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436 EVIL OMENS IN PETROGRAD [chap. xxii.
other Russians who, in spite of their foreign name, were
often unimpeachable patriots. But in himself this
individual, of a low class, and always to be bought,
constituted a real danger to those most weighty interests
which had been confided to him. Fortunately he had
not the time to perpetrate deeds of real treachery, but his
presence in the Government injured to a certain extent
Russian effort in the war, if only through the wide
breach which the promotion of a Sturmer caused between
the Emperor and the public opinion of the country.
I had not recovered from the emotion which the
news of M. Sazonoff’s departure had roused in me, as
in my allied colleagues, when a telegram was received
at the Legation begging that the news of the death of
our youngest son, killed in action on the 28th July,
should be broken to us as gently as possible. His body,
as well as those of his comrades killed in the battle,
was to be brought to Tsarskoe-Selo.
We were utterly unprepared for this grievous news ;
we did not know that the Imperial Guard had been
taking part near Kovel in some glorious fighting, but
which, alas ! was to be rendered fruitless by the marshes
of the Stohed.
Destined by fate to be in the attacking party, my
son, who was under the terrible fire of modern warfare
for the first time, did his whole duty. When his captain
fell he took command of his company and led it to the
enemy trenches. He was shot dead at once. His men,
deprived of their officers and having had all their
noncommissioned officers killed or wounded, succeeded
even so in getting into the enemy’s trench. (And one
year later the soldiers of the same regiment were
the worst rioters in the Army and deliberately left
the battlefields.) " Your son died like a hero," wrote the
colonel of his regiment to me, "leading his men to the
attack of strong^ enemy positions. He died during a
glorious fight which will remain one of the finest pages
in the history of his regiment. "
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