The Witches of St. Petersburg

¹⁰ 16 June 1900, Znamenka, Peterhof

Militza recalled how she spent all that morning briefing Philippe. Not that the Tsarina’s desire for a son was a secret any more; there had been mutterings in the foreign press, even The New York Times, and it was by now, frankly, all the salons of St Petersburg could gossip about, that, and her persistent bouts of back pain, her reclusiveness, plus her inability to attend any event at court without looking visibly bored, completely withdrawn, or leaving early.

So both Militza and Stana who sat, side by side, on the buttoned sofa in her Red Salon felt no discomfiture in enthusiastically sharing Alexandra’s innermost secrets.

To say that Militza wanted to believe all of Philippe’s glittering recommendations was an understatement.

She remembered feeling this man had been sent to her by Spirit; she had seen his face at night as she stared between two mirrors, chanting her mantras and burning her herbs, he’d appeared to her with his beatific smile and his healing hands, crossing himself and assuring her that all would be well. He was exactly who she had been waiting for: a mystic from Lyon, who had been feted in the fashionable drawing rooms of Paris. What higher recommendation was there?

And here he was. Just as she’d hoped, he was finely dressed, with clean, manicured fingers and he neither screeched, nor vomited, nor stank of the slums of St Petersburg. He was shorter and more rotund than she’d anticipated; however, he could mix easily at court and, naturally, spoke excellent French and was far more palatable to the Tsarina’s refined sensibilities. In short, he wasn’t Russian and frankly, that was a relief.

So Militza was not only relieved as they retired to the salon after their light luncheon, she was bristling with optimism. And her sister? Well, Stana appeared to be already in his thrall. Her dark eyes were shining and her lips could not help but smile.

The footman just managed to announce the arrival of the Tsarina before she burst into the room, her white chiffon skirts rustling.

‘You’re here!’ she declared, directly addressing Maître Philippe, who was so shocked at the speed of her arrival, he didn’t know whether to leap out of his seat, or bow, or both.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ he said, standing to attention before bending deferentially low.

‘Your Imperial Majesty, please may I present Monsieur Philippe Nizier-Vachot?’ said Militza. ‘A truly holy man.’

‘Impératrice…’ He bowed again. His southern French accent grated slightly.

‘How was your journey? How long have you been here? Tell me,’ Alix paused, looking a little wistful, ‘how is Paris? Cannes? Did you meet in Cannes?’

‘Not meet, but Count Muravyov-Amursky could talk of nothing else,’ Militza acknowledged. ‘We were having luncheon on La Croisette when he told me so many stories about Maître Philippe’s abundant gifts, his ability to cure so many varied ailments, it was imperative he came here to St Petersburg. Countess Ignatiev invited him.’

She sat down, her white skirts spread out over the divan, her back straight, her pale eyes catching the afternoon sun; Militza had not seen Alix this engaged, or this excited in months. It was clear that she too felt the power of Philippe, he was most certainly the man to answer both hers and the nation’s prayers.

‘Dear lady,’ began Philippe, smoothing down his thick lengthy moustache, ‘tell me your problems, for I am here to help.’

The pot of tea had long since turned cold by the time the Tsarina had finished talking. Philippe was now more intimate with her thoughts and fears than perhaps even the Tsar himself. As Alix left, Militza could not believe quite how wonderfully well the first meeting had gone. Maybe she and her sister had been a little indiscreet in telling him so many of the Tsarina’s secrets? Maybe they had revealed rather too much? But the result was so marvellously above their expectations. What did it matter that they might have betrayed a few too many confidences? Everything was going to be fine from now on.

It turned out to be a glorious summer. Everyone decamped for the long warm evenings of the Crimea, Nicky and Alix moving with their three little Grand Duchesses to the imperial summer palace, Livadia, along with the head nursery nurse, Mrs Orchard and their Irish nanny, Margaretta Eagar, while Militza and Peter with Marina, Roman and Nadejda, as well as Stana, George and their children, Sergei and Elena, moved nearby into their new summer house, Dulber. A homage to Peter’s obsession with Fifteenth Century Egyptian architecture and inspired by his travels in Syria, Dulber (meaning ‘splendid’ in Arabic) was a grand and glamorous project that had taken him two years to oversee. With silver domes and more than one hundred rooms, it was stocked with delicious wines and had beautifully planted exotic gardens full of palms and fountains. It was like a vision from one of Scheherazade’s tales and their little slice of paradise. And of course, Philippe came too.

The families were inseparable. These were relaxed, languid happy days, away from the prying eyes of the court, where the hours were whiled away playing cards and highly competitive games of tennis, at which Nicky particularly excelled. In the afternoons the gentlemen swam off the Sapphire Coast, whilst the ladies took afternoon carriage rides and long walks in the fragrant rose gardens. Luncheons, spent together at Livadia, were long and included all the staff, as well as any visiting dignitaries who’d travelled the five days from St Petersburg with important court papers for the Tsar to sign. Afternoon tea a la anglaise was taken promptly at four, also at Livadia, whilst the evenings were spent in either of the palaces, discussing the day’s events, plus the goings-on at the numerous nearby country estates, before finally, after dinner, withdrawing to gather around the card table in the salon where Philippe or Militza would host séances long into the night, while the smell of henbane and hashish drifted out on to the verandas beyond.

Mostly Nicky wanted to converse with his father, discussing complex affairs of state, constantly asking, ‘What would Father have done?’ which bored his wife, but intrigued both Peter and George, who couldn’t help but question the veracity of such a discourse. It took all Peter’s willpower to hold his tongue.

On one memorable night the party spent the evening in the old Emperor’s bedroom in the Maly Palace, where the armchair in which Alexander III had died remained, untouched and unmoved, still turned to face the window and the view out over the Black Sea. The Tsar wept so uncontrollably while sitting in his father’s old armchair that everyone, save Alix, was forced to withdraw due to acute embarrassment.

However, the majority of the time Alix would try and control events, steering conversations away from dull foreign policy, the unrest in Manchuria and the dreary politics of government, back to family matters, summoning either her dear departed mother or her little sister May. Mostly, these sessions passed off without incident. There were the occasional breakages, little cut-glass goblets would tumble and shatter on the parquet floors at moments of particular excitement and once a Venetian lamp was upset during a vigorous bout of table tipping.

But there was one night in Livadia towards the end of August when the group were visited by something very uncomfortable indeed.

It was a particularly dark night, for the summer was on the move and the moon had long since disappeared behind thick cloud. The party had been drinking Kummel, some of them smoking small amounts of hashish out of little clay pipes. The mood was relaxed and a little merry. Even Militza had filled her small bowl full of aromatics and was feeling the pulsing force of her belladonna drops as her heart raced and her vision grew a little blurred. Despite the autumnal chill in the air, her hands, as she held on to the Tsar, were damp with sweat. She had been channelling for a while, her spirit guide leading the way through the miasma of souls and visitors who wanted to communicate with the illustrious company.

‘Wait!’ said Militza, her eyes half-closed, her elbows on the table as she held on to Nicky and Philippe. Her pale green silk evening dress shimmered in the candlelight. ‘There is someone else here…’ She opened her eyes and glanced around the room. ‘There!’ She spotted something in the corner. The rest of the assembled company followed her gaze.

‘Where?’ asked Peter, trying to see into the darkness.

‘Behind Stana,’ whispered George, who was transfixed, his mouth slightly ajar; his pupils, dilated through hash and alcohol, shone in the half-light. This was more than the usual trickery he’d been witness to.

Alix gasped as a young girl dressed in a white nightdress walked slowly out of the shadows. She must have been about six years old; her feet were bare, her hair hung long and loose over her shoulders and her hands were covering her eyes.

‘May?’ asked Alix, a little confused, for she was small enough to be her sister but so far, in all their conversations, May had never actually manifested, and anyway, this child was thin and dark, whereas May had had blonde hair and deliciously fat cheeks.

‘Happy… Birthday… to… you…’ Philippe started to sing in a quiet, low voice. For the child looked as if she were covering her eyes, waiting for her birthday surprise. A cake with candles? ‘Happy birthday… to… you…’ continued Philippe, conducting along with his short fingers.

‘… to you…’ Stana joined in, nodding and smiling at Philippe across the table, matching him note for note.

‘Happy birthday…’ sang Alix, also copying Philippe, her head nodding in time to the song.

‘… dear…’ added the Tsar, a little tentatively.

They all turned to stare as the girl flung her arms into the air. Alix screamed, Stana gasped and Militza covered her mouth in horror. The small, white-faced child stood there, her face expressionless, her mouth impassive – but instead of eyes she had two deep black holes. It was as though they had been gouged out, leaving two dark, soulless pits. They all stared, terrified, not daring to breathe. And then she spoke. It was not the sing-song voice of a child, but a deep and low demonic growl that seemed to come from the very depths of hell.

‘The man who turns his back on God,’ she snarled, facing each one of the assembled in turn with her empty black sockets, ‘looks the Devil in the face!’

She then turned and walked back into the shadows. Alix started to whimper and weep with fear while Stana looked across at her sister, who in turn stared at Philippe, looking for some sort of explanation.

‘Well,’ he began, rubbing his smooth hands together, as he blinked rapidly behind his round, wire-rimmed spectacles, ‘the advice of a fallen angel, um, a very fallen angel, should not – not be taken too seriously. And no one here has turned their back on the Lord, not one of us. No one has turned their back on God,’ he repeated. ‘No one at all.’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘So – so I think we should simply ignore this.’

Alix nodded in agreement and mumbled. ‘Yes. Ignore it.’

‘For the Lord moves in mysterious ways,’ went on Philippe, growing in the confidence of his diagnosis.

‘Of course,’ confirmed Peter.

‘And we all have faith,’ agreed Stana.

‘Yes,’ confirmed Nicholas. ‘All of us.’

The only person to remain silent was Militza herself who, as she picked up her small glass of claret, found it difficult to stop her hand from shaking. She glanced over at Peter; his grey eyes were fixed on her, his expression questioning. Militza looked at him and slowly and almost imperceptibly shook her head.

The incident was not mentioned again. However, Philippe decided to avail the Tsar of a small golden bell that would magically ring if an evil person were ever to approach him. Its sound was only audible to Maître Philippe himself, but the Tsar insisted on taking it with him wherever he went, and with the political situation as it was, with increasing unrest in the countryside, one could never be too careful.

The other thing Militza recalled from that period was Maître Philippe’s magic hat which, when he wore it, would not only make him invisible but also those who travelled with him. Although she could not personally vouch for the efficacy of the cap, for the only time she bore witness to it was when she spotted her sister out in a carriage with the Monsieur, his hat firmly in place.

‘I saw you out driving with Maître Philippe this afternoon,’ she mentioned to her sister, later that evening over a glass of tea on the veranda.

Stana looked rather puzzled. ‘But that is impossible?’

‘It is?’

‘Maître Philippe was wearing his magic hat, so neither of us was visible at all.’ Militza raised her eyebrows. ‘He told me so himself.’

‘How strange,’ said Militza.

‘Impossible,’ confirmed Stana.

‘I must have been mistaken,’ her sister replied.

However, not one of Militza’s growing concerns about Philippe and his practices mattered much because one afternoon in October, as they were playing bezique in her Mauve Boudoir at Tsarskoye Selo, listening to little Olga learning to play the piano, Alix tentatively declared to Militza that she was with child again at last.

Over the next few months, excitement in the court grew as the Tsarina disappeared from view, removing her corset and putting on her customary dark velvet loose-fitting gowns, declining all dinner invitations and refusing even to go to Grand Duchess Vladimir’s pre-Christmas Bazaar. The Tsar himself was abuzz with energy and the news spread at speed across the empire. Letters of congratulations arrived from some of the farthest estates and Militza’s mother sent a short telegram welcoming the good news. The sisters were delighted. Their trust in Philippe had been vindicated, but no one was more delighted than the Countess Ignatiev, whose Black Salon was now so glamorously popular that anyone who had ever been to Dr Badmaev’s apothecary was clamouring for an invitation. For if the Tsar and his wife were embracing the black arts with seemingly magical results, then what better way to try and ingratiate oneself with the increasingly isolated couple than to follow suit?

At the Palm Ball the following year, the Tsarina’s good news was now visible for all her intimate circle to see, and Militza and Stana’s position at court was unassailable. Resplendent in their couture dresses, their arrival at the annual intimate gathering for five hundred of the most powerful and connected, on the arms of their respective husbands, caused a parting of the crowds.

The Grand Duchess Vladimir was one of the first to approach. With a flutter of ostrich feathers and lace she was at her most friendly and beguiling best. She picked up a Sobranie cigarette from a crystal case, removed the band stamped with a double-headed eagle and waited for a footman to light it.

‘Wonderful evening, don’t you think?’ She smiled, exhaling a plume of grey-blue smoke and waving her fan in a futile attempt to ward off the claustrophobic heat of the ballroom. ‘Your friend from Lyon not here?’

‘Alas, no. He has more important things to do than attend parties,’ declared Stana, with a tilt of her chin as she surveyed the Malachite Hall.

‘How foolish of me! A man of his talents, he must be off healing the sick somewhere…’ She cleared her throat. ‘Tell me, will you be in Moscow this Easter?’

‘I am not sure,’ replied Militza, acknowledging the half-bowed head of Baroness Buxhoeveden.

‘It depends on the Empress,’ added Stana, doing the same.

‘Of course,’ concurred Maria Pavlovna.

‘Being so heavy with child she may not want to travel,’ continued Stana.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Maria Pavlovna swiftly. ‘We all know how difficult it is for her to carry.’

‘Do we?’ asked Militza, turning back and fixing her with a dark stare.

‘Some of us, obviously, are privy to much more than others, but her discomfort is well known.’ The Grand Duchess continued, hesitating a little, ‘Well known in general, but to her exclusive intimates, I am sure there are many other secrets.’

The woman began to blush, much to Militza’s pleasure. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed with a small, self-satisfied smile. ‘There are many other secrets.’

‘May I?’ interrupted the tall elegant figure of Nikolai Nikolayevich, as he bowed his head and clicked his heels together, offering his hand to Stana. ‘I know how well you dance the polonaise.’

She glanced briefly across towards George who seemed to be engaging the attentions of a young tittering female over a glass of champagne. She exhaled furiously; why not? Imperiously she took Nikolai Nikolayevich’s hand – and along with it the attention of the room. Why was she, a married woman, dancing so intimately with her brother-in-law? And as they danced through the hall, holding hands and bending their knees, the younger girls in their fresh white frocks, out at a dance for the very first time, could do little but stand to one side and stare, letting the more glamorous, powerful and distinctly more fascinating couple through. In fact, the only person to turn their face away in a moment of overt irritation was the Dowager Empress, Maria Fyodorovna, who had long since given up being remotely cordial to either sister. Ever since she’d heard of the séances and the table-tipping evenings at Znamenka she had ceased to accept their visiting cards or invitations to afternoon tea at Annunciation Square.

‘Congratulations,’ came the whispered, tobacco-tinged tones of Count Yusupov in Militza’s ear. The cold hatred in his voice was enough to freeze the steppes of Siberia but Militza stood her ground, sipped her champagne and instead of turning to face him, she continued to look ahead and smiled rigidly at the glittering swirl of dancers. ‘I hear you have made it into the bedchamber itself. Collecting the morning pot, or so I am told.’ He paused. ‘How very befitting.’

‘Believe what you wish,’ she replied curtly, maintaining her gaze on the dance floor.

‘And your friend? Or “Our Friend” as I gather he is now known, remains in the bedchamber all night, I hear? I suspect that special invisible hat of his must come in useful, during the moment critique!’ He chuckled.

‘Well, the Tsarina is with child,’ she hissed, turning at last to face him.

‘I didn’t think pregnancy was the problem. Just the lack of heir.’

‘This time I know it will be a boy.’

He smiled. ‘You know? Or you pray? Or, more accurately, chant and dance with your Devil, burning your herbs, crossing your little fingers and hoping to triumph? Because if it is not a boy, if you and your friend fail, then what? Where will your little Black Circle of mystics, miracle workers and gurus be then? If we have to welcome yet another girl? A Tsar with four daughters? How useless is that? But then, one only needs to ask your father, he’d know all about it.’

‘It’s a fool who underestimates the power of a woman.’ Militza turned back to face the dancers and took another sip of her champagne. She was determined not to let this puffed-up, florid dog of a man ruin her triumphant evening.

‘Perhaps,’ he replied. ‘But it is also a fool who puts all her trust in a hairdresser from Lyon.’

‘He’s a doctor.’

‘He’s been arrested five times in France for practising without a licence.’

‘He can cure syphilis.’

‘With what?’

‘Psychic fluids and astral forces.’

Count Yusupov laughed. ‘Those trifles may work in your salons and in the drawing rooms of your hysterical ladies, but in the real world, syphilis kills – and kills you very slowly. Your friend is no doctor, my lady. No doctor at all.’

‘I don’t see any of your doctors making a difference,’ she replied. ‘I don’t see any of your doctors doing anything at all.’

What was it about this man that he managed to get under her skin? What was it about this family that made them think their influence was superior and they were somehow above it all? In the end, she was the one who had access to the Tsar. Total, unadulterated access. No one could get to him without her approval. She and Stana were the gateway, they’d made sure of that. And their father could not have been more delighted. There was money for his barefoot soldiers in Montenegro; money for his roads; and Militza herself had paid for a shiny new water system in the capital, Cetinje. The Yusupovs would be forgotten when it came to write this chapter of history.

She withdrew from his company and walked behind a porphyry column before searching in her silk bag for a small green bottle. It contained a cocaine-laced liquor that Dr Badmaev had recently given to her to combat lethargy and nerves. She took a small swig and felt immediately rejuvenated. The consommé will soon be served, she thought and the Yusupovs will soon be defeated. Everything shall be as it should be. All she needed was a boy.