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Show RUSSIAN EXILES SENT OVER THE BOUNDARY LINE Mile. Virubova, "Female Rasputin of Revolution," Tells of Her Connection With the Court CZAR NICHOLAS DECLARED WEAK Scandalous Stories Denied With Vehemence; Deposed De-posed Ruler Not a Pro-German, Pro-German, Says Woman. PETROGRAD, Sept. 8. The first exiles ex-iles among the adherents of the old imperial im-perial regime today were sent under a strong escort to the Swedish frontier, where they will be released. Extraordinary precautions were taken to guard the exiles and access to the railroad station where they boarded a train was forbidden.' At the head of the party with a Sister Sis-ter of Mercy was the famous Mademoiselle Mademoi-selle Virubova, for twelve years the bosom friend and confidant of the former for-mer empress and who- has been called "the female Rasputin of .the revolution." revolu-tion." With her were the intriguer, Manseevich-Manuilov, and the Asiatic Badmayieff , to whom the former Emperor Emper-or Nicholas gave a diploma as a "doctor "doc-tor of Tibetan medicine" in recognition of his success in curing all imaginable diseases of the courtiers with a certain cordial. Tells Life Story. On the eve of her departure, Mile. Virubova was interviewed by the Associated Asso-ciated Press in the presence of a detective. de-tective. She is a Btrikingly handsome, somewhat stout, blackhaired woman, resembling re-sembling the portraits of Catherine the Great. She limps and uses a crutch as the result of a railroad accident. There (Continued on Page Ten.) RUSSIAN EXILES ARE 1 SEfff MB BORDER (Continued from Page One.) is a HTir on her f orehead which she asserted was inflicted by the cnards at i the fortress of iSt. r'eter and Sr. Paul, i from which she was recently released. I Mile. Yirubova. who is personally j fascinatine'. but Apparently not a clever woman, yavc a ptri liing outline of the last years of the court of Krnperor 1 Nicholas, declaring that the memoirs 1 whi'-h she intends to write will startle the world. 1 ' My life story is this' she said. I 14 1 am a daughter of M. Taneyef f, a 1 former secretary of the emperor. I was ! married at IS to a naval officer who 1 toiK'ht in the battle of Tsuhima. He went mad and I then divorced him. Afterwards came Alix (thus Yirubova referred to the former empress). After , I came to know her was her only I friend and her champion against the j malice or' the court. ' Denies Guilt. "Our friendship was purely personal, 1 untrue, therefore, are all the stories of my vicious influence in politics. The proof of this is that a commission of extraordinary ex-traordinary inquiry instituted while I was a prisoner in the fortress declared mo wholly innocent. "The originators of the unexampled outcry against me were not the revolutionaries, revolu-tionaries, but the court aristocrats and the grand chutes, especially Dmitri Paul-ovitoh. Paul-ovitoh. These were jealous of Alix's favor fa-vor anil for more than a decade waged a relentless war against me, the exception ex-ception being the Grand Duke Paul, whose wife is my kinswoman. "The truth about Nicholas is that he has a good character and a quicker and better mind than the good for nothing grand duke. His fault is his incorrigible weakness, which is partly congenital and partly the result of the crushing training by the mother dowager dow-ager and his tutors, who were instructed to aupnress every manifestation of initiative. ini-tiative. ' ' Ignorant to the Last. Nicholas hated to hear bad news and reports against others. Until the last lie had not the slightest notion that all the nation detested' and despised him. He, told us only a few days before the revolution that he was pleased with the conditions in Russia and would grant a responsible cabinet after the war. He was positively dumf ounded at the sudden revolt. ' 'Itasputin 's name is wrongfully associated as-sociated with mine. Having been at court during the entire time Rasputin was a power there, I know that his political influence over Nicholas and the empress and his alleged despotic authority over the ministers are pure legends. Alix was busy all the time with me in managing hospitals, of which there were seventy-nine at Tsars-koe-Selo. Rasputin, as already known throughout the empire, assured Nicholas that daily prayers would cure C4rand Duke Alexis, his son. Illness of the grand duke was not caused, as has been alleged, by terrorist attempts on his life, but through defective protection of the blood vessels which caused a hemorrhage hem-orrhage at the slightest exertion, a disease universal in the Battenborg family. "Daily Rasputin prayed, first alone and later with tbe emperor aDd empress, who were intensely pious and shared his prayers. Alexis suddenly recovered two years ago and he is now in perfect health. The accusations against the personal character of myself and the empress in connection with Rasputin are infamous. When I am allowed to return to Russia T shall bring my calumniators ca-lumniators to justice." Cure of Alexis. Yirubova added that Nicholas "was not pro-German and did not intend to make a separate peace. Immediately before the outbreak of the revolution she heard him make the followiug statement: state-ment: "I believe and hope we will soon j beat the Germans soundly." ''Deny," she concluded, "that I am1 exiled as the result of any connection i with a grand ducal monarchist plot. J do not believe such a plot could succeed, suc-ceed, as not one of the grand dukes is fit to rule Russia. ' ' The grand dukes arrested early this week in connection with the monarchist monar-chist plot against the provisional govern gov-ern ment have not yet been sent from Pctrofjrad. The date of their departure is being 'kept secret. |