Memories of Ella

Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, wife of Sergei Alexandrovich. To quote:

I have an unforgettable vision of the sister of the Tsarina, wife of the Grand Duke Sergius: Elizaveta Feodorovna, nee Princess Elisabeth of Hessen-Darmstadt. It was at the christening of the heir to the throne, at which I was present.  After standing continuously for some time in the church I began to feel rather faint, as I always did, and one of my dear uncles took me into another part of the building, where I could sit down and recover a little. As we were going back to the chapel the Grand Duchess came towards us, in Russian dress with magnificent emerald ornaments. In that dress,  and in the setting which surrounded her, at that moment she seemed, in the radiance of her beauty, like some ikon, some old Byzantine saint which had come to life! How often I have seen this picture in my mind’s eye, how vividly it came back to me when I head the news of her martyr’s death in the shaft of the mine at [Alapayevsk].  

Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, Memoirs