"La Belle Otero" - claims to have been a short term mistress of Nicholas II

[helenazar]

Just came across this strange book.  http://www.amazon.com/Belle-Otero-last-great-courtesan/dp/0718119355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343227849&sr=1-1&keywords=la+belle+otero  

This woman claims to have had an affair with Nicholas II AFTER his marriage... Here are a few excerpts ""Nicholas II, Czar of all the Russias, was a real conquest despite his physical appearance, the state of his nerves and his abnormal sexual appetites. He was painfully thin and stooped, he never had recovered completely from adolescent acne, and was usually in need of a bath.  'Sometimes', recalled La Belle, 'he really stank'.... An additional cause for 'Nick's' nervousness was his domineering consort, the Czarina, who believed in witchcraft and leaned upon the monk Rasputin for both spiritual and secular advice. 'He had a very unhappy home life', Otero claimed, 'from the things he told me about his wife, how she wandered around the palace at all hours holding midnight conferences with the black monk and burning incense to drive away evil spirits... "

There is more weird stuff, the whole thing is bizaarro... Has anyone come across this book before? I did a search and it doesn't look like it has been discussed...

[Robert_Hall]

This name sounded familiar so I checked the stacks and sure enough, I have a copy, which I have not read since I got it in the late 60's. I just wrote it off as fiction, possibly based on some bits of detailed facts. But I never believed to story, all those details are in others books, printed way before. My copy is just a paperback and is almost falling apart so I will not bother to take it down and read it again, at least for now. And, it would be at the bottom of my list to replace with a hardback copy.

[Kalafrana]

Sounds unlikely. Nicholas had terrible teeth (very neglected) but he was extremely fond of baths - according to FOTR the Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg complained at length about the amount of water he was using for his long and frequent baths. He was certainly not 'painfully thin and stooped' - he was an active man of good physique. An exhibition I went to some years ago included the uniform he wore at his coronation - made for someone who wasn't very big, but was slim and fit, not skinny.

Ann

[Maria_Pavlovna]

What nonsense!

We all know, as Romanov fans, who studied the matter of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fyodorevna's marriage was blissfully happy.
 Even though the Tsarina was quite bossy and controlling, The Tsar liked that (possibly foreplay for them too, lol).

I really doubt the Tsar had affairs after marriage since he was loyal and devoted to his wife like a puppy; The Tsarina too was faithful, and as a very religious and strict lace Victorian Princess – anyone in high society that she considered backward and dingy annoyed her.

With Rasputin, she did indeed found him to be a saint, for his ability to help her son and herself, he was of course a wild man but to his religious beliefs – you must sin as must as possible – but love God, kind of a strange mix but understandable in way. 

Also NO WAY in hell the Tsarina slept with Rasputin, as many people may have forgotten that the Tsarina was greatly disliked by the Russians by the time of 1918, people would do anything to bring down anyone they hate and that as far as the 1920s to 1990s, the Commies did everything in their power to get rid of anything of the Romanovs, that was positive and out of history, which they failed.  Along with gossip of the ladies and gentlemen of the Russian Society, anything juicy about the Romanovs- was published throughout the years in different countries, including fake info of the disliked Tsarina and the more disliked monk Rasputin. 

The book is a crappy claim and fiction, like that dirty book about Grand Duchess Tatiana in “The Tsarina’s Daughter” just filth.