Three Grand Dukes

A red flower upon the coat lapel is the authentic badge of Bolshevism, but even this fact does not dissuade the Grand Duke Alexander Michailovitch Romanov--surviving cousin and brother-in-law of Tsar Nicholas the Last--from wearing whenever he chooses a red boutonniere. Thus last week His Imperial Highness, who is now lecture-touring U. S. cities, received smart Manhattanites in his suite at the Hotel Ritz with a blood-red rosebud peeping from his buttonhole. The thing was urbanely and genuinely done. "I am of no party," smiled the Grand Duke, and presently charmed his guests by chatting not only of himself and Russia but about the two other Romanov grand dukes who were most in the public eye, last week: 1) The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch, onetime Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies on the Western Front (1914-15) and brother-in-law of Queen Elena of Italy, who lay in a dying condition last week at Nice; and 2) The Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch, grandson-in-law of British Queen Victoria, who continues to proclaim himself "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias," in succession to his assassinated cousin Tsar Nicholas II. & Last.

Terrible Things! Ensconced at the Ritz, last week, Grand Duke Alexander said, in fluent but slightly stilted English: "A proletarian visited me this morning. Yes, a proletarian--the clothes very rough and dirty! He had just returned from Russia. He told me terrible things! . . . But I look--the Imperial Family looks--for a change.

"You ask how this will come. I think it must come through Spirituality, through the awakening of all Russians to universal oneness with the Spirit Supreme. . . . That is my doctrine, the subject of my books and lectures. . . When that awakening has taken place Russia will have found herself. Then there may be a Head--some one man above others (gesturing in the air)--but perhaps very different from the Tsar. What will it matter, then?"

"Tsar Cyril." Unlike most expounders of Spirituality, the Grand Duke Alexander turns readily to crisp and factual themes. As he paced toweringly about his hotel drawing-room, last week, it was not hard to see him as once he was, as the stern quarterdecker, "The Admiral of the Fleet" to Tsar Nicholas the Last.

When asked in whom the Imperial succession should now reside, he rapped: "Unquestionably in the Grand Duke Cyril! If it is a question of law--of right--he must be Tsar. Who else? The Grand Duke Nicholas--no!

"What is Cyril doing? He is not exactly doing--he is making propaganda. Only little pamphlets! Books are impossible--he can not get them into Russia. . . . We are good friends. Very often I go to see him and explain my ideas. He does not go so far toward Spirituality as I do--but more or less. He is more anxious to make propaganda and tell the people he is Tsar."

Popular Nicholas. A trace of resentment was shown by the Grand Duke Alexander in speaking of his cousin the Grand Duke Nicholas: "Always he was very popular with the Army! That is the only reason why anybody thinks he should be Tsar. He is too old! He is exactly 72. I saw it in the New York Times, this morning, where they say he is very sick on the Riviera. Such an old man could not have the strength to lead such a cause.

And he has no son! Who would be his heir? There would be only trouble. . . .

"Since Baron Wrangel died, his army is now the Grand Duke Nicholas' army, but what is it? Scattered! A few thousand men scattered in Bulgaria and Serbia--they call it now Jugoslavia. A phantom army!"

Rasputin. When a guest broached to the Grand Duke Alexander the subject of the notorious "Black Monk" called Rasputin, or the "Debauchee," he recoiled with a slight gesture of disgust. Since His Imperial Highness' wife is a sister-in-law of the assassinated Tsaritsa Alexandra, who was the chief patroness of Rasputin, no subject would well have been more delicate. When it was made clear however that the questioner did not share the commonly received opinion of Rasputin, but thought him in some respects admirable, the Grand Duke Alexander perceptibly brightened and said: "He was a great hypnotist--very strong! And he was a great healer. Two, three or four times he saved the life of the Tsarevitch--the little son Alexis. So his mother, my sister-in-law, the Tsaritsa ordered Rasputin to come often to attend the Tsarevitch.

"They called him a monk but he was no holy man. He was a peasant--so rough and dirty--and so he was spoiled. He wanted all he could get, and so there was much intrigue. But what were called his 'orgies' were always far away from the Imperial Family. . . ."

Comfortable Romanovs. Asked how many of the Imperial Family are safely out of Russia and in comfortable circumstances, the Grand Duke Alexander exclaimed: "Comfortable! We are none of us comfortable! But I understand you-perhaps there are 30 of us who are what you call 'in comfortable circumstances.' There is my wife and I have six children.* Perhaps there are a few more than 30 of the Imperial Family who have enough to buy the few things we want. I write books, and now I lecture. I teach not a religion but Spirituality that is in all religions. Every one! But especially in the Russian--the Greek Orthodox Church--that is so flexible, so broad that every Russian can understand."

Nicholas & Cyril. Though the Grand Duke Alexander's words of last week were significant and prompt to the minute, His Imperial Highness naturally did not attempt to sketch the full background of the feuds between Nicholas and Cyril, which Death seemed about to end last week.

While the right of consanguinity is all on the side of Grand Duke Cyril, he has lost the allegiance of thousands of Russian emigres who are satisfied: 1) that Cyril intrigued with revolutionaries against Nicholas II, and was well content when the Tsar was sent to Siberia (where he was later assassinated); 2) that as the revolution assumed an uglier phase Cyril was the only one of the Grand Dukes to proclaim himself "republican," and thus managed to remain snug in his palace at Petrograd, long after other Romanovs were exiled and many murdered; 3) that the Grand Duke Cyril actually renounced his imperial prerogatives, in a panic, and called himself "Citizen Cyril Romanov"; 4) that in any case Nicholas II detested the Grand Duke Cyril and suspended all his honors, for some years, after he married a divorcee Grand Duchess, contrary to the wishes and strict code of Nicholas the Last.

Even could these allegations be successfully disproved, that would not draw to Cyril the loyalty evoked from Russians by the sheer, heroic magnitude of the Grand Duke Nicholas. The glory of his early victories, and of his masterly retreat from Warsaw, is not dimmed by the fact that Nicholas II finally withdrew command of the Western Front from the Grand Duke. Stories are still told of the iron discipline which he kept, and of the wise and genuine humanity with which he tempered it. Like Napoleon he was loved because he inspired his men to march and fight to their uttermost, exultant limit, while always feeding and bedding them as well as could 'by any possibility be done. That he defied the Tsar, the politicians and Rasputin separately, collectively and repeatedly is well known. On one celebrated occasion the Black Monk had persuaded the Tsar to order that he, Rasputin, should inspect the Crank Duke Nicholas' lines, and the "Debauchee" wired that he was coming. He changed his plans upon receiving a one-sentence telegram from the Grand Duke Nicholas:

COME AND I SHALL SEE THAT YOU ARE HANGED.

Today such sardonic defiance of an Absolute Autocrat and a Hypnotist-Monk may seem more witty than significant; but at the time it took titanic courage. No wonder the last, scattered, phantom remnants of the Imperial Army have remained fanatically loyal to Nicholas. Last week, in Nice, the Grand Duke, stricken with pneumonia, sank low, and lower. Oxygen was finally administered and some recovery noted; but tearful, fatalistic members of Nicholas' entourage seemed to sense and fear that the old warrior was joining his last battle with Death.

* Prince Dimitri has been employed for some years in Manhattan, Prince Rostislav in Chicago.