Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia,1890s
My brother came into the world so small, so feeble, that no one thought he could live. His arrival went almost unnoticed amid the grief and disorder aroused by my mother´s desperate condition. My old English nurse has told me of having found the newborn child bundled haphazardly among some blankets on a chair, as she came running to get news of my mother. It was only after my mother was dead that they began to pay attention to Dmitri. At that time baby incubators were rare; they wrapped him in cotton-wool and kept him in a cradle heated with hot-water bottles. Uncle Serge, with his own hands, gave him the bouillon bath that the doctors presribed, and the child gained in strength and began to grow. He and I were left at Ilinskoie for several months, until he was judged strong enough to travel; we were then returned to our home in St. Petersburg, where our father awaited us.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna: Education of a Princess
