diplomacy. An eager religious propagandist, she formed alliance
with the "Old Catholics" on the Continent, and with many among the
High Church English clergy; becoming, together with her brother
Alexander, a member of the Reunion Nationale, a society for the
union of Christendom. Her interest in education has led her to
devote extensive help to school and church building and endowment
on her son's estate. God-daughter to the Czar Nicholas, she is a
devoted Imperialist, nor less in sympathy, as were all her family,
with Russian patriotism: after the death of her brother in Servia
on July 6/18, 1876, she became a still more ardent Slavophile. The
three articles of her creed are, she says, those of her country,
Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism. Her political aspirations have
been guided, and guided right, by her tact and goodness of heart.
Her life's aim has been to bring about a cordial understanding
between England and her native land; there is little doubt that her
influence with leading Liberal politicians, and her vigorous
allocutions in the Press, had much to do with the enthusiasm
manifested by England for the liberation of the Danubian States.
Readers of the Princess Lieven's letters to Earl Grey will recall
the part played by that able ambassadress in keeping this country
neutral through the crisis of 1828-9; to her Madame Novikoff has
been likened, and probably with truth, by the Turkish Press both
English and Continental. She was accused in 1876 of playing on the
religious side of Mr. Gladstone's character to secure his interest
in the Danubians as members of the Greek Church, while with
unecclesiastical people she was said to be equally skilful on the
political side, converting at the same time Anglophobe Russia by
her letters in the "Moscow Gazette." Mr. Gladstone's leanings to
Montenegro were attributed angrily in the English "Standard" to
Madame Novikoff: "A serious statesman should know better than to