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RASPUTIN AGAIN
455
concerned, 1 was delighted to have once more as
Minister a man of honour and one whom I felt to be
sincerely disposed in my favour and in that of my
work in Sweden.
I no longer considered it necessary to insist on my
recall; moreover, M. Protopopoff had completely
relinquished all discussion on the "Warburg" case, and
the Russian public had also more or less forgotten it,
preoccupied as they were by other scandals, more
exciting and more closely connected with the daily life
of the capital.
During the month of December, 1916, the whole
attention of the Russian public was centred on what
was going on at "the Court of Tsarskoe," that is, in the
Empress Alexandra’s environment, and on the person
of Rasputin.
Russian travellers, who had become more and more
numerous in Stockholm, told us that excitement had
overtaken all social circles in Petrograd, including
the Imperial Family itself. One heard that some
members of the family—notably the Grand-Duchess
Cyril1 and an " ally " of the Imperial Family, Princess
Zenaida Yussupoff, who was universally esteemed—
had tried to persuade the Empress to change her
environment, above all to send away " the good old man,"
to be better informed as to the frame of mind of the
country, as public opinion was exasperated against the
men in power—the Empress’s elect and intimate friends.
These ladies received the haughty answer that they did
not understand anything about the true frame of mind
of the country; that as they exclusively frequented the
aristocratic circles of the capital, they were entirely
ignorant of the opinion of the great mass of the
Orthodox people, of the poorer classes, of the peasants
—who would remain, as in the past, devoted to the
Emperor on condition that he protected them from
the exactions of the great, the politicians, etc. The
1 Sister of the Queen of Rumania.
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