Kellogg Durland - Royal Romances of To-day

ROYAL ROMANCES OF TO-DAY

THE TSARITSA.

By
KELLOGG DURLAND
Author of
The Red Reign, Among the Fife Miners,
etc., etc.
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
1911
Copyright , 1911,
By DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
TO
H. E. THE MARQUIS OF VILLALOBAR
A SLIGHT TOKEN OF A HIGH APPRECIATION

In the year 1907, the Womans Home Companion commissioned me to go to Russia to write the story of the early days, courtship and marriage of her whom the world knows to-day as the Tsaritsa. The following year, the same periodical sent me to Italy to write a similar account of the life of Queen Elena; and in 1910 I was once more sent abroad, this time to Spain, to learn all about Queen Victoria Eugenie.

The chapters printed in the magazine articles constitute only a part of the material which I gathered on these three trips, and consequently the stories herewith presented are to my best knowledge and belief the most complete records of these three Queens, which have yet been gathered and published. It was necessary for me to rely almost entirely upon members of the several Courts of St. Petersburg, Madrid and Rome for my biographical data. In each capital I spent many months, cultivating the acquaintance of all who were in a position to give me this material, especially members of the entourages of these several sovereigns. Accuracy was always my prime aim and the greatest care has been taken to corroborate impressions and to check up each particle of information which has been utilised. I have every confidence that the details herewith presented may be relied upon by future biographers and historians. Readableness has in no instance led me to sacrifice, or in any way to exaggerate or alter literal facts.

I have endeavoured to present the stories of these three Queens mainly from the standpoint of the heart interest which attaches to the romances which have characterised each of their marriages.

I should be most ungracious if I were to omit expressing my cordial appreciation of the valued co-operation which I received in St. Petersburg from Harold Williams, Esq., from Miss Margaret Eager, for six years Nursery Governess to the Royal Family of Russia; and in Rome from Doctor Guido Pardo, whose energy, industry and wide knowledge of men and affairs in Italy were all placed so generously at my disposal; and in Madrid from El Seor Don Emilio M. de Torres, confidential Secretary to His Majesty King Alfonso XIII, and El Seor Don Pablo de Churruca of the Spanish Diplomatic Service.

The justification for the publication of this work in more or less permanent form lies in my belief in the verity and authenticity of every last detail, all of which were gathered at such considerable expenditure of time and labour. Material so carefully gathered and verified should be of certain service to future writers.

Once upon a time, not so many years ago, there lived on a lovely island of the sea, a beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed Princess. The mother of this Princess was kind and good to everybody on the island and all who knew her loved her. The father of the princess was a soldier, a warrior who led men to battle, and who sailed over distant seas to fight for the honour and glory of his country. The grandmother of the little Princess was a great Queen, known and revered by the whole world, for she enjoyed a long life and a long reign. The little Princess was born in the fiftieth year of the reign of the good old Queen and so the little Princess was called the Jubilee baby.

The Jubilee baby became the favourite grandchild of the old Queen who loved to have the young Princess with her, and so it happened that the training of the Princess was largely at the knees of the great Queen,and her nursery days were spent on the steps of a throne.

When the Princess was eight years old, her soldier father was sent to a foreign land to fight in a cruel war. The ship that carried him and the soldiers who left their homes with him, stopped for a few days at the port of a friendly country and the officers, including the father of the Princess, got off the ship to visit the strange country. It was a pleasant land, a land of sunshine and flowers, where even in midwinter, the fragrance of roses and orange blossoms filled the air. The island home of the Princess was cold in winter, and harsh winds swept in from the sea. The Prince, seeing all the beauty of the new land, would have liked to linger in the balmy atmosphere where birds were as merry at Christmas as in his own land at Easter. But he was on a stern journey, fulfilling a great and responsible duty. The ship was about to start on to its destinationthe land of discord and strife where war was being waged, and human lives were being sacrificedwhere blood was running and suffering and sorrow came with each days sun; the ship was about to start on, and the Prince, thinking of the country whither he was going, and of the land which he now was glimpsing like a beautiful dream, thought also of the home he had left and his fair-haired, darling daughter, her three baby brothers, and their mother whom he loved very dearly. Then he sat down and wrote a letter to the little Princess. It was the first time he had ever written a letter to her, because she was still a wee girl and had never left his side. In this letter he told her how beautiful was the land that he then was visiting, and he went on to say to her: Always be a good girl, and love your mother. If you do this, when you grow up and are big, you too, will travel, and you will come to this beautiful country. You will see for yourself that you will like it and how happy you will be here.

The little Princess was very pleased when she received this letter from her father of whom she was extremely proud, and being the only one she had from him treasured it like a relic. She never dreamed how wonderfully prophetic were the simple words he wrote.

One short month later the Prince was dead. The shadow of this loss deeply darkened the life of the little Princess and all her family, and indeed the whole country mourned. A few years passed and the little Princess grew up and was ever and always more beautiful and lovely of character, as well as of face and form. When she was eighteen, there came to visit her country the young ruler of the very land her father had visited on his last journeythe land which he told her she would one day visit and where she would be happy. The King of this land, as it happened, was then only nineteen years old, and in quest of a Princess to share his throne. When he saw the Princess of this story, he fell instantly in love with her, and she with himand after a wooing and courtship they were married. So after all, the Princess did go to the land her father told her she would one day see, and now the Jubilee Baby is the Queen of that country, and the people there have become as devoted to her as she is to themand she is very, very happy.