Photograph of the Russian monk Grigory Rasputin from The War of the Nations Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings Compiled from the Mid-Week Pictorial. Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his wife were introduced to Rasputin in 1907. According to Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, Rasputin, 'wheedled them, dazzled them, dominated them.'
Gregory Rasputin, the charlatan who was the evil genius of the Russian Court and was assassinated in December, 1916.
"Yesterday Rasputin was run over on the Nevsky Prospekt by a troika going at full speed. He was picked up with a slight wound on the head.After the incident to Madame Vyrubova five days ago, this fresh warning from Heaven is only too eloquent! The war is displeasing God more than ever!"
Entry from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, for Wednesday, January 20, 1915.Tsar Nicholas and his German-born wife Tsaritsa Alexandra were introduced to the monk Rasputin in 1907, and Paléologue earlier (September 28, 1914) reported that 'Rasputin obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over the Tsar and Tsaritsa,' in part because the empress believed the monk could heal her son of the hemophilia he shared with many on his mother's side. Anna Viroubova, lady-in-waiting, friend, and confidant to Alexandra, spent many evenings alone with the royal family, which isolated itself. Viroubova was seriously injured in a railway accident on January 2, 1915. Many in Petrograd blamed her, Rasputin, and the Tsaritsa for the Tsar's isolation. Viroubova was imprisoned during the first Russian Revolution in 1917.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. I by Maurice Paléologue, page 260, publisher: George H. Doran Company, publication date: 1925
1915-01-20, January, 1915, Rasputin
