THE PRINCESS DOLGOROUKI.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3144, 26 July 1881, Page 3

THE PRINCESS DOLGOROUKI.

Beauties may take a lesson from the fate of the Princess Dolgorouki. She was a lovely young girl, sprung from one of the highest Russian families and placed at the Imperial school near St. Petersburg, where the Czar in his capacity of Father of the institution visited and saw her. It was the great misfortune of her life that the Czar loved her better than anything else in the world, and that she loved him madly in return. We must not judge them by our notions of morale. The woman who attracted the notice of, and became the morganatic bride of the Czar, would be more reverenced in Russia than any woman in the world. The most marked flguro in St. Petersburg was the 'Grand Duchess' (as she was always called by the servants of the Palace), with her tall svelte figure, her dreamy, dark eyes, and her beautiful, pale, face, driving along tho Ncvski Prospect in her perfectly appointed sleigh, wrapped in magnificent sables. Sitting erect beside her were two large dogs given her by the Czar— her mute but faithful guardians. Unlike most royal favorites, she had few enemies, and her influence was always on the side of humanity. Her devotion to her Imperial lover was extreme. " She often perilled her life following him in disguise as he would walk alone from tho Winter Palace, and it is said that she has more than once turned aside the assassin's dagger. The Princess was refused the last melancholy pleasure of closing tho eyes of her husband ; ordered to leave St. Petersburgh in five hours, and parted from her children, who are wards of the crown. A wanderer on the face of the earth, deprived of all she loved, behold the fate of the most powerful and the most beautiful woman in Europe !