NICHOLAS II

NICHOLAS II., czar of Russia, born in St. Petersburg, son of Alexander III., and his successor in Nov. 1894; was married on the month of his accession to Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt and granddaughter of Queen Victoria through the Princess Alice, while his mother is a sister of the Princess of Wales; his education under his father was conducted expressly with a view to what might be required of him on his accession to the throne; his ministers are in sympathy with himself, and he has already (1899) distinguished himself by putting his finger on the sore which is festering at the heart and is sucking up as a vampire the life's blood of Europe; b. May 18, 1868.