. Prince Charles of Denmark (soon to be married to Princess

Maud of Wales, daughter of Alexandra’s cousin Bertie) had, it

appeared, been ‘exercising his ingenuity in drawing the horoscope

of the Czar’s infant daughter’. In it the prince predicted critical

periods in Olga’s health at ‘her third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and

eighth years’. In so doing, he felt unable to ‘guarantee that she will even reach the last-named age, but if she does she will assuredly

reach twenty’. This, the prince concluded, would grant ‘twelve years

of peace to be thankful for’. For ‘it is certain . . . that she will never live to be thirty’.41

*

The moment her new great-granddaughter was born, Queen

Victoria, as godmother, took it upon herself to ensure that the baby

had a good English nanny and promptly set about recruiting one.

But she was horrified when Alexandra announced her intention to

breastfeed, just as her mother Alice had done. The British press

quickly got wind of what, for the times, was sensational news. It

was unheard-of for sovereigns – particularly imperial Russian ones

– to breastfeed their children. The news had ‘astonished all the

Russians’ although a wet-nurse was also to be appointed as essential

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back-up. ‘A large number of peasant women . . . were gathered from

various parts’ for the selection process. ‘None of them was to be

the mother of fewer than two or more than four children, and those

of dark complexion were to be preferred.’42 Alexandra’s first attempts at breastfeeding did not, however, go to plan, for baby Olga rejected her, and, as Nicholas recalled, it ‘ended up with Alix very successfully feeding the son of the wet-nurse, while the latter gave milk to Olga! Very funny!’ ‘For my part I consider it the most natural thing

a mother can do and I think the example an excellent one!’ he told

Queen Victoria soon after.43

Alexandra, as one might expect, bloomed as a nursing mother;

her whole world, and Nicholas’s, revolved around their adored

newborn daughter. The tsar delighted in recording every detail of

her life in his diary: the first time she slept through the night, how he helped feed and bathe her, the emergence of her baby teeth, the

clothes she wore, the first photographs he took of her. Neither he

nor Alexandra of course noted that little Olga was in fact not the

prettiest of babies – her large moon-shaped head with its awkward

quiff of blonde hair that replaced the long dark hair she was born

with, was too large for her body, and made her seem almost ugly

to some members of the imperial family. But she was, from the

outset a good, chubby and happy baby and her doting parents rarely

let her out of their sight.

On the morning of 14 November 1895 – her parents’ wedding

anniversary and the Dowager Empress’s forty-eighth birthday – Olga

Nikolaevna Romanova was christened (with just the one given name,

according to Russian Orthodox practice). It was a particularly joyful occasion for the imperial court as it marked the end of official

mourning for Tsar Alexander III. The baby was dressed in Nicholas’s

own christening robes and conveyed in a gold state coach drawn by

six white horses, accompanied by the Tsar’s Escort, to the Church

of the Resurrection, the imperial chapel at Tsarskoe Selo. From

here, Princess Mariya Golitsyna, the mistress of the robes, carried

Olga to the font on a golden cushion. In line with Russian Orthodox

practice, Nicholas and Alexandra did not attend the actual ceremony,

at which members of the Orthodox synod, illustrious royal relatives,

diplomats and foreign VIPs, all in full court dress, were gathered.

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The baby had seven sponsors including Queen Victoria and the

dowager empress. But most of these could not attend in person, so

Maria Feodorovna presided, resplendent in Russian national dress

and jewelled
kokoshnik
, surrounded by most of the Russian grand dukes and duchesses. During the service, the baby ‘was dipped three

times into the water in the orthodox way and then was straight laid

into a pink satin quilted bag, dried and undressed, & returned to the gamp [nurse], who was very important in corded silk’.44 Olga

was then anointed with holy oil on her face, eyes, ears, hands and

feet and carried round the church three times by Maria Feodorovna,

with one of the godfathers on either side of her. When the ceremony

was over, Nicholas invested his daughter with the Order of St

Catherine.

Olga’s difficult birth had, inevitably, left Alexandra considerably

weakened and she was not allowed out of bed until 18 November.

Thereafter, she went for quiet drives in the park with Nicky but

despite the presence of her brother and his wife Ducky (Victoria

Melita’s pet name in the family), she took little advantage of their

company, even though they were only there for a week. Ducky

complained in letters to relatives of her boredom, of how Alix was

rather distant and that she talked endlessly of Nicky and ‘praise[d]

him so much all the time’, that she came to the conclusion that her

sister-in-law preferred being on her own with him.45 She certainly

jealously guarded her time with Nicky; the rest of it was spent

mothering Olga. Orchie was still in evidence, as a superannuated

family retainer, given the token role of supervising the running of

the nursery, but she was not entrusted with the baby’s care, even

when Madame Günst – who stayed on as maternity nurse for three

months – was laid up for a couple of days.46 The presence of Günst

caused considerable disgruntlement. ‘Orchie slept in the blue room

and scarcely spoke to me, so offended we did not have Baby with

her’, Alexandra told Ernie.47

Professional English nannies were sticklers for routine and did

not like being usurped in their roles, and the arrival on 18 December of Queen Victoria’s hand-picked recruit, the redoubtable Mrs Inman,

was not a happy one. Nicholas remarked that his wife was worried

that ‘the new English nanny would in some way affect the way of

things in our daily family life’. And sure enough she did, for the

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protocols of royal nannying demanded that ‘our little daughter will

have to be moved upstairs, which is a real bore and a shame’.48 The

day after Mrs Inman arrived baby Olga was duly removed from

Nicholas and Alexandra’s ground-floor bedroom to the nursery and

Nicholas was already writing to his brother Georgiy, complaining

that he and Alexandra ‘[did] not particularly like the look of Mrs

Inman’. ‘She has something hard and unpleasant in her face,’ he

told him, ‘and looks like a stubborn woman.’ Both he and Alexandra

thought she was ‘going to be a lot of trouble’, for she had imme-

diately started laying down the law: ‘she has already decided that

our daughter does not have enough rooms, and that, in her opinion,

Alix pops up into the nursery too often.’49

For the time being, the only sight the Russian people might be

likely to get of their tsar and tsaritsa would not be at court in St

Petersburg but wheeling their baby in the grounds of the Alexander

Park. The world beyond knew even less of them. The British press

had hoped that the tsaritsa’s informal approach to mothering might

have a positive effect politically: ‘The right feeling shown in the

young wife’s decision is likelier to rally the mothers of Russia to her Majesty’s side than many more imposing actions on the part of the

Czar’s Consort. And with their support the Empress may go far.’50

It was an ambitious hope, but one that would fall on fallow ground;

for the fact that the empress had not produced a firstborn son was

already a source of disfavour among many Russians.

In the new year of 1896 and much to her dismay, Alexandra was

obliged to abandon the intimacy of the Alexander Palace and transfer

to her newly renovated apartments at the Winter Palace for the St

Petersburg season. Although Ella had taken a hand in their design,

the unworldly and inexperienced Alexandra did not take to the grand,

ceremonial ambience of the palace. Nor was she warming to Mrs

Inman. ‘I am
not at all
enchanted with the nurse’, she told Ernie: she is good & kind with Baby, but as a woman most antipathetic,

& that disturbs me sorely. Her manners are neither very nice,

& she will mimic people in speaking about them, an odious habit,

wh.[ich] would be awful for a Child to learn – most headstrong,

(but I am too, thank goodness). I foresee no end of troubles, &

only wish I had an other [
sic
].51

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By the end of April Alexandra was forced to give up breastfeeding

Olga in preparation for travelling to Moscow for the arduous coro-

nation ceremony: ‘that is so sad as I enjoyed it so much’, she confided to Ernie.52 By this time the domineering Mrs Inman had been sent

packing. Nicholas had found her ‘insufferable’ and on 29 April noted

with glee that ‘we were delighted finally to be rid of her’. Motherhood clearly became Alexandra, as her sister Victoria of Battenberg noted

when she arrived for the coronation in May 1896. Alix, she told

Queen Victoria,

is looking so well & happy, quite a different person & has developed into a big, handsome woman rosy cheeked & broad shoul-

dered making Ella look small near her – she feels her leg a little

from time to time & gets a headache off & on – but there is

nothing left of the sad & drooping look she used to have.53

As for baby Olga, Victoria thought her ‘magnificent & a bright

intelligent little soul. She is especially fond of Orchie smiling broadly whenever she catches sight of her.’54 Although Orchie was still in

evidence, in fading hopes of a role, a new English nurse was taken

on temporarily while a replacement for Mrs Inman was sought.55

Miss Coster was the sister of Grand Duchess Xenia’s nanny and

arrived on 2 May. She had an extraordinarily long nose, and Nicholas

didn’t much like the look of her.56 In any event nanny or no nanny,

Alexandra was still doing things determinedly her own way, now

insisting that baby Olga ‘has a salt bath every morning according

to my wish, as I want her to be as strong as possible having to carry such a plump little body’.57 After the exertions of Moscow another

important trip was approaching: a visit to Grandmama at Balmoral,

where baby Olga could at last be formally inspected.

*

On the surface the visit to Scotland would be an entirely private

family visit,
*
but the logistics were a security nightmare for the British police, totally inexperienced in dealing with high-risk Russian

* Although Nicholas took advantage of the visit to hold several important private and wide-ranging conversations with the British prime minister, Lord Salisbury.

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tsars legendary as the target of assassins. The Russian royals arrived just as hysterical stories appeared in the British press of a ‘dynamite conspiracy’ led by Irish-American activists working with Russian

nihilists, to kill the queen and the tsar too.58 Thankfully the ‘plotters’ were arrested in Glasgow and Rotterdam prior to the visit, and

press suggestions of an attack on the tsar were later proved erroneous, but the scare underlined fears for the safety of the imperial couple