Maria rarely interfered with politics, preferring to devote her time and energies to her family, charities, and the more social side of her position. She had also seen the student protests of Kiev and St. Petersburg in the 1860s, and when police were beating students, the students cheered on Maria Feodorovna to which she replied, "They were quite loyal, they cheered me. Why do you allow the police to treat them so brutally?" Her one exception to official politics was her militant anti-German sentiment because of the annexation of Danish territories by Prussia in 1864, a sentiment also expressed by her sister, Alexandra. Prince Gorchakov remarked about that policy that 'it is our belief, that Germany will not forget that both in Russia and in England a Danish Princess has her foot on the steps of the throne". Maria Feodorovna suffered a miscarriage in 1866 in Denmark while she was horseback riding.