A Mother of Czars. By Mrs. Colqnhoun Grant. (John Murray.
12s. net.)—This "Mother of Czars" was the Princess Dorothea of Wartemberg who married the Czarevitch Paul, son of Catherine II., assuming the name of Marie Feodorowna. The Czar's two sons were Alexander L and Nicholas I. By what is well called "a curious arrangement," "whereas the Duke's sons were brought up as Lutherans, his daughters, though instructed in religion, were members of no Church." "This was done," we are told with admirable naiveté," with a view to their future marriages, so that they might adopt that of their husbands." Possibly this was better than that they should have to renounce, and even curse, their Church. But what a hideous mockery the whole business is ! Mrs. Grant's book consists largely of details of a tour made by the Grand Duke Paul and his wife during the years 1780-81. The most enjoyable time was spent in France. Paul appears as an amiable and most sensible person, and the change that manifested itself when he became Czar is as strange as it is lamentable. Of course his mother did all that was possible to ruin his character. He was subjected to habitual repression, and to have all this removed and absolute power substituted for it might have upset even a strong intellect. That Paul was really a Romanoff seems exceedingly doubtful. Mrs. Grant makes a strange mistake when she quotes Voltaire's opinion of Catherine IL as having been written "at the timo of her death" (p. 214). She died in 1796, when Voltaire had been dead eighteen years.
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