PIERRE GILLIARD – tutor to the children of Tsar Nikolai II.
Gilliard he was was born in Switzerland in 1879. He grew up in Vaud which is a Francophone canton of Switzerland. He attended the University of Lausanne. Incidentally his surname is pronounced ”JEEL yar”.
He moved to Russia in 1904 to be the French tutor to the Duke of Leuchtenberg. The duke was a cousin of the Tsar. Gilliard described his trepidation on first sighting Russia. It was a hair raising time to arriving in Russia. The country was reeling from defeat by Japan. The empire was in the throes of an attempted revolution. It took a valiant – or foolish – man to accept a post in Russia. He was initially brought to the Black Sea where the family was wintering. Later Pierre Gilliard travelled with them by train to St Petersburg which was then the capital of the country. They had a mansion at Peterhof – the suburb that was the imperial residence. The ‘precepteur’ had very high status because the French language was considered more important in international intercourse than English at the time.
The Tsar heard about Gilliard and hired him. Gilliard was at first to tutor the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana. The others were considered too young to be tutored by a man of his intellectual calibre at that time.
Monsieur Gilliard described the first time he ever met the imperial family, ” I was taken up to a small room, soberly furnished in the English style, on the second storey. The door opened and the Tsarina came in, holding her daughters Olga and Tatiana by the hand. After a few pleasant remarks she sat down at the table and invited me to take a place opposite her. The children sat at each end. ” M. Gilliard started residing at Tsarskoye Selo which lies 13 miles south of St Petersburg.
Pierre Gilliard was an astute judge of character. Any private tutor has to have some emotional intelligence. He quickly got the measure of Grand Duchess Tatiana, ‘She was essentially well balanced with a will of her own though less frank and spontaneous than her sister Olga. Tatiana knew how to surround her mother with unwearying attentions and never give way to her own impulses.’
Gilliard recalled that the grand duchesses took turns in keeping their mother company. They did not find the duty entirely congenial. Teenage girls are wont to clash with their mothers sometimes and this family was no exception.
As the years rolled on Gilliard started to tutor the younger children as well. Gilliard later came to tutor the Tsarevich as in the Tsar’s son. Tsarevich was born with haemophilia. He advised against excessive frippery toward Tsarevich Alexei. Gilliard described the Imperial Family’s situation as being one of ”fatal isolation”. Along with just about every other commentator he castigated the impostor monk Grigorii Rasputin as a baleful influence. He wrote of Rasputin, ”This man’s evil influence was one of the principal causes of which the effect was the death of those who thought they could regard him as their saviour.” Gilliard was also adamantine in his insistence that there was no impropriety between Rasputin and Her Imperial Majesty.
Gilliard noted how the Tsarina showed him great respect notwithstanding her own exalted rank. ” I will give one detail which illustrates the Tsarina’s anxious interest in the upbringing of her children and the importance she attached to their showing respect for their teachers by observing that sense of decorum which is the first element of politeness. While she was present at my lessons, when I entered the room I always found the books and notebooks piled neatly in my pupils’ places at the table, and I was never kept waiting a moment. ” It is a superb example to follow. If parents wish their children to do well in their education the parents must lead by being courteous to the tutor. If the parents treat the tutor in an offhand manner so will the pupils and their education will suffer.
Gilliard was later given a request. ‘That year the Tsarina informed me a few days before I left that on my return she proposed to appoint me tutor to Aleksey Nicolaievich, The news filled me with a mingled sense of pleasure and apprehension. I was delighted at the confidence shown in me, but nervous of the responsibility it involved. ” This sums up how many tutors feel when they are offered an assignment with a notable family. Try to bear this in mind if you are hiring a tutor.
Monsieur Gilliard got along well with the Tsarevich. Tsarevich Alexei became his main charge. This was partially because the education of boys was thought to matter more than that of girls. Furthermore, the elder sisters had reached marriageable age and their academic formation was considered complete. Gilliard recounted a typical day of tuition: ” Lessons (at the time my pupil was learning Russian, French, arithmetic, history, geography and religious knowledge. He did not begin English until later, and never had German lessons) began at nine o’clock, and there was a break from eleven to twelve. We went out driving in a carriage, sledge, or car, and then work was resumed until lunch at one. In the afternoon we always spent two hours out of doors. The Grand-Duchesses and, when he was free, the Tsar, came with us, and Aleksey Nicolaievich played with them, sliding on an ice mountain we had made at the edge of a little artificial lake. He was also fond of playing with his donkey Vanka, which was harnessed to a sledge.. ”
Pierre Gilliard was sagacious enough to realise that not everyone is cut out for scholarly distinction. He also candidly admitted that he achieved only very modest success with the princesses. ” With the exception of Olga Nicolaievna, the Grand-Duchesses were very moderate pupils. This was largely due to the fact that, in spite of my repeated suggestions, the Tsarina would never have a French governess.… Olga Nicolaievna did not fulfil the hopes I had set upon her. Her fine intellect failed to find the elements necessary to its development. Instead of making progress she began to go back. Her sisters had ever had but little taste for learning, their gifts being of the practical order ” To some extent their limited learning is due to their tutor. Perhaps M. Gilliard is seeking to shift the blame. However, we should partly take him at his word. Parents ought to take a tutor’s advice to heart. He proposed that the family engage a French governess and his suggestions was repeatedly rebuffed.
The Swiss gentleman tried to introduce a more informal regime for Alexei when in private.
” I noticed that the boy was embarrassed and blushed violently, and when we were alone asked him whether he liked seeing people on their knees before him.
“Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so!”
“That’s absurd!” I replied. “Even the Tsar doesn’t like people to kneel before him. Why don’t you stop Derevenko insisting on it ?”
“I don’t know. I dare not.”
I took the matter up with Derevenko, and the boy was delighted to be freed from this irksome formality. ”
As if tutoring a future head of state was not daunting enough Gilliard had he added challenge of tutoring a boy with haemophilia.
As a little digression it is fascinating to read Gilliard’s closely observed analysis of Nikolai II’s personality: ” The Tsar was shy and retiring by nature. He belonged to the category of human beings who are always hesitating because they are too diffident and are ever slow to impose their will on others because they are too gentle and sensitive. He had little faith in himself and imagined that he was one of the unlucky ones. Unfortunately his life seemed to show that he was not entirely wrong. Hence his doubts and hesitations. ”
Gilliard married Alexandra Tegleva in 1922. She had been the nurse of the Romanovs.
In February 1917 the Romanovs were ousted. In October that year the Bolsheviks seized power. The Romanovs were state prisoners and were sent to Siberia. Gilliard was sent with them. They went to Tobolsk and later Yekaterinaburg. In the spring of 1917 the imperial children fell ill and their heads were shaved. This was a very great sacrifice for the grand duchesses in which girls were all expected to have very long hair. Gilliard was allowed to photograph them all like this. He was one of the only people permitted to take photos of the family. These photos of the front and back of their heads would later become crucial in identifying the skulls of the Romanovs.
In the spring of 1917 Gilliard was living at Tsarskoye Selo – the imperial village near St Petersburg. Like the Romanovs he was a prisoner of the Provisional Government but well treated. ‘Our captivity did not seem likely to last long. There was talk of transfer to England.’
In 1918 the imperial family was moved to Yekaterinaburg. They were in the custody of the Bolsheviks. A civil war was raging in Russia between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites. The Red officer in charge of the Romanovs was Yakolev. He spoke excellent French and treated the Romanovs and Gilliard reasonably. Then he was replaced by someone much less sympathetic.
Monsieur Gilliard was with the imperial family in exile in Yekaterinaburg. For a while in May 1918 the children were separated from their parents. Pierre Gilliard had to take over the role of father figure for a while without arrogating to himself any pretension of imperial status. The children and Gilliard were not informed by the Bolsheviks where there parents had been taken. In his diary on 3 May Gilliard wrote, ‘Where are they? They could have reached Moscow by now.’ That Easter was the first the children celebrated in the absence of their parents. Gilliard wrote in his journal ‘everyone is in low spirits.’ This was particuarly ironic since Easter was the most joyous time of year for ardent Orthodox Christians. After a few weeks the Tsar and Tsarina were brought back to Yekaterinaburg. Gilliard was alarmed at the attitude of the Red soldiers guarding the Romanovs. They were vulgar and drunk on duty. The Romanovs were subjected to many crude insults. Gilliard’s account has been disputed by other witnesses who claim that the Bolsheviks guarding the Romanovs treated them reasonably.
Monsieur Gilliard was fortunate not to be executed along with the Romanovs. Several of their household staff were shot dead with them. Gilliard remained in Yekaterinaburg because he realised it was about to be recaptured by the Whites. The imminent recapture of the city was the reason the Bolsheviks had decided to wipe out the Romanovs.
Pierre Gilliard wrote of the killings, ‘ The inevitable fulfilment of the climax of one of the most moving tragedies humanity has ever known… the last stage in their long martyrdom… death refused to separate those whom life had banded so closely together… All seven united in one faith and one love… It was the mercy of God that all died together… the innocents were saved from a fate worse than death ‘
No one can fault Gilliard for lack of loyalty. However, he seemed to focus so much on the travails of the Romanovs that he ignored what everyone else in Russia was suffering. He does not appear to have asked himself why the Tsar was so detested.
Once the Whites took the city Gilliard volunteered his services to help the White commander Sokolov with his investigations into the murder of the Romanovs. The corpses of the Romanovs had been partially burned and thrown down a shaft in the Four Brothers Mine. They had later been recovered and reburied. By the time the Whites were able to stage an investigation the cadavers were unrecognisable. Gilliard and other family retainers were given the unenviable task of trying to identify articles of clothing from the bodies to see if these corpses really were those of the Romanovs.
Russian was in bloody tumult due to the civil war. Public transport was virtually non-existent. The Red Army, White factions, the Green Army, foreign interventionists and many bandits roamed the country. Gilliard was trapped. He married a Russian who had been a nanny to a cadet branch of the Romanovs.
Gillard and other faitthful servants compiled their own report into the murders of the Romanovs. They took their boxes of files with them when they left Yekaterinaburg. They also had boxes of personal effects belonging to the Imperial Family. In January 1920 Gilliard and some of the Romanovs other staff managed to flee Russia by travelling to China. They spent time in Harbin. This city was a magnet for White Russians who had fled their country. There Gilliard wrote, ‘ They were in a state of great agitation for the situation grew daily more precarious and it was expected that any day the Chinese Eastern Railway might fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Bolshevik spies were beginning to swarm all over the station and its surroundings. What was to be done with the documents of inquiry? Where could they be put in safety. ‘ Gilliard implored the British consul and the French consul to assist him in taking these documents of inquiry out of the country. He was astonished that both refused. The Romanovs were widely reviled in Europe and the British and French governments had to take account of that. Finally a White general Janin took possession of the documents. China was also in turmoil. Warlords roamed the country. Gilliard and his party finally managed to take a train to Vladivostock – one of the last Russian cities in White hands. There he and his companions boarded a French ship Andre le Bon and sailed to Marseilles.
In 1920 Gilliard was finally able to return to western Europe. He initially lived in Paris where he lived in Hotel du Bon Lafontaine. It was the same building as another retainer of the Romanovs, Sokolov. It was on Rue des St Peres. A few years later he moved back to his homeland Switzerland. He was deeply impressed by the fortitude the Romanovs had displayed in their terrible circumstances. Gilliard later published a book about his experiences entitled Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. He wrote in his autobiography, ” My mind was still full of the poignant drama with which I had been closely associated, but I was also still deeply impressed by the wonderful serenity and flaming faith of those who had been its victims.”
Thirteen Years at the Russian Court is a superb sources on the Romanovs. Gilliard heard countless private conversations. He knew them on a personal level. Despite his obvious regard for the family he did his best to remain objective in his book and largely succeeded. Gilliard wrote gorgeous prose that spills onto the page like a musical score. His diaries also providing an unparalleled insight into the final years of the dynasty.
Gilliard moved back to Switzerland. He became a professor at his alma mater.
Gilliard met the woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. He at first suspended judgment. Having very carefully examined her he reached the certain conclusion that the claimant was an impostress.
- Gilliard was a very good tutor. This does not mean he was a perfect tutor otherwise he would have done better with pupils of low ability and low work ethic. The fact that the family kept him for 13 years speaks for itself.
You can read Gilliard’s account in ‘Thirteen years at the Russian Court’ and ‘Le Tragique Destin de Nicolas II et sa famille .’