Version francais
Alix and her siblings were under the care of an English nanny named Mary Anne Orchard, familiarly called by the children "Orchie", who ruled the nursery under the explicit instructios of Princess Alice. The first contact that Alix had with tragedy was in 1873, when she was a year old, at the death of her brother Freidrich, who fall from an open window to a stone terrace, about twenty feet below. Friedrich was an hemophiliac so he died because of the bleeding on the brain. Alix didn't remember her brother quite well, but Princess Alice used to take her children regulary to visit their death brother's crypt. In 1877, Grand Duke Louis III of Hesse died and Alix's father became Louis IV of Hesse and Alice, because of her duties as First Lady of the duchy, was less time with her children, so she became a lesser part in the three-year-old Alix's life. During the summer of 1878, Alix, her siblings and her parents went to England to visit Queen Victoria. They also visited other relatives along Europe. Back in Darmstadt, on November 5, the eldest sister, Victoria fall ill with diphteria. Inmediately the New Palace was put under quarantine. By November 11, Victoria was out of danger, but the next day, Alix fell ill. She was quicly followed by the rest of her siblings (Irene, Ernest and May), except Ella, who was sent away. Even Grand Duke Louis fell ill. Princess Alice devoted herself to nurse her family. Princess May died on the nigth of the sixteenth. Alice kept the sad notice away from the rest of the children, but Ernest kept asking about his little sister and finally his mother told him May was death. Alice gave the children a kiss. By the first week of December Alice had contracted the disease. The rest of the family began t recovered but Alice didn't. Finally Alix lost her mother on December 14, the same day her grandfather, Prince Albert had died seventeen years before. from that day on, a sad look appeared constantly on Alix's face and would remained for the rest of her life. Queen Victoria became a mother for her orphan grandchildren. Alix spent many summers of her youth in England with the Queen.To her, her grandmother was "an imposing lady of somewhat large girth, encased in black silk wich rustled with every movement", but above everything else, the Queen was a friend and counselor for Alix. On the summers spent at Queen Victoria's residences, Osborne and Balmoral, Alix departed with some of her many cousins, mainly the Prince of Wales's children (Eddy, George, Louise, Victoria and Maud), and with Marie Louise of Schleswig Holstein, her aunt Helena's daughter, who was about Alix's same age. Under Queen Victoria's supervision, Alix became an authentic English princess. An English woman, named Margaret Hardcastle Jackson, became her tutor, an was responsible in parte for Alix's independent thinking. Alix cared little for social work but was conscious that helping the poor was a duty for every princess. She was a good student with an excellent memory and she spoke perfectly German and English.
Inthe summer of 1884, Alix's sister, Ella, married Grand Duke Serge of Russia, a brother of Tsar Alexander III, so Alix went to Russia with her family to attend the wedding. Tsar Alexander was a very tall and strong man, with gruff manners, but a kind heart, who deslike all kind of pomp and festivities. His wife, Empress Marie Feodorovna, was the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and sister of Alexandra, Princess of Wales. They have five children: the Tsarevitch Nicholas, the Grand Dukes George and Michael, and the Grand Duchessses Xenia and Olga. Nicholas was born on 1868 and by the time of Alix's visit to Russia, he was sixteen years old; Alix was just twelve. He was a handsome and charming boy and was a second cousin to Alix. His paternal grandmother was Marie of Hesse Darmstadt, a sister of Alix's grandfather, Charles of Hesse. Alix and Nicholas first met on Jun 8, 1884, and as he recorded on his dairy, he liked her very much. It is uncertain about Alix's feelings for the Tsarevitch during this visit,
The next visit Alix made to Russia to visit her sister was in 1889. Now she was a beutiful seventeen year old girl and Nicholas was handsom and slim, but not very tall, young man of twenty one. Ella and her husband encouraged the pair to be together for a possible marriage between them. But Alix's grandmother, Queen Victoria, didn't think as Ella. The Queen had always deslike Russians; to her Russia was a far and uncivilzed land with savage coustumes. Instead,she had think Alix as a possible bride for her grandson, Prince Eddy, elder son of the Prince of Wales and heir pressumtive to the throne of England. In 1889 the Queen summoned Alix to Balmoral; Eddy was there too. He took his cousin to walk over the hills and to carriage rides looking for the right moment to declare, but when the moment came, Alix rejected him . Later on Alix wrote Eddy how it hurt her to pain him and that she liked him ver much as cousin but she would not be happy with him. She told him that if she was forced she would marry him but neither she nor he would be happy. So in spite Alix's determination, even Queen Victoria had to give up the match. But the Queen was worried about Alix trying to married the Tsarevitch, so she found another candidate for her granddaughter. This time it was Prince Max of Beden. But Alix declared that she would not marry the prince and Queen Victoria had to give up again. There was only on man on Alix's mind: the Tsarevitch Nicholas. But there was an impediment for her to accept him. To marry the heir of the Russian throne, Alix had to reject her Lutheran religion and became into the Orthodox faith, and it was very difficult for her. On Nicholas' side, he loved Alix with all his heart but his parents didn't agree with the engagement and they didn't give him permission to ask for Alix's hand.