Early Life
Born in St Petersburg in the middle of the nineteenth century into the Romanov family, he had a very privileged childhood. Most royal children were brought up by nannies and servants so by the time Nikolai had grown up he lived a very independent life having become a gifted military officer and an incorrigible womanizer. He had an affair with a notorious American lady Fanny Lear. This affair let him into a plot to betray his family, in which he stole three valuable diamonds from an icon that belonged to his mother. He was declared insane and he was banished to the far reaches of the Russian empire never to see home again.
Read more about this topic: Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich Of Russia
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)