Empeytaz, an honest enthusiast, struggled to save her from this man's clutches but in vain. Kellner too well knew how to flatter the baroness's inordinate vanity: the author of the Holy Alliance could be none other than the "woman clothed with the sun" from the Book of Revelation. She wandered with Kellner from place to place, proclaiming her mission, working miracles, persuading her converts to sell all and follow her. Crowds of beggars and rapscallions of every description gathered wherever she went, supported by the charities squandered from the common fund. She became a nuisance to the authorities and a menace to the peace; Württemberg had expelled her, and the example was followed by every Swiss canton she entered in turn. At last, in May 1818, she set out for her estate in Kosse, Livonia (now Viitina, Estonia), accompanied by Kellner and a remnant of the elect. The emperor Alexander having opened the Crimea to German and Swiss chiliasts in search of a land of promise, the baroness's son-in-law Berckheim and his wife now went there to help establish the new colonies. In November 1820 the baroness at last went herself to St. Petersburg, where Berckheim was lying ill. She was there when the news arrived of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian principalities, which opened the Greek War of Independence. She at once proclaimed the divine mission of the Tsar to take up arms on behalf of Christendom. Alexander, however, had long since exchanged her influence for that of Metternich, and he was far from anxious to be forced into even a holy war. To the baroness's overtures he replied in a long and polite letter, the gist of which was that she must leave St. Petersburg at once. In 1823 the death of Kellner, whom to the last she regarded as a saint, was a severe blow to her. Her health was failing, but she allowed herself to be persuaded by Princess Galitzine to accompany her to the Crimea, where she had established a Swiss colony. Here, at Karasubazar, she died on December 25, 1824. Character assessment Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve wrote of Madame de Krüdener: A kindlier epitaph written in her own words, uttered after the revelation of the misery of the Crimean colonists had at last opened her eyes: Clarence Ford wrote in a Victorian biography: Works Valérie, ou, Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernst de G…,