Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia) - Empress of Russia

Empress of Russia

Alexandra Feodorovna became Empress-Consort upon her husband's accession as Tsar Nicholas I on December, 1825. It was a turbulent period, marked by the bloody repression of the Decembrist revolt.

By 1832 Nicholas and Alexandra had seven children whom they raised with care. Nicholas I never wavered in his love for his wife, whom he nicknamed “Mouffy”. In 1837, when much of the Winter Palace was destroyed by fire, Nicholas reportedly told an aide-de-camp, "Let everything else burn up, only just save for me the small case of letters in my study which my wife wrote to me when she was my betrothed."

Only after more than twenty-five years of fidelity did Nicholas take a mistress. He turned to Barbara Nelidova, one of Alexandra's ladies-in-waiting, as the doctors had forbidden the Empress from sexual activity due to her poor health and recurring heart-attacks. Nicholas continued to seek refuge from the cares of state in Alexandra’s company. "Happiness, joy, and repose - that is what I seek and find in my old Mouffy." he once wrote.

In 1845, Nicholas wept when Court doctors urged the Empress to visit Palermo for several months due to poor health. "Leave me my wife." he begged her physicians, and when he learned that she had no choice, he made plans to join her, if only for a brief time. Nelidova went with them, and though Alexandra was jealous in the beginning, she soon came to accept the affair, and remained on good terms with her husband's mistress.

The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was always frail and in bad health. At forty, she looked far older than her years, becoming increasingly thin. For a long time, she suffered from a nervous twitching that became a convulsive shaking of her head.

In 1837 the Empress chose the resort in the Crimea for a new residence. There, Nicholas ordered that the Palace of Oreanda be built for her. She was only able to visit the Palace once however; the Crimean War began in 1852. Towards the end of 1854, Alexandra Feodorovna became very ill, and she came very close to death, though she managed to recover. In 1855 Tsar Nicholas I contracted influenza, and he died on 6/18 February.