Trepov was dismissed in late December and replaced by Prince N. D. Golitsyn, who would be the last Prime Minister of the old regime. Aware that he was utterly unsuited for the job, Golitsyn begged to be spared on the grounds of ill health, old age, and inexperience, but the Tsar would not hear of it. By then, the cabinet, for all practical purposes, had ceased to function anyway, so that the office of Prime Minister had become largely ceremonial.
The Imperial family, having taken up residence in the more intimate Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, led a quiet life after the return of Nicholas. They broke off contact with most of the family: at Christmas of 1916, there were no exchanges of gifts. Protopopov came once or twice a week with his reports, which were subtly attuned to the Imperial couple’s mood, as conveyed to him by Vyrubova.132 He was invariably reassuring: rumors of plots against the Imperial family were groundless, the country was quiet, and the government disposed of ample force to quell any disorders. To make these assurances more convincing, Protopopov organized letter-writing campaigns from ordinary people who told the Court of their love and loyalty and opposition to political changes: these Alexandra proudly displayed to visitors.133 They helped reinforce Nicholas and his wife in the conviction that all the troublemakers lived in the capital. The fact that an unusually severe winter had brought railway traffic in some parts of the country to a virtual standstill, further depleting food and fuel supplies in the cities, went unreported. So did the fact that workers in Petrograd, driven to desperation by shortages and high prices and locked out of their factories, were roaming the streets. So, too, did information obtained by the Police Department that conspiracies were being hatched to arrest Nicholas and force him to abdicate. Everything was under control, the genial Minister of the Interior assured the Imperial couple.
Life at Tsarskoe Selo followed a quiet, dull routine. The Empress spent much time in bed, attended by Vyrubova, who, for her own protection, had moved into the Alexander Palace. Nicholas sank into a depression, of which his furrowed face and expressionless eyes bore testimony. In the morning and afternoon he went through the motions of receiving officials and foreign diplomats: on such occasions, Alexandra eavesdropped from a back room reached by a secret passage.134 In the late afternoon, he took walks and sometimes rode with the children in a motorized sled built by one of the chauffeurs. In the evening, he read aloud from the Russian classics, played dominoes, worked on puzzles, and from time to time viewed moving pictures: the last film shown, early in February, was Madame Du Barry.135 Some visitors tried to warn the Imperial couple of an impending explosion. Alexandra reacted with anger, sometimes ordering the bearers of such unwelcome news to leave. Nicholas listened politely, fidgeting with a cigarette or studying his fingernails, without displaying great interest. He was deaf to the appeals of Grand Duke Aleksander Mikhailovich, his brother-in-law and father of Irina Iusupova, one of the few grand dukes with whom he remained on speaking terms.136 When foreigners offered him advice, he cut them short. The British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, on a New Year’s Eve call urged Nicholas to appoint as Prime Minister someone enjoying the nation’s confidence, to which the Tsar responded: “Do you mean that I am to regain the confidence of my people or that they are to regain my confidence?”*
Power in his instance did not so much corrupt as isolate.
A frequent visitor to Tsarskoe Selo during those last weeks says that the atmosphere there resembled a household in mourning.137 The Tsar’s diaries, which he kept up regularly, give no hint of the state of his mind or psyche: only on December 31, the day when he saw the British Ambassador and dismissed rumors of danger, he noted that he and Alexandra had prayed fervently to the Lord “to have mercy on Russia.”138 On January 5, 1917, Golitsyn reported to him that Moscow talked openly of the “next tsar,” to which Nicholas responded: “The Empress and I know that all is in God’s hands—His will be done.”139
Nicholas, who was always perfectly composed, only once lost self-control to reveal under his habitually frozen mask a deeply troubled human being. This occurred on January 7, 1917, during a visit by Rodzianko. He listened politely to the familiar warnings, asked some questions, but when Rodzianko pleaded with him “not [to] compel the people to choose between you and the good of the country,” Nicholas “pressed his head between his hands,” and said: “Is it possible that for twenty-two years I tried to work for the best, and that for twenty-two years it was all a mistake?”140
Having failed in their attempt to alter policy by disposing of Rasputin, the conservatives concluded that “the only way to save the monarchy was to remove the monarch.”141 Two conspiracies to this end have been identified, but there must have been more. One was organized by Guchkov. According to his memoirs, Guchkov concluded that the incipient Russian Revolution would not follow the French model of 1848, in which the workers toppled the monarchy and let the “better people” take charge. In Russia he expected power to pass into the hands of revolutionaries who would in no time drive her to ruin. Hence, arrangements had to be made for a legitimate transfer of Imperial authority from Nicholas to his minor son, Alexis, with the Tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Michael, serving as Regent. Guchkov involved in his plot Nicholas Nekrasov, the deputy chairman of the Duma and member of the Progressive Bloc, M. I. Tereshchenko, a wealthy businessman, and Prince D. L. Viazemskii. The conspirators planned to seize the Imperial train while it was en route from headquarters to Tsarskoe Selo and force Nicholas to abdicate in favor of his son.142 The plot did not make much headway because it failed to secure a broad base of support, especially among the senior officers.
More advanced was a second plot directed by Prince George Lvov, the chairman of Zemgor and the future Prime Minister of the First Provisional Government, with the assistance of the chief of staff, General Alekseev.143 This group planned to compel Alexandra to retire to the Crimea and to have Nicholas turn over effective authority to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. The plotters contacted the Grand Duke, then serving as commander on the Caucasian Front, through A. I. Khatisov, the mayor of Tiflis. Nikolai Nikolaevich requested a day to consider the proposal, then turned it down on the grounds that neither the peasants nor the soldiers would understand such a change. Khatisov sent Lvov a cable with the agreed code for a negative response: “The hospital cannot be opened.” It is indicative of the mood of the time that Nikolai Nikolaevich did not see fit to inform his sovereign of the plot against him.