QUOTE : Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia, was only thirty-two but was already a physical wreck after ten physically and mentally draining years of pregnancy and childbirth. Her always precarious mental state was severely undermined by the discovery of Alexey’s condition and she tormented herself that she of all people had unwittingly transmitted haemophilia to her much-loved and longed-for son.* Her already melancholic air henceforth became an inexplicably tragic one to those not privy to the truth. The whole focus of the family now dramatically shifted, to protecting Alexey against accident and injury – to literally keeping him alive within their own closely controlled domestic world. Nicholas and Alexandra therefore abandoned their newly refurbished apartments in the Winter Palace and ceased staying in town for the court season. Tsarskoe Selo and Peterhof would from now on be their refuge.