In the Epilogue to his Thirteen Years in the Russian Court (1929), Pierre Gilliard, the former tutor of the children of martyred Tsar Nicholas II, had this to say about the sufferings of the Imperial Family:
"[I]t is impossible that those of whom I have spoken should have suffered their martyrdom in vain. I know not when it will be, nor how; but one day or other, without any doubt, when brutality has bled itself to death in the excess of its fury, humanity will draw from the memory of their sufferings an invincible force for moral reparation.
"Whatever revolt may rankle in the heart, and however just vengeance may be, to hope for an expiation in blood would be an insult to their memory.
"The Tsar and Tsarina died believing themselves martyrs to their country: they have died martyrs to humanity. Their real greatness is not to be measured by the prestige of their imperial dignity, but by the wonderful moral heights to which they gradually attained. They have become a force, an idea; and in the very outrage they have suffered we find a touching testimony to that wonderful serenity of soul against which violence and passion can avail nothing and which triumphs until death."
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