Unlike the bored self-important ladies of court who brought him to Alexandra, Alexandra herself was deeply spiritual and far too serious minded. I remember one relative said that most Russians take their faith casually like an old friend, while Alexandra took everything to heart and let it guide every step of her life. In that alone, she was more Russian than most Russians.
I would disagree only in so far that the simplicity of her faith was more akin to the faith of a peasant than an aristocrat.
No, Alexandra never had an affair with Rasputin. It was her simplicity of faith and belief in Rasputin which convinced her that the Okhrana reports had to be prejudiced and untrue. I think that Nicholas was trapped between the reports from the Okhrana, which he probably believed, and Alexandra's profound faith in Rasputin.
Considering the impossible position Nicky was in, I have come to have more and more respect for him. In light of how everyone else was acting, he was a true man of honor and character. Not bloody Nicholas Certainly and not a vascillating cipher, but the only man who saw the world at the abyss and tried desparately to save us from ourselves.
I just read the German peace proposal 14 days into World War I. For arogance and self-serving proposals, no one could top the Germans and Kaiser Wilhelm II.
