Some Books of the Week IF ever there was a
being whose life exhibited, almost from her earliest years, the quality which the Greeks called hubris, it was the last Empress of Russia. Such is the conclusion, though it is not definitely so stated in the book, that one comes to on reading Princess Catherine Radziwill's The Intimate Life of the Last Tsarina (Cassell, 12s. 6d.). The Empress, always entertaining a falsely exalted idea of her own importance and estranging from her husband nearly all who could give him good advice—even his own mother— antagonized the Russia-• aristocracy, hated the intelligentsia, repressed the commonalty ; and then there was Rasputin. All the elements of a tragic downfall were there, and Princess Radziwill, in a coldly judicial and strongly written narrative, gives them full value. She disclaims any idea of
writing an indictment, but the undisguised truth is the most terrible indictment of any. " Be more autocratic, my very own sweetheart ; show your mind," writes the ill- starred woman to her weak and doting husband ; " Go along, you coward," said Henrietta Maria to Charles I. ; and in either case the results of the advice were singularly, tragically alike. " It would be useless to deny that this woman of destiny was the principal cause of the ruin of Russia."
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