A little bit of hell spilled over on the world because two people believed in a false prophet. In his brilliant book, Nicholas and Alexandra, Robert K. Massie tells how the czar and empress of Russia were misled by a miracle and thus brought their great empire down to dust.

After many years of anxious waiting for an heir to the Russian throne, Czar Nicholas II and his German wife, Alexandra, were blessed with a son.

However, their hopes for the future were cruelly crushed six weeks later when doctors discovered the infant had hemophilia, an incurable blood disease that could kill at any moment. All of his short life was to be lived in the shadow of terror, with …