. Court life from within . ght suddenly flashed into my mind thatthe Russian Emperors alone claim the right to gov-ern the souls as well as the bodies of their Autocrat is a great ecclesiastical personage aswell as a secular ruler, and the Russian Church de-pends upon him and can do nothing without his con-sent. I remembered that banishment to Siberia wasthe punishment for those who deserted the OrthodoxChurch and refused to believe as the Tsar believesand to pray as the Tsar prays. The Kings of Spainand the Emperors of Austria are sons, not rulers,of the Church, and I had been ta
. Court life from within . ght suddenly flashed into my mind thatthe Russian Emperors alone claim the right to gov-ern the souls as well as the bodies of their Autocrat is a great ecclesiastical personage aswell as a secular ruler, and the Russian Church de-pends upon him and can do nothing without his con-sent. I remembered that banishment to Siberia wasthe punishment for those who deserted the OrthodoxChurch and refused to believe as the Tsar believesand to pray as the Tsar prays. The Kings of Spainand the Emperors of Austria are sons, not rulers,of the Church, and I had been taught that the Popewas king of kings. It seemed to me that no worseform of despotism could be conceived than the con-centration in the hands of an autocratic ruler of thespiritual and temporal power and, as these thoughtscrowded into my mind, there seemed to me some-thing sinister and terrible in the ceremony I waswatching, and I realised, as I had never done be-fore, the Immensity and the awfulness of the power !^?VWt. Courtesy of Colliers Nicholas II and the Heir of Russia THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE wielded by the motionless figure beneath the gaypavilion. Nobody rejoiced more than I did whenthe Emperor published the Manifesto of April,1905, granting his subjects religious liberty, and Irealised that the stupendous claim which had mademe shudder when I thought of it, as I watched thesumptuous Twelfth Day ceremony from the win-dows of the Winter Palace, had been renounced forever. In point of fact, Nicholas II. had no desireto maintain it, and he renounced it as soon as anappropriate occasion arose. After the picturesque ceremony which had stirredthese thoughts had ended and the Archbishop haddipped a golden cross in the water running belowthe ice of the river, the holy water was brought intothe palace to the Empress, and the Emperor joinedus. He gave me a characteristically Russian wel-come. His manner was engagingly simple and un-affected. The contrast between him and the G
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcourtsandcourtiers
