The Paleys at The Start of World War One
Now aged fifty-four, Grand Duke Paul and his wife were still busy organizing their new home [when World War One started]. Within a few months it was almost fully furnished with their collections from Paris, glass cases containing valuable antique porcelain and silver, Chinese stone knick-knacks, and exquisite examples of cut glass, and walls hung with priceless pictures and portraits. His wife was still known as Countess of Hohenfelsen, the name conferred on her by the Prince Regent of Bavaria. It was impolitic for her to retain a German name, and as she could not be made a Grand Duchess, in 1915 the Tsar conferred on her and her children the style and name of Prince and Princesses Paley. The move came just in time, as their son Vladimir left for the front a few days later.
Before he went to war, initially in command of a corps of the imperial guard and then at army headquarters, Paul spent most of his leisure time reading, walking, playing with his younger daughters and taking them to the circus. Princess Paley excused herself from this treat as she was allergic to the smell of horses. Their daughter Irina disliked circuses herself, but she never had the heart to tell her father as he obviously enjoyed himself so much.
Soon after the outbreak of war they transformed their ballroom into a workshop where Princess Paley, the ladies of Tsarskoe-Selo and their children made comforts for wounded soldiers. No orchestra played there, but one evening they pushed back tables and sewing machines, and Paul invited Irina to waltz with him to The Merry Widow played on an old gramophone.
The divorced Grand Duchess Marie Paulovna felt her father had hardly aged at all. At fifty-five he still had a youthful figure, as well as the gift of reducing her to helpless laughter at stories and anecdotes 'which he told incomparably. His dressing room was still permeated by the scent of the perfume he had always used, and his clothes were laid out on the spare bed in the old way'. Just as before, father and daughter went for a walk at eleven in the morning, and he took a nap between lunch and teatime. After dinner every evening they gathered in his study while he read aloud. For Marie it was a haven to return to this homely atmosphere, away from the stress of her hospital work.
The rest of the imperial family were becoming steadily less popular. As Rasputin's influence mounted, so did criticism of the Tsar and Tsarina. The latter and Grand Duchess Serge, those 'German women', or even 'Hessian witches', were easy targets for nationalist venom. As the Tsarina was blamed for much of what went wrong, and found herself treated with hostility by other members of the imperial family, Paul sprang gallantly to her defence. He remained ever supportive of her, consulted her regularly on day-to-day matters and kept her informed of his conversations with the French ambassador. According to his daughter he, if not the rest of the family, 'seemed to be sustained by courage, wisdom, and the power of abstract reasoning'. The Crowd's moods left him untouched. He followed attentively, though not without agitation, the unfoldment of fanatical developments and the changed psychology at court.
Yet, almost unnoticed by the family, his health was declining, his determination to take a relatively active role in military affairs not matched by his physical strength. For some years before his return to Russia there had been concern about the state of his liver, and a tendency to suffer from stomach ulcers. During the winter of 1915-6 he was seriously ill with pleurisy, and his eldest daughter was horrified to see him so weak. He was losing weight, had a suspected gall bladder infection, and at one stage there was talk of operating on him in order to save his life. While the possibility of losing him suddenly seemed unbearable, she would later admit that she often had cause to regret that he did not die then.
The Romanovs 1818-1959 - John Van Der Kiste
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