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i9i7] A DANISH EYE-WITNESS
appeared in their true light, that is to say with their
repulsive sides and their very real threats.
About a week after the Emperor’s abdication I
received a visit from an eminent member of the Danish
Red Cross who was returning from Petrograd and
who had been an eye-witness of all that had happened.
Amongst other things he told me that on the morning of
Tuesday, the 13th, summoned to Tsarskoe-Selo to be
presented to the Empress Alexandra, he had had the
greatest difficulty in reaching the Tsarskoe station on
foot. The rioters appeared to have got the upper hand
since the day before, and on his way sharp firing had
begun round the barracks of the Semenovsky regiment.
When he arrived at Tsarskoe and into the Empress’s
presence he did not conceal from her what he had just
seen. The Empress listened in silence and without
betraying the slightest emotion, then she passed on to
the object of the audience, talked with animation for
more than an hour on subjects relative to the Danish
gentleman’s mission to Russia, went over plans for huts
and accounts with him and dismissed him gracefully.
The very next day in this same palace she and her
children were the prisoners of the rebel soldiers of
the Tsarskoe garrison !
Well, this same Dane, having in his detailed account
mentioned the murder of several officers of the
Pavlovsky regiment (committed on Sunday or Monday
night), I asked him with surprise: " Then there were
some officers murdered after all ?" "But of course, did
you think a revolution could occur without? But when
I left Petrograd all recollection of these sanguinary
scenes was effaced; officers and men, military and
civilians were all one." Other eye-witnesses made
me realise that in any case the revolutionary days had
not been so free from massacre and cruelty as I had
imagined, relying on telegrams from agencies and
newspaper articles.
Finally towards the end of March a distinguished
compatriot of mine passed through Stockholm on his
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