I am so conflicted about Alexander II. And then his personal life was a horrible mess and he treated his wife so abusively by imposing his mistress on her which is unforgivable in my book.
Alexander II's relationship with Catherine Dolgorukaya produced a lively correspondence between Alexander's daughter-in-law, Marie Feodorovna, and her relations in Denmark. After Empress Marie Alexandrovna's death in 1880 (before which Alexander II had already decamped from the Winter Palace to be with Dolgorukaya at Tsarskoe Selo), King Christian IX of Denmark (Marie Feodorovna's father) wrote this to his daughter:
"That the good Emperor during her {Marie Alexandrovna's] fatal condition moved out to Tsarskoe was sad, and probably causes him pain now and will to his last moment."
To the contrary, Alexander II married Dolgorukaya less than two months after Marie Alexandrovna's death. much to the dismay of the entire Imperial family. Marie wrote this to her mother, Queen Louise, on New Year's Day in 1881:
"[L]ast evening, when we attended a Te Deum in the little chuch, she [Dolgorukaya] came with her son, who made such a strange impression, for when we think back, the poor Empress was still alive and was in Cannes last year and now, less than half a year after her death, the new wife appears everywhere with the big children in front of everyone; this is probably the first example in the world, for if he [Alexander II] were not what he is, people would probably never have tolerated such things!"
One week later, Marie Feodorovna wrote her mother again:
"Here everything is going forward slowly but systematically, so that we cannot calculate how things will be in six months; nothing would amaze me any longer, I assure you."
(What Marie Feodorovna was alluding to was the very real possibility that Alexander II would crown Dolgorukaya as Empress of Russia.}
*All selections taken from the 1997 volume,
Marie Feodorovna - Empress of Russia.
