(Ella of Hesse)
(1864-1918)
part 1
The story of her husband's ancestress, St. Elisabeth of Hungary, left a deep impression on Princess Alice of Great Britain, who was married to Prince Louis of Hesse Darmstadt. On November 1st., 1864, Alice gave birh to her second child, a girl to whom she gave her first name after the Saint. Elisabeth Alexandra Louise Alice was the newborn's complete name, but she was called just Ella. Alice did't know that the life of this girl would be very similar to that of St. Elisabeth.
Elisabeth had a secure and carefree childhood, together with her elder sister Victoria to whom she was very attached. On 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, Princess Alice sent Victoria and Ella to Windsor where she tought they would be safetier under the care of their grandmother, Queen Victoria. The girls spent seven weeks in England and when the war ended they returned home. Ella was delighted to see her mother again and she found she had a new little sister, Irene, who had been born while her sisters were in England.
Of the three girls, Ella had the prettiest face and was more docile than Victoria.
An usual visitor to Darmstadt was Empress Marie of Russia, who was Ella's great-aunt, being the sister of her grandfather, Prince Charles of Hesse. Empress Marie was married to Tsar Alexander II and when she came to Darmstadt she usually brought with her her two younger sons, Serge and Paul, a pair of years older than Elisabeth. Serge and Elisabeth became very attached to each other since they met.
In 1870, another war devasted Europe, the Franco-Prussian War. This was the first time Elisabeth saw the reality of war. Princess Alice spent her time nursing the wounded soldiers so Ella was in direct contact with suffering.
Among the Hessian children, the eldest, Victoria, was the one who led her siblings. She was a bit tomboy while Elisabeth, in the other hand was more feminine. As she grew up she began to rebel against Victoria's rule and both sisters began to share authority. On November, 1878, all the Hessian children, except Ella, fell ill with diphteria. Ella, accompanied by her governess, Margaret Hardcastle Jackson, was sent to her paternal grandmother's house to prevent her from getting ill. Grand Duke Louis got ill too. Princess Alice nursed the family and at last she contracted the disease. The younger sister, May, died on November 16 and Princess Alice died on December 14. The rest of the family recovered.
When Elisabeth at last could see her family she wrote: "It was a terribly sad meeting, no one darring to speak of what was uppermost in their thoughts. Poor Papa looked dreadfully miserable -Ernie, very pale, but otherwise calm, he does not realised it, as none of us can do yet It seems like a horrible dream- would that it were" (Mager). From then on, Queen Victoria looked after her orphan grandchildren as a mother had done.
As she grew into teenage, Elisabeth began to be atractive to men; she was becoming a beauty. There was an Arrmy Cramming School in Darmsatdt and soon many young Englishmen began to visit the Hessian girls. The first man who set his eyes on Elisabeth was Lord Charles Montague, son of the Duchess of Manchester, who was Princess Alice's friend, who was in Dramstadft to study German. Another Englishman, Henry Wilson, who later would became a distinguish soldier wrote about Elisabeth: "She was the most beautiful creature of God I have ever seen" (Mager).
In September 1879 Grand Duke Louis's aunt Empress Marie of Russia came to Darmsatdt to have some rest because she had been very sick. Her two youngest sons, Sege and Paul, who had been Ella's childhood comapnions, came with her. When Grand Duke Sege saw Ella a a young woman, he instantly liked her. Sege was a tall and slim man with a good looking face, green eyes and a close beard. He was a solitary person, deeply religious and with an artistic mind. Victoria and Elisabeth's first impression of the Russian brothers was that they were boring. In October they returned to Russia.
During the next two years, a series of dreadfull events happened in Russia that would be of much importance in Ella's future. Empress Marie, who was very ill, lay in her uppe floor bedroom in the Winter Palace, while Tsra Alexander II was in the floor below with his brother in law, Prince Alexander of Hesse and the Pince's sons Louis and Alexander, whebn a teerrible explosion was heard in the dinningroom. Nobody was hurt; Empress Marie was quite ill that she didnt't even heard the explosion, which was caused by a bomb, placed in the palace in attempt to kill the Tsar. Empress Marie died on June 3, with no one present at her bedside. Wiithin a few weeks, Alexander II married his mistress Ekatherina Dolgoruki. On March 31, 1881, Alexander, in his way back to Winter Palace suffered another attempt against his life, but this time it succeded. A Nihilist terrorist threw a bomb towards the tsar's carriage; Alexander was unhurt, but as he got off the carriage in order to see what had happened, another terrorist threw a second bomb. This time the Tsar's body was completely mutilated and his face desfigured; Still alive, he was inmediately transfered to the Winter Palace, where he died a few hours later.
Grand Duke Serge was in Italy at the time of his father's murder. He had loved his father very much, and for him, the person of the Tsar was sacred and no one should put ones's hands on it. An intensed hatred towards the terrorists and revolutionary currents arosed in him, and he was form then on, decided to defend the autocratic power of the Tsar. He took the command of tyhe Preobrazhensky regiment and imposed a ruthless discipline. In this regiment it prevailed a sorrounding of heavy drinkingand a deep comradeship, so deep that it bordered on homosexuality. One of their strange pastimes was to run out naked into the midnight snow, howling like wolves and sipping champaigne from a vat. It was said that Sege was the one who had coceived this pastime. Surely it was during his time in the Preobrazhensky regiment when Sege emerged as homosexual.
In 1882, Serge and his brother Paul traveled to Hesse again. This time Elisabeth saw him under a different light; she saw him as a man shocked by the recently los of his parents. She had felt the same at her mother's death. She also felt atractted by his culture and his great religious sense, so she felt in love. Anyway, she still had some doubts because she didn't like Russia, and her grandmother Queen Victoria, who had always hated Russains, had advaised her agaisnt the match, but at last she made up her mind and accepted Serge.
On October 13, 1883, Elisabeth wrote to Queen Victoria: "Dearest Grandmama: I am afraid this letter will not give you as much pleasure as I should wish, but as it concerns my happines and you have been always so kind to me. I wish you to know what I think about Serge....I shall be happy with him... we have the same tastes for things and although he may have opinions you don't like, do you you not think, dear Grandmama, that I might do him good?... We both have that great sorrow of loosing one we love so dearly that it draws us closer together and we feel for each other more...I think I know what I'm doing...please forgive me if you are vexed whith what I shall do..." (Mager). Queen Victoria was evidently shocked; she wrote to Ella's sister Victoria: "...Dear Ella, she really is so changeable and unaccountable, she told me how she hated Russians, she refused Serge 3 weeks ago and now she takes him and forgets all." (Mager).
The offcial announcement of Elisabeth's engagement to Grand Duke Serge was held on February 26 1884, in the presence of Serge's brother, Tsar Alexander III and his wife, Empress Marie Feodorovna, who granted Ella with the Order of St. Catherine and gave her a brooch with diamonds and saphires. Serge gave her a shwal and a bracelet which had belonged to his mother. Queen Victoria at last accepted tjhe match and wrote Ella a letter giving her her blessings. Afterwards, Ella visited the Queen in Windsor. Victoria gave her granddaughter "plenty advices and warnings about married life in Russia".
Elisabeth and Serge were married on June 14, 1884 in St Petersburg. Elisabeth wore the jewels of Catherine the Great, a diadem with a brilliant pink diamond, a necklace of diamonds, heavy earings with cherry shape. On her head she wore a lace veil with a crimson crown adorned with a cross and covered with diamonds.
For the oneymoon, the newlymarrieds went to an estate Serge had inherited from here mother, ten miles away from Moscow: Illinskoe. Soon it was obvious for Elisabeth that Serge had no physical interest in her. She was very discreet about this matter so there is no tangible proof of Serge's homosexuality, but in spite the evidence that all women in her family were fertile, and she never had issue, makes it probable and almost sure. Anyway she was determined to "love, honor and obey her husband" As the time passed, the adoration she felt for Serge became a fraternal love; she now loved him as she had loved her father or her brother. By his side, Serge also showed her only a paternal affection, anyway he still gaving her jewels and fine dresses. For Elisabeth's sorrow, she desperately wanted a child and about Serge , she could not "did him good" as she had written to Queen Victoria; on the contrary Serge was more inflexible than ever and his political views were irrevocable, so Elisabeth had to give up in softening her husband's character.
She refuged herself in religion. In St. Petersburg, she used to attend Lutheran services, but in 1888, she made a trip to Holy Land that would change her life.
St. Magdalene, a Russian Orthodox church, had been built in Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, as a memorial to Serge's mother, Empress Marie. Alexander III had comissioned his brothers, Serge and Paul, to represent him at the consecration, and Elisabeth joined them in September 1888. She wrote to her brother: "You cannot think how joyful it is rto see all these Holy places, to go on the same roads where our Lord walked and lived... You cannot imagine what profound impression it makes on entering the Holy Sepulcre". There she prayed that by a miracle, she might bear a child. At the consecration of St. Magdalene Church, the emotive Orthodox service, made her doubt of the Lutheran religion and she began to believe that the Russian was the true one.
When she returned to St. Petersburg, Ella was other; she had found that Orthodoxy offered her the most direct approach to God. She wrote to her brother: "I adore my new country and so learnt to love their relgion" (Mager). Her new interests on Orthodoxy gained her a new approaching to her husband. They bothe spent together raniy evenings at Illinskoe, reading works on oerthodoxy, while Serge explained all points of the doctrine to her. On January I, 1891, Ella wrote to her father aboutb her decistion to convert. Grand Duke Louis was shocked and angrily answered: "...God protect and forgive you if doing wrong". On the other hand, her sister Victoria and her grandmother, Queen Victoria, both understood her decition. Some days later Elisabeth converted to Orthodoxy, and now she became "the truely believing Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna".
After her conversion, Ella used to prayed and wroshipped among the peasants, whch made her very popular. Prince Nicholas of Greece wrote about her:"After her conversion there was in her character a certainmixture of idealism and mmistery, added to her natural charm, which made her adored by all with whom she came into contact" (Mager)
The propagation of radicalism and of the Nihilists, Socilaists and Marxists doctrines among the students in Moscow made Tsar Alexander III to adopt a policy of represion and he tought that the adequate man to develope it was his brother Grand Duke Serge, so he named him Governor General of Moscow. So Serge and Elisabeth left St. Petersbuerg and settled down in Moscow. Soon Serge began to exercise his policuy in the most brutal manner He ordered that hte 20,000 Jews that lived in the city to be expelled, and those of who, for some reason had stayed in the city, were brutally treated; the Jew young girls were forced to register as prostitues if they wanted to stay in Moscow.. Severe restrictions were also imposed to students and profesors in the Universities. Which those meassures, he soon make a large number of enemies. For Elisabeth, it was a surprise to find out this oscure side in Serge's character and she deepley disliked it. She tought him as a good Christian, incapable of such cruelties so she began to distance from him and he surrounded himself with a group of excentric friends. Elisabeth's life in Moscow became more lonely that it had been in St. Petersburg.
She devoted herself to raised money for the starving; she visited hospitals, prissons and orphanages. She even tried to build a refuge for mothers with illegitimate children. Her popularity grew and help to balance Serge's unpopularity.
