"I would gladly give a year's allowance to the poor if you could manage
it here while Prince George was masticating a Hamburg steak at a table
opposite the grand staircase," said I.

CHAPTER XV

ROYALTY NOT PRETTY, AND WHY

    Fecundity royal women's greatest charm--How to have beautiful
    children.

    DRESDEN, _February 25, 1894_.

Behold the mother of two boys in a twelve-month! Frederick came just in
the nick of time, Sylvester Eve (December 31, 1893), to gain me a little
brief renown, for royalty likes its women to be rabbits and, in the
reigning houses at least, we are esteemed in proportion to our
fecundity.

"January 15--December 31," not half bad! Even Prince George had to admit
that. And the Kaiser remarked: "Louise, if she keeps it up, bids fair to
break de Villeneuve's record. Let me see, Sophie's first child was born
January 9--a girl" (with a sneer); "her next, the Hereditary Count, on
December 28th of the same year."

The "de Villeneuve" is Sophie, Countess of Schlitz. Wilhelm made her
celebrated by his gallantries and Lenbach by the great portrait he
painted of her wondrous loveliness. If I ever have a daughter, I will
have a copy of the Lenbach canvas placed in baby's room. Come to think
of it, I will have one made right away to hang in my own boudoir.

As stated, I believe in prenatal influence, and am more than convinced
that the portraits of Saxon and Prussian princesses frowning from the
walls of our palaces are calculated neither to promote beauty nor
gentleness.

If I had my way, I would send the whole lot to the store-room and fill
the space they occupy with the present store-room treasures, old time
portraits of August the Physical Strong's favorites, Aurora von
Königsmark, Countess Cosel, Princess Lubomirska, Fatime, the Circassian,
the Orselska and--who can remember their names?

As a rule, queens and princesses are conspicuous for lack of beauty,
while kings and princes cut most ordinary figures in _mufti_. Only their
uniforms, the ribands and decorations, the _mise-en-scène_ render them
tolerable imitations of the average military man.

Why?

Because their mothers and fathers, their sisters, cousins and aunts see
nothing but painted and photographed and sculptured frights and
grotesques. So much ugliness of the past must needs cause ugliness of
the present and future.

In a century the thrones of Europe have known but two beauties, both
plebeians, the Empress Josephine and the Empress Eugenie. My aunt, the
Empress Elizabeth, is only good-looking, the German Empress was just an
ordinary German _Frau_ even in her salad-days.

Well, my little girls, if I have any, shall profit by the lessons of the
past. As expectant mothers in ancient Greece were wont to walk in the
temple of _Athene Parthenos_, filled with the greatest sculptures the
world has ever seen (ruins of them I admired in the British Museum), so
I intend to have a gallery of my own for beauty's sake, even if every
female figure be a harlot's likeness.

CHAPTER XVI

MORE JEALOUSIES OF THE GREAT

    Men and women caress me with their eyes--Some disrespectful sayings
    and doings of mine--First decided quarrel with Frederick Augustus--I
    go to the theatre in spite of him.

    DRESDEN, _April 1, 1894_.

I am afraid I wrote down some wicked things--wicked from the standpoint
of the Saxon court--and though Queen Carola and father-in-law George
know naught of my scribblings, punishment was meted out to me in full
measure.

Of course, it's my "damned popularity," as the King calls it, that got
me into trouble again. My carriage happened to follow one occupied by
the Queen at a distance of some hundred or more paces along the avenues
of the _Grosser Garten_. I had no idea that Her Majesty was out at the
time, and certainly was dressed to please the eye. I can't help it. It's
a habit with me.

Well, the optics of a good many of my future subjects grew long and
cozening, like gipsies', when they beheld their queen-to-be; there was
many a "flatteringly protracted, but never a wiltingly disapproving
gaze," and those who liked me--and they all seemed to--shouted "Our
Louise," and Hurrah. They shouted so loud that poor Queen Carola got
plenty of auricular evidence of how her successor-to-be was loved by the
people, by _her_, Carola's, people. And the poor old girl got so
"peeved," she ordered her coachman to turn back and proceed to the
palace by the shortest route, through the least frequented streets.

Frederick Augustus knew all about it before I reached home and was in a
terribly dejected state.

"This has to stop," he said with a fine effort at imitating authority.
"On Sunday, when we drove home from High Mass, you got an ovation while
the King's carriage passed almost unnoticed. And now this affront to the
Queen."

"Bother the old girl," I replied, stamping my foot.

Frederick Augustus got as white as a sheet. "That's the language of
a--a--" He knew enough not to finish.

"It's the title by which Queen Victoria is known to many of her
subjects."

"Who told you that?"

"I often run across it in the English newspapers."

"Jew-sheets!" roared Frederick Augustus.

"Since you don't understand a word of English, you couldn't distinguish
the London Times from the Hebrew At Work." After this sally, I added
maliciously: "I'm going to the Opéra Comique tonight. Come along?"

"You are _not_ going to the Opéra Comique," shouted Frederick Augustus.

"You don't want me to go, papa don't want me to go, uncle and aunt and
cousins don't? So many reasons more why I _shall_ go. I announced my
coming and I will go, if I have to tear the ropes, by which you might
bind me hand and foot, with my teeth."

I rang the bell and ordered dinner served half an hour earlier than
usual. Then I went to my dressing room to inspect the new gown that I
intended to wear at the theatre.

Girardi night! Girardi, the famous Vienna comedian! I never saw him. His
humor will act as a tonic. Just what I need. I will die if I breathe
none other but the air of this palace, that reeks with cheap
pretensions, Jesuitical puritanism, envy and hatred, where every second
person is a spy of either the King or George.

I must escape the polluted atmosphere for a few hours, at least, and
laugh, laugh, LAUGH.

    11:30 P.M.

I have seen Girardi. I have laughed. I saw the Dolores. And I don't
blame Kyril a bit.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ROYAL PRINCE, WHO BEHAVES LIKE A DRUNKEN BRICKLAYER

    I face the music, but my husband runs away--Prince George can't look
    me in the eye--He roars and bellows--Advocates wife-beating--I defy
    him--German classics--"Jew literature" _Auto da fé_ ordered.

    DRESDEN, _April 2, 1894_.

Chamberlain Baron Haugk, of the service of Prince George, called at nine
A.M. and insisted upon seeing me. I sent out my Grand-Mistress, Baroness
von Tisch, to tell him that "Her Imperial Highness would graciously
permit him to wait upon her at half past ten."

"But my all-highest master commands."

I was listening in my boudoir and I went out to him only half-dressed, a
powder-mantle over my shoulders.

"Her Imperial Highness will not have her commands questioned by
servants," I said in my most haughty style. The _Kammerherr_ knocked his
heels together, bowed to the ground and retired. That's my way of
dealing with royal flunkeys, no matter what their title of courtesy.

He was back at the stroke of the clock to announce his "sublime master"
for one in the afternoon.

"I will be ready to receive his Royal Highness. My household shall be
instructed," I answered coldly, though I dread that old man.

"You are not wanted," I told Frederick Augustus. "Better make yourself
scarce." He didn't need to be told twice. "Undress-uniform," he shouted
to his valet. "And send somebody for a cab."

"Why a cab?" I inquired.

He looked at me in a pitying way. "Women are such geese," he made
answer. "Don't you see, if I left the palace in one of our own
carriages, the King, or father, might notice and call me back."

"Oh, very well. And don't 'celebrate' too much while you are out."

I had the lackeys line the staircase and corridors. My military
household stood in the first ante-chamber, my courtiers in the second,
my ladies in the third when Prince George walked into my parlor. At
first he acted in no unfriendly manner. He kissed me on the forehead and
asked after the babies, and if he hadn't riveted his eyes all the time
into some corner of the room--his stratagem when in an ugly mood--I
might have persuaded myself that he wasn't on mischief bent.

But he soon began pouring out his bile. With a face like a wooden martyr
he announced that he was not pleased with me.

"You are too much of a light-weight, too vivacious, too attractive to
the mob," he said in his bitterest tones. "You are forever seeking the
public eye like--an actress."

"I beg your Royal Highness to take notice that Imperial Princesses of
Austria"--I put some emphasis on the Imperial--"while popular, never
descend to jugglery," I answered politely, but firmly.

"No offence to your Imperial Highness," said George, "but you must
understand once and for all that Saxon princes and princesses are bound
by our house laws to the strictest observance of precedence. The love of
the people naturally goes out to the King and Queen. Junior members of
the Royal House must not seek to divert to themselves the popularity
that is the King's own."

"I have always been taught to respond to popular greetings offered me.
My aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, in particular instructed me to that
effect," I submitted with great deference.

"Her Majesty didn't instruct you to make a show of yourself every hour
of the day," hissed George, his eyes devouring the stove.

"I drive out twice, in the morning to go shopping, in the afternoon to
air my babies."

George, unable to dispute me, abandoned pretensions of politeness or
manners. He fairly roared at me: "You are travelling the streets all the
time. It has to stop."

Whereupon I said in as sharp a voice as I could manage: "And Your Royal
Highness has to stop bellowing at me. I'm not used to it. In Salzburg
and Vienna gentlemen don't use that tone of voice and that sort of
language to gentlewomen."

"Salzburg," cried George, "in Salzburg you got your ears boxed, but it
didn't do much good to all appearances."

"Your Royal Highness," I answered, "my mother has her faults, but it's
no one's business outside of her immediate family. And no one at this
court has a mother's authority over me."

I saw that George was beside himself with rage. "If your husband," he
snarled, "was as free with his hand as your mother, there would be an
end to your frivolities."

"Your Royal Highness forgets what you admitted yourself, namely, that
the indignities offered me while I was a child were bereft of beneficial
results. And please take notice," I added, raising my voice, "I won't
stand violence from anyone, neither from my husband--as you kindly
suggest--nor from you, or the King."

George was too surprised to even attempt a reply. He evidently didn't
know what to say or do. To avoid my eyes that were seeking his, he
turned his back on me and stepped up to a little table laden with books.
He studied the titles for a while, then, turning suddenly, held a small
volume towards me. His arm was out-stretched as if he feared to
contaminate his uniform.

"What have we got here?" he cried.

It was my turn to be astonished. "Why, according to the binding, it must
be Heine's _Atta Troll_."

"_Atta Troll_," cried George, and opening the book at random he read
half to himself:

    "This bear-leader six Madonnas
    Wears upon his pointed hat,
    To protect his head from bullets
    Or from lice, perchance, it may be."

He fired the volume on the floor and grabbed another. "What's this?"

"As the title will indicate to your Royal Highness, Nietzsche's
Zarathustra." For the life of me I couldn't see any harm in this portion
of my library.

George continued to rummage among the books. He acted like a madman.
"What's this, what's this?" he kept on saying, turning them over and
over. I thought it beneath my dignity to answer. I just stared at the
fanatic.

After he finished his hurried examination, he took one book after the
other and tossed it violently at my feet.

"Heine, the Jew-scribbler," he cried, aiming a kick at Atta Troll.

"Don't you dare," I said, "that book was given me by Her Majesty, the
Empress of Austria."

"I can't believe it," shouted George, "that Jew-scribbler, the reviler
of kinship."

"He never lampooned the kings of Saxony," I calmly remarked, picking up
the volume. "Here is Her Majesty's dedication to me."

"Everybody knows the eccentricities of Her Majesty of Austria," shouted
George. "Anyhow, who gave you permission to read such rotten stuff as
this at our court?"

"Prince George," I answered, taking two steps towards him, "Duke of
Saxony, the Archduchess of Austria takes pleasure to inform you that in
her house she asks no one's permission what to read or do."

At this he turned drill-ground bully. "You are in the King's house,"
rang out his voice in cutting tones, "and at this moment I represent the
King. And in the King's name I forbid you to read these obscenities, and
in the King's name I hereby command that these books be destroyed at
once."

Well, since he talked in the King's name I had no leg to stand on. I
merely bowed acquiescence and he strutted out, turning his back on me as
he went without salutation of any sort. I ran into my room, locked the
door and had a good cry.

CHAPTER XVIII

I DEFY THEM

    Laughter and pleasant faces for me--Frederick Augustus refuses to
    back me, but I don't care--We quarrel about my reading--He professes
    to gross ignorance.

    DRESDEN, _May 1, 1894_.

What's the use keeping a diary that is nothing but a record of quarrels
and humiliations? After I finished the entry about my scene with Prince
George, I felt considerably relieved. I had held my own, anyhow. But
fighting is one thing and writing another. I am always ready for a
fight, but "war-reporting" comes less easy.

The unpleasantness with George brought in its wake, as a natural
consequence so to speak, a whole lot of other squabbles and
altercations, family jars and general rumpuses, which I cared not to
embalm in these pages at the time. However, as they are part and parcel
of my narrative, incomplete as it may be, I will insert them by and by
according to their sequence.

After George was gone I made up my mind that, his commands and threats
notwithstanding, I must continue to live as I always did: joyful, free
within certain limits and careless of puritan standards. If the rest of
the royal ladies, and the women of the service, want to mope and look
sour, that's their affair. Let them wear out their lives between
confessional, knitting socks for orphan children, _Kaffe-klatsches,_
spying and tale-bearing and prayer-meetings,--it isn't my style. I'm
young, I'm pretty, I'm full of red blood, life means something to me. I
want to live it my own way.

I want to laugh; I have opinions of my own; I want to read books that
open and improve the mind. I want to promote my education by attending
lectures, by going to the theatre--in short, I don't want to become a
dunce and a bell-jingling fool like the others.

If that spells royal disgrace--be it so. Louise won't purchase two "_How
art thou's?_" at the price their Majesties and Royal Highnesses ask.

Of course, it would come easier with Frederick Augustus's help and
support, but since he chooses to be bully-ragged and sat upon and,
moreover, finds pleasure in licking the hand that strikes at his and his
wife's dignity, I will go it alone.

I defy them.

    DRESDEN, _June 16, 1894_.

I had another tiff with Frederick Augustus, but the cause is too
insignificant to deserve record. I will rather tell about our grand
quarrel following Prince George's visit. We dined alone that day, as he
was eager to hear the news. The preliminaries didn't excite him much,
but when I mentioned the book episode, he bristled up.

"You won't allow the King, or Prince George, to dictate what I shall
read or not read?" I demanded. "My house is my castle and I won't brook
interference in my _ménage_."

"Do you really suppose," replied Frederick Augustus, "that I'll court
royal displeasure for the sake of those Jew-scribblers? I never read a
book since I left school and can't make out what interest books can have
to you or anyone else. Where did you get them, anyhow?"

I told him that Leopold supplied my book wants. "My brother is a very
intelligent man," I said, "and the books he gives me are all classics in
their way."

"Go to with your book-talk!" he mocked in his most contemptuous voice.
"I asked the director of the royal library and was told that each of the
books, to which father objects, was written by a Jew. Let Jews read
them. It isn't decent for a royal princess to do so."

"My brother isn't a Jew."

"But in utter disgrace in Vienna. No one at court speaks to him. He is
head over heels in debt and the next we know he will be borrowing from
us. As to those books, don't bring any more into the house. Royal
princes and princesses have better things to do than waste time on
Jew-scribblers."

With that he violently pushed back his chair and left me, a very much
enraged woman. He didn't give me the chance to have the last word.

CHAPTER XIX

ATTEMPTED VIOLENCE DEFEATED BY FIRMNESS

    Frederick Augustus seeks to carry out his father's brutal
    threats--Orders and threats before servants--I positively refuse to
    be ordered about--Frederick Augustus plays Mrs. Lot--Enjoying myself
    at the theatre.

    DRESDEN, _June 17, 1894_.

The chance came later and with it the conviction that His Royal
Highness, Prince George, didn't quite believe me when I told him that I
wouldn't stand for violence, for tonight Frederick Augustus attempted
something of the sort.

I had ordered my carriage for seven o'clock to drive to the theatre, and
had just finished dressing when he stormed into my boudoir and demanded
to know if I had taken leave of my senses.

"Not that I am aware of."

"But I hear you intend to go to the theatre--a princess in disgrace
going to the theatre!"

"Aren't you coming along, Frederick Augustus?" I asked naïvely.

"I have no desire to lose my regiment."

"And I have no desire to sit at home and talk nothingnesses with the
fools His Majesty appoints for my service."

"Take a care," cried Frederick Augustus.

"Don't be a noodle and a coward," I answered hotly.

"Louise, remember that I am an army officer."

"What has that to do with my going to the theatre?"

"It's the height of audacity to defy the King."

"It would be the depth of cowardice to stay at home."

"Take back that word, or----"

"I wish Your Royal Highness a very pleasant evening," I said, indulging
in a low genuflexion.

Frederick Augustus got blue with rage. I saw him clench his fists as I
swept out of the room, making as much noise with my train as I could
manage.

"An out-rider," I commanded the Master of Horse who stood in the
ante-chamber awaiting me.

"At your Imperial Highness' commands," bowed the Baron with the most
astonished face in the world. We use out-riders, that is grooms in
livery, to ride ahead of the royal carriage, only on state occasions in
Dresden. But, of course, my orders would be obeyed even if I had
demanded twelve grooms to attend me.

I was just going out, preceded by my Chamberlain and followed by my
ladies, Baroness Tisch and _Fräulein_ von Schoenberg; there were two
lackeys at the door and in the corridor stood the groom-in-waiting,
holding several lap-robes for me to decide which to take, when the
Prince caught up with me.

"I forbid you to go to the theatre," he bawled in the presence of my
titled entourage and three servants.

I realized at once that this was the supreme moment of my life at the
court of Saxony. Either bend or break. If I allowed myself to be roared
at and ordered about like a servant-wench--goodbye the Imperial
Highness! Enter the Jenny-Sneak German housewife, greedy for her
master's smile and willing to accept an occasional kick. The Prince had
begun this family brawl in public. I would finish.

"I won't take orders," I held forth. "No commands, understand, princely,
royal or otherwise. And be advised, now and for all time, that I will
answer any attempt to brutalize me by immediate departure, or by seeking
refuge with the Austrian Ambassador."

If Frederick Augustus had suddenly become Mrs. Lot he wouldn't have been
more conspicuous for utter petrification and silence. He stared at me
with wide-open, bleary eyes and if I had taken him by the neck and feet
and dropped him out of the window, as his ancestor Augustus of the
three-hundred and fifty-two took the "spook" sent into his bedroom by
Joseph the First, he wouldn't have offered the ghost of resistance, I
dare say.

"Your arm, Mr. Chamberlain, since His Royal Highness doesn't wish to
accompany us." And I swept out of the ante-chamber and through the
corridor, triumphant.

"Gipsy Baron" was the bill of the play. I knew only a few of its waltzes
and I drank in the comedy and the pretty music like one desperately
athirst. Kyril's girl, the Dolores, was very chic and looked ravishingly
pretty, and brother-in-law Max isn't the dunce I took him for.

His Theresa is a droll dog, fair to look upon, dark and fat. It will
take a lot of holy water to save her from purgatory.

Girardi made me screech with laughter. He is as funny as my
father-in-law is mournful--a higher compliment to his art I cannot pay.
Of course, actor-like, he appreciated an Imperial Highness' applause and
looked up to my box every little while. I wish, though, he hadn't
acknowledged my plaudits by bowing to me. It attracted general attention
and soon the whole house was staring and smiling. The people seemed to
be glad that their Crown Princess was enjoying herself.

CHAPTER XX

TITLED SERVANTS LOW AND CUNNING

    George tries to rob me of my confidante--Enter the King's spy,
    Baroness Tisch in her true character--Punishment of one royal spy.

    DRESDEN, _August 1, 1894_.

Prince George is planning a devilish revenge. He threatens to separate
me from my Secretary and confidante, little Baranello, whom I brought
with me from Salzburg. She is an Italian, and, unlike most of them, as
faithful as a dog. A connection of the Ruffo family, princes and dukes
that gave the world more than one pope, the small fry Saxon nobility
hate her, and George knows that he can't corrupt Lucretia by his paltry
presents and ridiculous condescension.

They would send her back to Salzburg, if they dared,--anyhow, Baroness
von Tisch is to be both Chief Mistress and confidential secretary. If
she died of the first confidence I make her, she wouldn't live five
minutes.

The King's House Marshal, Baron von Carlowitz, came to announce the
change to me, but I knew, of course, that it was George's doings.

"Tell Prince George," I said icily, "that I appreciate the fact of being
deprived of the services of an honest woman in favor of a spy."

I will "show" this Tisch woman, as my American friends say. Some three
years ago Emperor Francis Joseph appointed a spy as attendant to my
brother Leopold. Schoenstein, Baron or Count, was his name, I think.
Schoenstein would rather bear evil tales of his young master to his old
master than eat, and nothing would please him better than to meddle with
Leopold's correspondence.

He stole as many letters as he could lay his hands on. Fished them even
from slop-pails, or pieced together such as Leopold tore up and dropped
in the cuspidors. When brother observed this, he used to tear up bills
and the most innocent writings of his own and other people into little
bits and planted them in Schoenstein's hunting-grounds. Appropriate work
for a _lick-spittle_ to pull them out. But Leopold got tired of playing
with this vermin, and it tickled him to make an example of the scamp.
Hence, he allowed it to be observed by Schoenstein when he, Leopold,
locked a parcel of letters from his girl in the cash-box.

The toad-eating Schoenstein burned with desire to copy these letters and
send the transcript on to Emperor Francis Joseph. They would have made
interesting reading to my old uncle who has given up cracking nuts since
his teeth fell out. There is Kati Schratt, you say. Pshaw, Kati is as
old, or nearly as old, as his Majesty and she isn't a Ninon de l'Enclos
by any means.

To cut a long story short, Schoenstein could see but one way for getting
those compromising letters: steal the keys and borrow the parcel for a
short while. That's what Leopold was waiting for. Not half an hour after
the keys had been abstracted, he raised the alarm. He had been "robbed."
The archducal safe had been rifled. And he managed to catch Schoenstein
red-handed.

"Send for the police," thundered my brother, "and meanwhile watch the
thief well." Schoenstein was given no chance to explain and deemed
himself lucky to escape arrest. My brother suspended him from service
and made him go to a hotel while he telegraphed the story of the
attempted theft to Vienna, asking the Count's immediate dismissal.

Of course, Vienna disavowed the dunderhead--royalty has no use for
persons that allow themselves to be compromised--and he has been in
disgrace ever since. Nor can he get another courtly office, for Leopold
threatened the moment he sees him with a Highness to warn everybody:
"Look to your watch and purse, we have a thief with us."

I jotted this down to remind me that Prince George's spy deserves no
better than the Emperor's.

CHAPTER XXI

BANISHMENT

    I am ordered to repair to a country house with the hated spy as my
    Grand Mistress--My first impulse to go home, but afraid parents
    won't have me.

    DRESDEN, _August 10, 1894_.

Order from the King that myself and children spend the rest of the
summer at Villa Loschwitz, to remain until I get royal permission to
return to Dresden,--the Tisch to act as chief of my household.

Banished! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Smile, because I
escaped the _ennui_ of attending court at the summer residence of
Pillnitz; weep, because my absence from court would be interpreted as a
disciplinary measure.

I know Pillnitz is about as gay as a Trappist feast of carrion and ant's
milk, but this princess doesn't want to be disciplined.

I shall tell them that I want to go home, but will they have me in
Salzburg? Papa, of course, but if mother hears of my acquaintance with
Heine, "who doesn't love Jesus,"--her own words,--she will undoubtedly
side with Prince George against her daughter. It was Heine who wrote of
one of her ancestors, King Louis of Bavaria: "As soon as the monkeys and
kangaroos are converted to Christianity, they'll make King Louis their
guardian saint, in proof of their perfect sanity." And you don't suppose
for a moment that mamma forgets a thing like that. As to Nietzsche, he
will give her no conscientious qualms, for I'm sure she never heard of
the gentleman, but my going to the Gipsy Baron "where two princely
mistresses are gyrating"--horrible!

I hear her say: "I think Prince George is most considerate sending our
daughter to Loschwitz. She deserved to be put in a nunnery and made to
kneel on unboiled peas three times a day." And when it comes to an
_éclat_, even papa may have to abandon me. Emperor Francis Joseph holds
the purse-strings; and papa always lives beyond his means and Francis
Joseph, King Albert and Prince George are fast friends. If papa
quarrelled with the two latter gentlemen, they would immediately
denounce him to the Emperor. The rest can easily be guessed.

Sorry, but papa is no hero in his daughter's eyes.

CHAPTER XXII

"POOR RELATIONS" IN ROYAL HOUSES

    Myself and Frederick Augustus quarrel and pound table--The Countess
    Cosel's golden vessel--Off to Brighton--Threat of a beating--I
    provoke shadows of divorce--King threatens force--More defiance on
    my part--I humble the King and am allowed to invite my brother
    Leopold.

    VILLA LOSCHWITZ, _September 1, 1894_.

Father had to give in. He is the poor relation, and a poor relation in
royal circles doesn't amount to more than one among well-to-do merchants
and farmers. He has no rights that others need respect and if he shows
backbone he is given to understand that the head of the family has other
uses for the palace or hunting grounds lent him.

"I would love to have you with me in Salzburg," he wrote, "but, dear
child, it's for your best to learn to obey. Do it for your old father's
sake."

Still I wouldn't give in at once. "I won't go to Loschwitz," I declared.
And gave a dozen reasons besides the paramount one that I wouldn't go,
because Prince George wanted me.

"I'm no trunk to be shipped hither and thither at someone's behest," I
said.

Frederick Augustus took umbrage at the "someone," which he pronounced
_lèse majesté_, and to emphasise the fact hit the table with a bang,
whereupon I pounded the table twice: bang-bang!

It hurt my hand, and didn't do Frederick Augustus any good. Nor was the
discussion advanced thereby. For the rest: an exchange of names and
epithets that smacked of the kitchen rather than the _salon_.

"Too bad you exhaust all your energy with me," I said among other
things, "while in the royal presence you act the docile lamb's tail."

He began prating about his character as an army officer again, and I
reminded him that I wasn't the Countess Cosel.

"Who's that?" asked the big ignoramus.

"Never heard of the lady that refused to accompany Augustus to the Camp
of Mühlberg unless he brought her a certain intimate golden vessel
costing five thousand _Thalers_?"

"A loving cup?" asked my husband.

"If you like to call it so."

"But why did you say you are no Cosel?"

"I meant to imply that I am not a prisoner of state and don't want to be
treated like one. Hence, since a visit to my parents would greatly
embarrass them, I decided to go to Brighton for the season."

"Brighton," he repeated, "and where will you get the spondulicks?"

"I saved up quite a bit of money. Guess I can manage the expense
alright."

"Lip-music," cried Frederick Augustus in his polite way. "You have no
idea what such a trip costs."

I assured him that I had made every inquiry and was able to meet all
expenses. "We will go incog.," I added, "the babies and nurse and
Lucretia. The Tisch woman shall have a furlough even before she asks for
it."

"Is that so?" Frederick Augustus laughed brutally. "You seem to forget
that you are subject to our house laws."

"And you seem to forget that I have a will of my own," I almost shouted.

Frederick Augustus jumped up. "Not another word on the subject," he
commanded. "The incident is closed."

It suddenly occurred to me that Prince George had been talking once more
to Frederick Augustus about the pugilistic performances of my mother.
Perhaps he was trying to pluck up courage to beat me, a diversion not
altogether unknown in the House of Saxony, according to the Memoirs of
the famous Baron Schweinichen, Court Marshal and _Chroniqueur_.

His diaries, covering a number of years, have many such entries as this:
"His Royal Highness hit the Princess a good one on the 'snout' by way
of silencing her tongue." Doubtless George would be delighted to have me
"shut up" by some such process, but Frederick Augustus lacks the sand.

When he was gone, I indicted a letter to the King, advising him in oily,
malicious, yet eminently respectful language that, not wishing to figure
as a prisoner of state, I had decided to spend the rest of the summer
abroad with my children. At the same time I intimated that I was well
aware of being in disgrace and being regarded with ill favor by the
several members of the royal family.

"If it pleases your Majesty," I added, "I will relieve a most unhappy
situation by giving back his liberty to Frederick Augustus. I'll promise
not to oppose divorce, or allow my family to interfere."

This letter I sent to the King, sealing it with my personal arms, of
which there is no duplicate at court. After that I sent three telegrams.
One to papa, announcing that I was going to Brighton; another to the
Palace Hotel in Brighton; a third to the Minister of Railways,
commanding that my saloon carriage be coupled to the Continental express
night after next. I knew, of course, that the King would be informed of
these messages in a twinkling.

I waited an hour for the Powers to move; as a rule it takes them a week
or ten days. Exactly sixty-five minutes after sending my letter to the
King, Frederick Augustus rode into the courtyard like a madman. He had
been hurriedly summoned from the drill-grounds, I heard afterwards. He
dismounted at the stairs leading to the King's apartments. Half an hour
later, he slunk into my room, as serious as a corpse. There wasn't a
trace of brutality in his voice as he said:

"A fine row you kicked up."

I didn't favor him by questions, but kept looking out of the window. He
walked up and down for five or six minutes, boring his eyes into the
corners of the room. Suddenly, at a safe distance, he delivered himself
of the following:

"His Majesty interdicts your plans _in toto_. You will be conducted to
Loschwitz tonight. Don't put yourself to the humiliation of trying to
disobey. You are being watched."

"His Majesty's own words?"

"He refused to see me," answered Frederick Augustus, dejectedly. He
acted as if pronouncing his own death warrant. "Baumann told me." (This
is the King's Secretary.)

I almost pitied the poor fellow, but I had to hold my own.

"My dear Frederick Augustus," I said, "you can tell Baumann from me that
I won't go to Loschwitz tonight; that for the present I intend to stay
here and that, if they force me, they'll need plenty of rope, for I
will holler and kick and do all I can to attract attention."

Maybe Frederick Augustus wanted to say something in reply, but open his
mouth was all he could manage. Seeing him so bamboozled, I continued:
"It is decided, then, that I stay, but I give you fair warning that I
will skip to England sooner or later. I don't want you to get into
trouble, Frederick Augustus, therefore inform Baumann without delay."

Frederick Augustus got blue in the face. He seemed ready to jump on me,
crush me between his cuirassier fists. I held up my hand.

"Did Baumann tell you that I offered to accept divorce if it pleases the
King?"

Frederick Augustus changed color. White as a ghost, he fixed his eyes
upon mine, momentarily, and murmured: "Have we got to that point?"

He ran out of the room and a minute later was tearing up the stairs
leading to the King's apartments. Lucretia says he returned within a
quarter of an hour and tried my door. But I had locked myself in and
refused to open. We didn't meet until dinner. Neither of us ate a bite,
or said a word. Baumann was announced with the ice. He was all smiles,
all devotion.

"His Majesty will be pleased to see your Imperial Highness in a quarter
of an hour," he said sweetly.

Frederick Augustus was a painted sepulchre when I coolly replied: "Pray
inform His Majesty that I am not well and about to retire for the
night."

At this Baumann looked like a whipped dog. He probably thought it
impossible for anyone to refuse to answer the summons of His Majesty.
With the most downcast mien in the world, he seemed singularly anxious
to render himself ridiculous. "Maybe the Crown Prince will do in my
stead," I suggested maliciously.

Baumann grabbed at the straw and withdrew. A little while later a lackey
came, summoning Frederick Augustus to Prince George. When he came back,
he was all undone.

"Father treated me very well," he said. "He says the King regrets that
your uncontrollable temper causes so many misunderstandings, and both
His Majesty and father have no objection to your staying in Dresden if
you like. Loschwitz was suggested because you and the children seem to
need country air.

"As to your proposed visit to England, the King begs you to consider
that such a journey at this time is liable to provoke a scandal which
would reflect not only on you, on us, but on your poor parents."

The old story of the penurious relations, I thought bitterly, but on the
whole I was well pleased. I had beaten and out-generaled them all.

"If Loschwitz isn't meant for punishment, I accept with pleasure," I
said. "It's a very pretty place." Poor Frederick Augustus' face lit up.
"But there must be an end to the talk about I being in disgrace. If the
King is as friendly to me as he makes out, let him come and see me and
the babies. As to summonses by Baumann or others, I won't accept them."

"Very well," said Frederick Augustus, and I saw that I had risen
mile-high in his estimation, "when will it be your pleasure to leave for
Loschwitz?"

"Tonight, if I have permission to invite Leopold for a week or so."

"Are you stark, staring mad?" shouted my husband,--"Impose conditions
after the King moderated?"

"Go and tell Baumann I'll have Leopold or all is off," I said.

Next morning: Ceremonial visit from the Queen. The tip of her nose was
redder than ever and she seemed prepared to weep at the flicking of an
eye-lash. She gave me a list of her troubles, mental, physical,
political, matrimonial and otherwise, since the day she was born, but
said: "Obedience to my father, the King, and obedience to my husband,
the King, has enabled me to weather all storms. You, too, must learn
obedience, Louise. It's women's only salvation and especially a
princess's."

I answered that I fully recognized my obligations to the King. "I only
object to being buffeted around like a piece of furniture."

"I know, I know," said the Queen, "and hope all is arranged
satisfactorily. The King will be glad if you invite your parents to
Loschwitz."

"I asked permission to invite Leopold."

"But, no doubt, your parents would take more interest in the children
than your brother."

"I don't dispute that, Your Majesty. But if my parents joined me at the
present time, people might think they came to condole with me or else to
scold me. I want Leopold."

The Queen said she wouldn't dare mention Leopold to His Majesty.

"Well, then," I concluded, "I shall stay in Dresden, regarding Baumann's
fine promises as mere talk."

The Queen went away with the air of a martyr, but three days later
Baumann came and said His Imperial Highness was welcome.

A triumph all along the line. I left Dresden without seeing the King.

Frederick Augustus is at the manoeuvres.

The Baroness is acting as my Grand Mistress.

I expect Leopold in a fortnight.

CHAPTER XXIII

A SERVANT-TYRANT

    My correspondence is not safe from the malicious woman appointed
    Grand Mistress--Lovers at a distance and by correspondence--Fell in
    love with a leg.

    LOSCHWITZ, _September 8, 1894_.

Baroness Tisch, now that she attained the height of her ambition, is
beginning to show her claws. She is an infernal cat. Her skinniness
makes her repulsive to me and her face gives everyone the impression
that she just sucked an enormous lemon. She lisps and that makes me
nervous. I feel like aping her when she isn't around.

She's after me like the devil chasing a poor soul and as I never address
her except to command or reprimand, she tries to find out any secret
doings, or thinkings, I may be guilty of by way of letters I write or
receive.

According to the laws of most countries private correspondence is
sacred, legally and morally. The late Field-Marshal, Count Blumenthal,
wrote to his wife of the Crown Prince, afterwards Emperor Frederick,
that he was a "d----fool," but "as communications between husband and
wife are privileged," no official cognizance was taken.

Otherwise in this petty kingdom and, as already told, in Austria, whose
monarch, in family matters at least, holds to the "_L'Etat c'est moi_"
maxim.

The King's spy, the Tisch, constituted herself post-office of Villa
Loschwitz--a duty appertaining to her rank--and I wager she works the
"_Black Cabinet_" to perfection. Of course, I am now careful in all I
write and advise my friends to be, but I sometimes get letters from
Unknowns, people that sympathize with me or have fallen in love with me.
All women in high station have lovers among the lowly. I recall the
Cardinal Dubois' yarn about Salvatico, envoy of the Prince of Modena, my
kinsman of yore. The Italian was sent to Paris to conduct home his
master's lovely intended, _Mademoiselle_ de Valois, daughter of the
Regent. It happened that the emissary was introduced to _Mademoiselle's_
room an hour before the time set, when she was lying on a lounge "with
one leg, almost naked, hanging down." Salvatico fell in love with the
leg and exhausted himself in so many "Ah, ah's" of admiration and other
love-sick stunts that the Duke of Richelieu, having older rights, said
to him: "Rogue, if you had your deserts I would cut off your two ears!"

No man, except my husband, has seen my legs, which is a pity, perhaps,
but the extreme _décolleté_ demanded at certain court functions,
especially in Berlin, gained me many epistolary lovers, whose homage I
accept gracefully, but in silence, of course.

Still, a malicious thing like the Tisch, if one gives her enough rope,
might arrange, on paper at least, to get me with child by a Lothario a
hundred miles off, even as the children of Madame de Montespan and Louis
XIV were credited to the Marquis, her husband, residing a hundred
leagues away, at Guienne. Let me find her red-handed and she will fare
even worse than Schoenstein.

CHAPTER XXIV

MORE TYRANNY OF A TITLED SERVANT

    My daily papers seized, and only milk-and-water clippings are
    submitted--"King's orders"--Grand Mistress's veracity doubted--My
    threats of suspension cow her.

    LOSCHWITZ, _September 10, 1894_.

This morning there were no newspapers at the usual hour. Instead, the
Tisch furnished a heap of clippings carefully pasted up--the veriest
milk-and-water slush "ever." Instanter I sent for my tormentor.

"What's this?" I demanded.

"Today's papers, Your Imperial Highness."

"You made these clippings?"

"At Your Imperial Highness's commands."

"And you think me ninny enough to be satisfied with reading no more than
what you consider proper for me to see?"

The Tisch wavered not a bit. "His Majesty the King is served the same
fashion."

"No matter. I want my papers whole, and don't you dare to mutilate
them." By way of letting her down easier I added: "Don't give yourself
the trouble."

"No trouble, I assure your Imperial Highness. With your permission,
then, I will continue to clip for Your Imperial Highness."

I rose and, measuring her from head to toe with flaming eyes, I said:
"You will do nothing of the kind, do you understand?"

The impertinent cat insisted: "But I think it proper----"

"Have you heard what I said or not, Baroness?"

She tried to save her face by asserting, "I am acting by command of His
Majesty."

"I will ask His Majesty whether you spoke the truth," I said quick as a
flash; "meanwhile you are suspended and will return to Dresden until
recalled. Ring the bell and I will give orders to the Master of Horse to
send you away."

Of course Tisch couldn't afford such an inquiry to be made, which would
have exposed her clumsy hand and, as remarked, royalty doesn't care to
be found out. Defeat staring her in the face, Tisch wavered: "Of course,
if your Imperial Highness chooses to take the responsibility, I will be
most happy to submit the papers as they arrive."

"In their wrappers," I commanded, as I dismissed her.

By distributing a hundred marks in silver, I found out that the Tisch
examines my body-servants daily and that, night after night, she sits
up hours writing long-winded reports. She is the King's tool, but she
let the cat out of the bag when cornered. That gives me the whip hand
for the time being.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TWO BLACK SHEEP OF THE FAMILY UNITED

    Leopold upon my troubles and his own--Imperial Hapsburgs that,
    though Catholics, got divorces or married divorced women--Books that
    are full of guilty knowledge, according to royalty--A mud-hole
    lodging for one Imperial Highness--Leopold's girl--What I think of
    army officers' wives--Their anonymous letters--Leopold's money
    troubles--We will fool our enemies by feigning obedience.

    LOSCHWITZ, _September 15, 1894_.

Leopold is with me, the brother two years older than I. They just made
him a Major--a twelve-month later than his patent calls for.

Like myself, he is almost permanently in disgrace with the head of the
family, even as I am with the King and Prince George. We had no sooner
embraced and kissed, than I asked him for the latest gossip concerning
the Crown Princess of Saxony.

"You are a tough one," he said, shaking his finger with amused mockery.
According to Vienna court gossip, "I threw Prince George out of doors,"
when he "raised his hand against me," Frederick Augustus and myself
haven't been on speaking terms for six months; and the Saxe family was
actually considering the advisability of divorce.

Of course I told Leopold how things really are.

"Then there will be no divorce?" he asked.

"If the King and Prince George leave me alone,--no."

"Too bad," he said with a laugh, "that knocks me out of the pleasure of
maintaining my _thesis_ that the founder of the Christian religion
didn't believe in indissoluble marriage, but, on the contrary, in
divorce if such couldn't be avoided."

"Who told you that?"

"Professor Wahrmund is preparing a paper on the subject," said Leopold,
who, as remarked, is a very well-read chap and a student. He named five
or six emperors and kings, Catholics, some of them members of the
Austrian Imperial family, who obtained divorces, or married divorced
women. I jotted down the list.

Lothair II divorced his wife Theutberga and married his love, Waldrade.

Emperor Frederick I divorced the Empress Anna on the plea that she was
sterile. She married a Count, with whom she had a dozen children.

Margaret, a daughter of Leopold VI of Austria, was divorced by King
Ottokar of Bohemia.

John Henry, Prince of Bohemia, divorced his wife Margareta, who
afterwards married an ancestor of the Kaiser, Ludwig of Brandenburg.

King Ladislaus of Sicily divorced Queen Constance and forced his vassal,
Andrea di Capua, to marry her against his will. Ten years later
Ladislaus married Maria de Lusignan.

But a little knowledge is a terrible thing, if it happens to be acquired
by a prince. Princes are supposed to know nothing but the art and the
_finesses_ of destruction--war. Upbuilding is not in their line.

"I hear you are exercising a bad influence on Louise," roared our uncle,
the Emperor, at Leopold when the latter took leave from him. "You
furnished to her those infernal books, sowing the seed of guilty
knowledge?"

Leopold so far forgot himself as to address a question to the
"All-Highest": "What infernal books?"

"Books full of indecencies and obscenities, in short pornographic
literature," shouted the head of the family, turned his horse and rode
away in high dudgeon. Royal arguments are nothing if not one-sided!

Then Leopold told of himself. His garrison: a filthy mud-hole in Poland.
One-story houses and everybody peeping into everybody else's windows.
The few notables of the town and neighborhood tickled to death because
they have an Imperial Highness with them, and the fool of an Imperial
Highness goes and "besots himself with a mere country lass." He showed
me her photograph. I like her looks. A pretty face, blonde hair and soft
eyes. He was her first lover. On his account she left her family. She
dotes on him as a dog dotes on his master.

Leopold is eccentric enough to jeopardize his career for this poor
thing. He rented a small house for her and spends much of his time there
when not on the drill-grounds.

Hence intense indignation among the "respectable ladies." An Imperial
Highness within reach and he "doesn't come to our dances, he doesn't
visit and sends his regrets when invited!"

Poor Marja suffers especially from the venom of the officers'
wives,--cattle I detest. No royal or imperial prince is safe from them
except in his mother's womb.

"From morn till night and half the night they do nothing but gossip
about me and my girl," said Leopold,--"If the cats were only satisfied
with that! But every little while I get an anonymous letter from one of
them, denouncing her; Marja is favored in a similar way; so is my
general and our uncle, the Emperor."

And needless to say Leopold can't get along on his salary and appanage.
Father can't give him much. The Emperor won't, because the clergy
intrigues against him as a free-thinker and non-church-goer.

We thought long and deep whether it wouldn't be possible to improve our
position and we decided on this:

We will keep up each other's spirits by clandestine correspondence,
carried on with the aid of a mutual friend. At the same time we will,
apparently, fall in with the ideas of "our masters" and endure a few
pin-pricks rather than waste our strength in useless opposition.

Let no one chide us for hypocrites, because our gentleness will be a
mask, our submission a snare, our obedience a lie. It's all on the
outside. Inwardly Leopold and Louise will remain true to themselves.

CHAPTER XXVI

FREDERICK AUGUSTUS CONTINUES VERY RAW

    Manners _à la_ barracks natural to royal princes--Names I am
    called--My ladies scandalized--Leopold turned over a new leaf,
    according to agreement, and is well treated--The King grateful to me
    for having "influenced Leopold to be good."

    LOSCHWITZ, _October 1, 1894_.

I have tried it a fortnight during Frederick Augustus' sojourn here,
and, like the French Countess who fell in love with the strong man of
the circus, I am disappointed. Frederick Augustus considers my
tractability _carte blanche_ to carry into the boudoir of an Imperial
Princess the license of the brothel. He treats me like a kept-woman--all
with the utmost good-nature. I am called names such as the other
Augustus bestowed on the mothers of his three hundred and fifty-two, and
I daren't remind him that some day I'll be Queen of these realms.

This prince, like the majority of them, hasn't the ghost of an idea of a
sensitive woman's nature. He paws me over like a prize cow, and as the
fourteenth Louis esteemed his mistress's chamber-women no more worthy of
notice than her lap-dogs, so Frederick Augustus makes love _à la_
barracks before the Schoenberg, Countess von Minckwitz, or whatever
other lady is in attendance.

Only when he does it before the Tisch I am inclined to be amused rather
than incensed. Tisch, cadaverous beanpole, never felt a loving touch on
her shoulder. The place where her bosom should be never experienced a
friendly squeeze. No one ever cared whether she wore silk stockings or
rubber boots--be amorous, Frederick Augustus, when the Tisch is 'round!
Indulge your coarseness! Put twenty-mark pieces in my stockings for a
kiss. Tell gay stories and don't forget playing with my corsage. It will
make the old woman mad. It will remind her of what she missed--of what
she will miss all her life!

    LOSCHWITZ, _October 10, 1894_.

Letter from Leopold. He is going to church and--they leave his mistress
in peace.

He is paying banal compliments to the noble-women of his garrison and
pinches the officers' wives when he finds one in a corner--and they seem
to live in corners when His Imperial Highness is around--hence, no more
anonymous letters!

The spy planted in his household by the Emperor is allowed to see much
of the "innocent" correspondence passing between me and Leopold. He has
reported to Francis Joseph that the Prince turned over a new leaf.

Result: Leopold's debts have been paid and he got about two thousand
marks over and above his wants.

Further results: A gracious letter from the King's House Marshal, Baron
Carlowitz, praising me for "the good influence I am exercising on
Leopold."

Truly the world wants to be deceived.

CHAPTER XXVII

PRINCE MAX MAKES LOVE TO ME

    Wants me to consult him on all spiritual matters--Warns me against
    the Kaiser, the heretic bishop--Princes as ill-mannered as
    Russian-Jew up-starts.

    DRESDEN, _November 15, 1894_.

Prince Max called on me the day of my arrival and promised me an
armchair in Paradise for "reforming" Leopold. "I understand that your
family life is ideal now," he added. "What bliss!"

"Oh, Louise," he continued, with the face of a donkey withdrawing his
nozzle from a syrup barrel, "whenever doubtful of the right way, of the
Lord's way, come to me."

It would have been un-politic to repulse the grotesque ape, and I said:
"I will. I will even give you the preference over the Kaiser, who asked
me the same thing--as _summus episcopus_, of course."

Max looked about the room. We were alone, yet he lowered his voice to a
faint whisper. "William is a heretic. Don't trust him in religious
matters," he breathed stealthily. And this devilish Max began to stroke
my hands and admire a bracelet I wore above the elbow.

The Kaiser wouldn't have gone much further under the circumstances.
Maybe he would have kissed my arm, though, from wrist to pit.

Tonight family tea in the Queen's _salon_. The King an icicle, but
polite as a French marquis. He gave me the three "_How art thou's_" in
the space of five minutes, asked after the babies and promised to come
and look them over.

Frederick Augustus, half insane with delight, pinched my arm and
squeezed my leg under the table. I felt like boxing his ears.

My father-in-law had to behave in the presence of the King and said a
few commonplaces to me.

Johann George and Isabella talked automobiles, not to let us forget they
are millionaires.

"How much did you pay for my blue car?" asked Isabella.

"Not much," replied Johann George; "sixty thousand francs, if I
recollect rightly."

"My allowance for a whole year." I smiled my sweetest, and the King
looked disapprovingly at the braggarts.

For ill manners recommend me to a Russian-Jew upstart or to a Royal
Highness.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SHAH OF PERSIA FALLS IN LOVE WITH ME

    The "animal" and his show of diamonds and rubies--Overcome by love
    he treats me like a lady of the harem--On the defensive--The King of
    kings an ill-behaved brute--Eats like a pig and affronts
    Queen---Wiped off greasy hands on my state robe--When ten thousand
    gouged-out eyes carpeted his throne--Offers of jewels--"Does he take
    me for a ballet girl?"--The Shah almost compromises me--King,
    alarmed, abruptly ends dinner--I receive presents from him.

    DRESDEN, _November 20, 1894_.

Lover No. two. Very much in earnest, like the first, but I--extremely
distant this time, though I accepted some emeralds and sapphires as big
as dove's eggs. The Shah of Persia is the happy-unhappy man.

The King and all the Princes went to the railway station to receive him.
The Queen and Princesses, our entourage behind us, assembled in the
throne room to do honor to the "animal." To designate him otherwise
would be callow flattery.

But his diamonds and rubies fairly dazzled us. Nothing like it in
Europe, and our gala uniforms, compared with his, like stage tiaras to
the Russian Crown jewels!

Though he had eyes for me only, I didn't like him a bit. He is a little
fellow, unsecure on his pins. And like the Balkan princeling I met in
Vienna, looks as though there was a strain of Jewish blood in his veins.

Like a true Oriental potentate, he wasted not a minute's time on the
Queen and my sisters-in-law, but began making love to me as soon as he
entered. The King had to take him by the arm to remind him that his
first greetings were due to her Majesty. Poor Carola! Her face looked
like parchment, much interlined, and the point of her nose was as
conspicuous as usual.

There's nothing elegant about this "King of kings," and his French, like
his manners, is atrocious. He addressed a few set phrases to the Queen,
then attacked me--"attacked" is the right word. If I hadn't been on the
defensive, I think he would have handled my charms as unceremoniously as
Frederick Augustus when in his cups. As it was I escaped but by the
length of an eye-lash.

State dinner at five. I never saw such an ill-behaved brute, yet he
intended to be most agreeable. We are very pious at this court, but on
occasions like this even an old woman like the Queen is obliged to
denude herself like a wet-nurse on duty.

His Majesty had the Queen on one side; me on the left. The King of
Saxony was opposite.

After we sat down the Shah examined Queen Carola from the point of her
chin to the edge of her desolate corsage and had the effrontery to
express disapproval in all but words. Then he turned to me. His gaze
became admiring. He was evidently delighted with his discoveries and,
true despot that he is, turned his back on the Queen, while paying
extravagant court to my charms.

The King, the whole vast assembly, the surrounding splendor were lost on
this mutton-eater of a barbarian. He saw only me, _m-e_, ME, and I'm
sure would have consigned all the rest to some unspeakable Oriental
death for five minutes' _tête-à-tête_ with Louise.

"You are neglecting Her Majesty," I whispered to him over and over
again. This seemed to enrage him, but at last he turned to the Queen,
expecting her to begin a conversation with him. Of course, Her Majesty
thought he would take the initiative, which led to mutual staring, the
Shah's eyes growing wickeder every second. Then he began to devote
himself to the food and, be sure, there was small pleasure in watching
him. He fed more like a dog than a human being and actually had the
effrontery to wipe his sauce-spattered hands in the lap of my state
robe.

Then, before his mouth was empty, he began talking again.

"Which of the princes is your husband?"

I singled out Frederick Augustus. "He isn't a beauty by any means," he
said, after examining him like a horse for sale.

The next second his eyes were wandering over my body; I felt as if I was
being disrobed.

"You will attend the opera?"

"I'll have the honor."

"I will send you a little present after dinner," he said. "If you wear
it tonight, I will regard that as a sign of hope." The beast affected a
sentimentality to which he must be a stranger.

I recalled that he was the monster who carpeted the steps of his throne
with the gouged-out eyes of ten thousand enemies of his régime when he
was crowned. On twenty-thousand human eyes he trod with naked feet as he
acclaimed himself "King of kings" and the "true son of God." And
Juggernaut was in love with me!

I was speechless. Did he take me for a dancing girl? I narrowed my
shoulders and gave him a look of disdain. House Marshal Baron Carlowitz,
standing behind the King's chair, took in the situation and whispered to
King Albert.

The King immediately rose from table and the state dinner came to an
abrupt end.

An hour later, while I was dressing for the theatre, a big jewel box was
handed in. "From the Shah."

Despite my disgust with the fellow, I opened it in feverish haste. There
was a bracelet set with rubies, sapphires and emeralds of fabulous
size.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SHAH COMPROMISES ME IN PUBLIC

    Has only eyes for me at the grand manoeuvres, and I can't drive
    him from my carriage--Ignores the King and the military
    spectacle--Calls me his adored one--Court in despair--Shah ruins
    priceless carpets to make himself a lamb stew.

    DRESDEN, _December 1, 1894_.

I am in disgrace again and that uncouth animal, the Shah, is
responsible.

The dinner episode was bad enough, but he carried on worse at the grand
parade next day.

Six or eight regiments, Horse, Foot and Artillery, had been moved to do
him honor, but he flatly refused to accept a mount for the occasion.
Like the ladies of the royal family, he drove to the parade field in a
coach and four, and no sooner did he clap eyes on me at the rendezvous
in another vehicle than he left his and shambled over to me. He stood at
the carriage door, chanting love and devotion, and if I hadn't been all
ice, I have no doubt he would have jumped in and ordered the coachman to
drive to a hotel.

Meanwhile the King trotted around the manoeuvre field in honor of his
"sublime guest." Evolutions, _Parade-marsch_, attacks, saluting the
colors, Persian and Saxon, what not? Imagine the feelings of the old
King when he rode up to the Shah's gala coach and found it empty.

The marching past had begun, and still the "King of kings" turned his
back on it all, while trying to persuade me to be Queen of his seraglio.

Our courtiers, the princes, the Queen, the generals were in despair.
They took counsel with each other, disputed, advised, got red in the
face. The Shah's gentlemen alone kept cool. They probably argued: If our
master prefers the company of a pretty woman to looking at ten thousand
men, he shows his good taste.

I tried to shake him off. He stood his ground and smiled.

"The Grand March has begun, Your Majesty."

"Bother the Grand March."

The King began to bombard me with ungracious, glances, and of course
everybody stared. Three times I asked the big booby to return to his
carriage to oblige his host. "Not while I may look at you, adored one."

His love-making became desperate. The Crown Princess of Saxony, the
Imperial Highness of Austria, the "adored one" of this butcher, who was
ruining twenty-five thousand marks' worth of carpets in his apartments
at our palace by using them as a shambles to prepare his breakfast of
lamb stew. It was contemptible,--nay, ridiculous. Surely there was
nothing to do but laugh. And I laughed and laughed again.

Only when the last battalion had marched by and the music ceased, the
"King of kings" returned to his carriage and drove back to Dresden with
the most bored looking visage of the world.

CHAPTER XXX

MY LIFE AT COURT BECOMES UNBEARABLE

    Laughter a crime--Disappointed Queen lays down the law for my
    behavior--Frederick Augustus sometimes fighting drunk--Draws sword
    on me--Prince George would have me beaten--To bed with his boots on.

    DRESDEN, _January 5, 1895_.

Ever since the Shah left I have been the object of criticism, suspicions
and down-right attacks by the pretty family I married into. These pages
witness that I tried to conform to the absurd notions and comply with
the narrow-minded idiosyncrasies of the Royal Wettiners. I give it up.
It can't be done, and I won't make another effort at pleasing my
relatives-in-law, who adjudge laughter a crime and the desire to make
friends a bid of lewdness.

Prince George invented the phrase, "Louise is over-desirous to please,"
and Queen Carola paid me a state visit to acquaint me with the new
indictment.

"Good gracious," I said to Her Majesty, "is that all? I thought of being
accused of 'sassing' the Archangel Gabriel. As to desire to please,
that's exactly what ails me. I love to please. I love to see people
happy. I love to make friends."

"My dear child," said the Queen, "you haven't the slightest notion of
royal dignity. You talk like a _cocotte_. It's a Princess's place to be
honored, to be held in supreme esteem."

Poor old woman! She was never pretty, never was made love to, never had
admirers, legitimate or otherwise; she thus became impregnated with the
fixed idea that to be fair and to be loved for one's fairness is
frivolous, if not altogether reprehensible.

    _March 10, 1895._

Frederick Augustus drinks. He says I drive him to drink by my attitude
towards his beloved family. What the beloved family does to me doesn't
count, of course.

Drinking was one of the vices of his youth. Love for me cured him of the
dreadful habit. As this love wanes, the itch for alcohol increases.

I can't do anything with him when he is drunk, and at such times I am
afraid of him. He both nauseates me and frightens me. Sometimes he comes
home "fighting drunk." The fumes of wine, beer and _Schnapps_, mixed
with tobacco, upset my stomach and I try to avoid his coarse embrace as
any decent woman would.

What does this royal drill-ground bully do? He unsheathes his sword and
threatens to cut my liver out, unless I instantly doff my clothes and go
to bed with him.

Prince George's evil counsel wasn't powerful enough to procure me
beatings, but my husband's military education, his love of discipline,
backed by alcohol, thrusts a sword into his hand, and, if I refuse to
comply with his atrocious demands, I am liable to be treated like so
many "mere" civilians that are sabred in the public streets for refusing
to do some spurred and epauletted blackguard's bidding, or entertain his
insults.

If the Socialists, who are forever railing against these self-same army
poltroons, only knew it! An Imperial Highness threatened like a small
"cit" with a four-foot sword in the hand of a drunken Royal Highness and
dragged to a couch with no more ceremony than a street-walker passing a
Cossack barracks!

The howl that would go up in the Diet, or the _Reichstag_, the fulminant
denials by prince and king and government! And if I really did get hurt
in one of these fracases, Frederick Augustus would be sure of a "severe
reprimand" by father and uncle, and perhaps by the Kaiser, too, but
would that heal my wounds, would it save me from death? Would it even
prevent Prince George from saying that I myself was to blame?

No, no, I like a whole skin and prefer an embrace to a sword-thrust any
day, like my ancestress, the Queen of Naples, who consummated the
marriage forced upon her on the spot and in sight of the army rather
than have her head cut off. Too bad she was hanged in the end despite
her complacency.[5]

Indeed, if Frederick Augustus shows the mailed fist, I don't stand on
ceremony, but I do wish he would take his boots off.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Joanna I, Queen of Naples, a pupil of Petrarca and in many
respects an enlightened ruler. She issued the first laws and regulations
regarding prostitutes. Hanged by order of King Louis of Hungary, after
her defeat in battle, July, 1381.]

CHAPTER XXXI

PRISON FOR PRINCES THAT OPPOSE THE KING

    Duke of Saxony banished--Cut off from good literature even--Anecdote
    concerning the Grand Dauphin and his "kettledrums"--A royal prince's
    garrison life--His association with lewd women.

    DRESDEN, _September 1, 1895_.

I have once more come to the conclusion that the agreement I made with
Leopold, to dissimulate my real feelings, was the sanest decision I ever
formed, for, while _lettres de cachet_ are a dead measure as far as
ordinary mortals go, kings still wield that awful and mysterious abuse
of power in the family circle.

There is a distant connection of our "sublime master," the King,
lingering, without process of law, in a state prison. Duke of Saxony is
his title, and he is quite rich in his own right. Some six or eight
years ago he raised his hand against the King after the latter struck
him.

It was suggested that he had better make away with himself, and a
revolver and poison were conspicuously displayed in the room where he
was held captive.

The Duke said "nay." He thought he could "brass" it out. But the
assembled family council taught him that, while the world at large was
_fin-de-siècle_, royalty still lived in the traditions of the eighteenth
century. It empowered the King to banish his kinsman to a lonely country
house, styled castle by courtesy, and he is confined there even today,
with the proviso, though, that he may use the surrounding
hunting-grounds. Otherwise he lives in complete seclusion, separated not
only from all his friends, but from the very classes of society to which
he belongs by birth and education. And he is still a young man.

I believe they are trying to drive him mad, once as a punishment, and
again to secure his fortune the quicker. To the latter end, he is denied
all books that give him pleasure and are liable to improve his mind.
Bibles, Christian Heralds, the Lives of the Martyrs, or the Popes,
galore, but never a Carlyle, Shakespeare or Taine, which he demands
regularly.

The Duke is dying of _ennui_, they say, and to kill time engages in all
sorts of manual labor. When he gets tired of that he blows the trombone.

"Of course he would prefer a pair of kettledrums," said my cousin
Bernhardt of Weimar, to whom I am indebted for the above.

"Kettledrums?" I asked.

"I mean those the Grand Dauphin, called 'Son of a king, father of a
king, never a king,' was so fond of, and which he finally married in
secret."

I looked bewildered.

"You are a very ignorant girl," said Bernhardt. "Never heard of the
prodigious bosoms of _Mademoiselle_ Chouin?"

"They won't let the Duke marry?" I queried.

"Not even temporarily," said Bernhardt. "And they are trying the same
game on me. My garrison--a dung-heap. The people there, males and
females, entirely unacquainted with soap and water. Nothing in the world
to do but drink and gamble."

"That reminds me. What are you doing in Dresden?"

"With Your Imperial Highness's permission, I came to see my girl."

"Who is the lady?"

"No lady at all. Just an ordinary servant-wench, but prettier and more
devilish than a hundred of them."

"Bernhardt!"

"What would you have me do, Louise? I haven't money enough to keep a
mistress, and King and Queen certainly won't keep one for me. I wish I
had lived a hundred and fifty years ago, when every lady of the court
was expected to entertain the royal princes, the Palace footing the
bill."

CHAPTER XXXII

PRINCE GEORGE SHOWN THE DOOR BY GRAND-DUCHESS MELITA

    A royal lady who walks her garden attired in a single diaphanous
    garment--Won't stand for any meddling--Called impertinent--My
    virtuous indignation assumed--A flirtation at a distance--An
    audacious lover--The Grand Mistress hoodwinked--Matrimonial horns
    for Kaiser--The banished Duke dies--Princes scolded like
    school-boys.

    DRESDEN, _February 5, 1896_.

At last Prince George got his deserts, and got 'em good and heavy. There
had been rumors for some time that Grand-duke Ernest Ludwig and his
bride, Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg, the English branch, didn't get
along together. Ernest Ludwig is a serious-minded, modest and
intelligent man, but a good deal of a sissy. Victoria Melita is a
spit-fire, very good-looking and anxious to let people know about it.
She rides horseback and fences to show off her figure, and someone
called her a Centaur.

"Be in the palace gardens tomorrow at eleven," answered Melita, "and you
will be convinced that I am not half-horse, even if my husband is a
ninny."

She kept the _rendezvous_, attired in a single garment of diaphanous
texture.

When Prince George heard that she had a lover, he went to Darmstadt to
"correct her," as he expressed himself with much self-satisfaction.

But Victoria Melita proved to him that English princesses are made of
sterner stuff than the German variety.

"I will have none of your meddling," said the bride of two years.

"I came here to make peace between you people."

"Play the dove to your daughter-in-law," quoth the Grand-duchess. "I
hear you are fighting like Kilkenny cats."

"You are impertinent, Madame," cried George furiously.

"You will oblige me by showing this man the door," demanded Victoria
Melita, addressing her husband.

"Not until I have explained the situation," answered Ernest Ludwig
quietly. "Listen, then, cousin! While I am by principle opposed to
divorce, I won't force my wife to live with me."

"And now be so kind as to withdraw," said Victoria Melita, opening the
door for Prince George. Poor as I am, I would have given five thousand
marks to have seen the meddling pest exit in that fashion, and I love
Victoria Melita for the spirit she displayed, even if I don't approve of
her _liaisons_.

    DRESDEN, _February 10, 1896_.

A mighty virtuous remark escaped me on the last page, and I almost feel
like asking the Grand-duchess's pardon, for, whatever I am, I'm no
hypocrite. Melita is said to have a lover; I have an admirer. Up to now
I don't care a rap for him, but who knows?

It's Count Bielsk of the Roumanian Embassy. I can't remember whether he
was ever introduced to me. Most probably he was, but I forgot.

An elegant fellow--always looks as if he stepped out of a tailor's shop
in Piccadilly.

Every single night I go to the theatre the Count occupies an orchestra
chair that affords the best possible view of the royal box. It happened
too often and too persistently to be accidental. Moreover, I observe
that he pays no attention to the play. He has eyes for me only.

Impertinence? Decidedly, but I can't be angry with the fellow. On the
contrary, I am flattered, and the kind face and the fine eyes he's got!

Poor stupid Tisch doesn't approve of the theatre, of course, and usually
begs to be excused on the plea of religious duties. "What a sinner you
must be," I sometimes say, "when you are obliged to forever bother God
with prayers."

The Schoenberg I send into the next box, for she is no spy and never
watches me. But if I must take Tisch, I always command her to sit
behind me. Etiquette forbids her the front of the box and from the rear
she can see only the stage.

What fun to carry on a flirtation right under the nose of that
acrid-hearted, snivelling bigot, who would mortgage part of the eternal
bliss she promises herself for a chance to catch me at it!

Am I flirting, then?

To spite the Tisch I would plant horns on the very Kaiser.

    _April 1, 1896._

The Duke of Saxony is dead--the man who at one time offered violence to
His Majesty. Bernhardt was mistaken; he left a wife and three children.
Of course, no recognized wife. Just the woman he married. Unless you are
of the blood-royal, you won't see the difference, but that is no concern
of mine.

Novels and story books have a good deal to say on the subject of
inheritance-fights among the lowly. Greed, hard-heartedness,
close-fistedness, treachery, cheating all around! See what will happen
to the Duke's widow and her little ones.

According to the house laws, a regular pirate's code, his late
Highness's fortune reverts to the family treasury. Prince Johann George
will derive the revenues from the real estate the Duke owned privately.
He is already rich,--sufficient reason for his wanting more. I shudder
when I think what they will do to the woman the Duke married.

The most notable thing about the funeral was the "calling down" Prince
Bernhardt got.

"You will go to my valet and ask him to lend you one of my helmets.
Yours is not the regulation form, I see," said the King to him in the
voice of a drill-sergeant. And Bernhardt had to take to his heels like a
school-boy caught stealing apples.

I had to laugh when I observed the meeting between my erstwhile admirer,
the Prince of Bulgaria, and His Majesty.

Ferdinand's broad chest was ablaze with orders and decorations, but his
valet had forgotten to pin onto him the Cross of the _Rautenkrone_, the
Royal Saxe House decoration. There were plenty of others, but the King
had eyes only for the one not dangling from a green ribbon.
Consequently, Ferdinand, though a sovereign Prince, got only one "_How
art thou?_" If we were living in the eighteenth, instead of the
nineteenth, century, his valet's neglect would constitute a prime cause
for war between the two countries.

CHAPTER XXXIII

MELITA'S LOVE AFFAIRS AND MINE

    The Grand Duchess tells me how she cudgeled George--Living
    dictaphone employed--Shows him who is mistress of the house--Snaps
    fingers in Prince George's face--Debate about titles--"A sexless
    thing of a husband"--Conference between lover and husband--Grand
    Duke doesn't object to his wife's lover, but lover objects to "his
    paramour being married."

    DRESDEN, _April 15, 1896_.

Melita conducted herself at the funeral and in our palace as
unconcernedly as if she and George were fast friends. She smiled every
time she saw him, and he cut her dead to his heart's content. During the
three days' stay of the Hesses, I had many a good talk and many a good
laugh with Melita, and now I got a true and unabridged record of what
happened at Darmstadt during George's meddling visit there.

The Grand-duchess, who can be as catty as they make 'em, had her
secretary sit behind a screen to take stenographic notes.

Saxon kings and princes always roar and bellow when, in conversation or
otherwise, things go against their "all-highest" grain. As soon as
George felt that he was losing ground, he began to bark and yell,
whereupon Melita interrupted him by saying, "I beg you to take notice
that you are in _my_ house."

George grew so red in the face, Melita hoped for an apoplectic fit. But
after a few seconds he managed to blurt out: "It's your husband's
house."

"While I am Grand-duchess of Hesse it's my house, too. Moreover, this is
my room and I forbid you to play the ruffian here."

Prince George looked at the Grand-duke, but Ernest Ludwig said nothing.

"I am here as the King's representative. I represent the chief of the
Royal House of Saxony."

"A fig for your Royal House of Saxony," said Melita, snapping her
fingers in George's face. "Queen Victoria is my chief of family, and,
that aside, Ludwig and I are sovereigns in Hesse and have no intention
whatever to allow anyone----"

"Anyone?" repeated George aghast. "You refer to me as anyone?"

"In things matrimonial," said Melita, "only husband and wife count; all
others are 'anyone.' You, too."

"She calls me 'you,'" cried George, white with rage, looking helplessly
at Ernest Ludwig. When the latter kept his tongue and temper, George
addressed himself to Melita once more.

"I want you to understand that my title is Royal Highness."

"And I want you to understand that I am Her Royal Highness the
Grand-duchess of Hesse, Royal Princess of Great Britain and Ireland,
Duchess of Saxony," cried Melita, stamping her foot.

With that she went to the door, opened it and said, "I request Your
Royal Highness to leave my house this very second."

And George went.

    DRESDEN, _June 1, 1896_.

Poor virtuous me, to chide myself, and call myself names for flirting
with Count Bielsk--at a distance of twenty feet or more! "I could kick
my back," as the Duc de Richelieu--not the Cardinal, but the lover of
the Regent's daughters and "every wife's husband"--used to say (only a
bit more grossly) when I think what I miss in this dead-alive Dresden.

Darmstadt isn't half as big a town, and the Hesse establishment doesn't
compare with ours in magnitude, but what fun Melita is having!

Of course, it isn't _all_ fun, for her husband is a "sexless" thing,
and, like the Grand-duchess Serge of Russia, she would be a virgin,
though married for years, if it wasn't for the other.

"The other" is none other but Kyril, the lover of our Dolores,--Kyril
isn't exactly pining away when separated from Melita.

Well, Melita wants him all to herself. She wants a divorce. The
complacent husband, who is no husband at all, doesn't suit her. Exit
Ernest Ludwig--officially. Enter Kyril--legitimately.

She made me reams of confidences, indulged in whole _brochures_ of
dissertations on the question of sex. What an ignoramus I am! I didn't
understand half she said and was ashamed to ask.

Ernest Ludwig is the most accommodating of husbands. Knows all about
Kyril and would gladly shut both eyes if they let him. Melita might, if
pressed very hard, for adultery has no terrors for her, but Kyril
affects the idealist. Sure sign that he really loves her. If he was
mine, I would be afraid of this Kyril. No doubt he is jealous as a Turk.

Last week the three of them had a conference. Lovely to see husband,
wife and paramour "in peaceful meeting assembled" and talk over the
situation as if it concerned the Royal stud or something of the sort.

No recriminations, no threats, no heroics; only when Ernest Ludwig
submitted that divorce be avoided to save his face as a sovereign, Kyril
got a bit excited.

"This is not a question of politics," he said, "or what the dear public
thinks. Your wife don't want you; as a matter of fact, she isn't your
wife, and since we are in love with each other, we ought to marry."

"Marry, marry, why always marry?" demanded the Grand-duke. "I
acknowledge that I haven't the right to interfere in my wife's
pleasure--I am not built that way. Well, I _don't_ interfere. What more
do you want? You don't deny that I am the chief person to be
considered."

"You?" mocked Kyril. "You with your sovereignty are not in it at all. If
it wasn't for you, Melita and I could marry and say no more about it."

"But I don't prevent your enjoyment of each other," pleaded the ruler of
the Hessians.

Now the idealistic Kyril got on his high horse. "Grand-duke," he said,
"if you don't object to your wife having a lover, that's your business.
For my part, I object to my paramour having a husband."

And so on _ad infinitum_, and a goose like me abuses herself for a bit
of goo-goo-eyeing.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MORE ABOUT THE SWEET ROYAL FAMILY LIFE

    "Closed season" for petty meannesses--A prince who enjoys himself
    like a pig--Why princes learn trades--A family dinner to the
    accompaniment of threats and smashing of table--The Duke's widow and
    children robbed of their inheritance by royal family--King
    confiscates testament.

    LOSCHWITZ, _September 13, 1896_.

They are treating me like a laying hen. Expect another golden egg in
December. Hence, "closed season" for imperious commands, "all-highest"
orders and petty meannesses.

When I learned that Bernhardt was in Dresden, I phoned him to come out
and see me--without asking either royal, princely, or the Tisch's
permission.

A junior prince, without fortune or high protector, is really to be
pitied. His title, the vague possibility that some day he may be called
to the throne, stand between him and enjoyment of life as a man. Nothing
left, but to enjoy himself like a pig.

Bernhardt admits it. "They planted me in the God-forsakenest hole in the
kingdom. If I saw a pretty woman in my garrison from one year's end to
the other, I would die of joy. And the newspaper scribblers wonder why
we are all Oscar Wildes.

"Just to kill time, I am learning the carpenter's trade--this Royal
Highness, you must know, lives in a carpenter's house, as innocent of
sanitary arrangements as a Bushman's hut. Of course, I run away every
little while to Dresden, incog. to pay my respects to Venus.

"Louise," he cried with comic emphasis, "may the three hours you steal
from my girl, by way of this visit, be deducted from your eternal
beatitude."

I lent the poor fellow five hundred marks and he rushed back to Dresden.

Tonight I told Frederick Augustus of my interview with Bernhardt, not
mentioning the five hundred, of course.

He laughed. "He's no worse than the rest of us used to be," he said. "I
did exactly like him, and father and uncle and brothers and cousins,
ditto. Behold--your husband-locksmith! Max spent all his time reading
the Lives of the Popes. That made him the dried-up mummy he is. But,
believe me, I gave the girls many a treat. All the money I could beg,
borrow or steal went for girls."

Which explains Frederick Augustus's bedroom manners--sometime
transplanted to the parlor.

    DRESDEN, _January 1, 1897_.

I gave Saxony a third prince on December 9, and really I wasn't quite in
condition to be scolded at today's family dinner. But since, with three
boys growing up, the succession is more than guaranteed, the season for
insults is again open.

His Majesty, our most gracious, sublime, etc., sovereign, sulks.
Consequently the family looks glum, down in the mouth, utterly unhappy.

Max gets up to make a speech and one could fairly see the lies wriggle
out of his mouth full of defective teeth: exemplary family life;
traditional friendship of all members for each other; perfect unity; the
King and all the princes brave as lions; the Queen and all the
princesses paragons of virtue. And the fatherly love with which the King
embraces us all; his more than royal generosity; his mildness, his
Christian virtues!

The Queen is a goose. Max's lying commonplaces make her forget her many
years of misery spent at this court, and she grows as sentimental as a
kitten. Fat Mathilda, Isabelle and Johann George applaud Max despite
their better understanding, and now the King rises to make his usual New
Year's address.

The gist of his long-winded remarks is this: "I am the lord, your
master, and I will see to it that you--wife, brother, nephews and
nieces--will dance as I whistle.

"For obedience to the King is the highest law," he paraphrases
Wilhelm,--"strictest, unconditional obedience" (and he gave me a
poisoned look) "and let no one forget it, no one." With that he beat the
table with his clenched fist, and the whole assemblage turns an accusing
eye on me.

    DRESDEN, _April 6, 1897_.

They have driven the late Duke of Saxony's wife and children from house
and home--put her on the high-road, piling her personal belongings,
trunks, wardrobe and knick-knacks outside, too.

She arrived in Dresden and sought refuge with her widowed mother. Her
father, a Court-Councillor, dismissed because of the relations between
the Duke and his daughter, died of grief and mortification, almost
penniless. And the Ducal widow is as poor as the mother--and three
children to bring up! Children of the royal blood of Saxony, children
sanctioned by the Church of which they prate so much, for there is no
doubt that the pair married in secret.

The late Highness kept all his papers in a strong-box, and it's said the
King's representative, who searched the safe by Royal orders, found
neither acknowledgment of the marriage, nor a last will in favor of the
widow and children. Hence, all the Duke's belongings revert to the
royal family, and the estate he lived on goes to his next of kin, Johann
George.

Johann George, who has more money than he knows what to do with,
promptly sent the bailiff after his cousin's wife and children.

"_Noblesse oblige_,--the way you interpret the old saying, will advance
the cause of monarchy immensely," I said to the official heir.

"Is it any business of mine to support my relatives' mistresses?" I saw
he was mad clean through.

"You know very well that she was his wife."

"There is apparently no official record of the marriage."

"Maybe not in Dresden, as the nuptials were solemnized abroad. But what
about the testament?"

Johann George grew very red in the face. "If there is one, the King must
have confiscated it. That often happens in royal houses."

"And you mean to say that, with all your riches, you are heartless
enough and contemptible enough----"

"Take a care, Your Imperial Highness. The Duke's strumpet was today
indicted for _lèse majesté_ in connection with the testament matter."
This junior prince dared to speak thus to me, the Crown Princess.

"Johann George," I cried, "forget not that sooner or later I will be at
the head of the royal family of Saxony. I forbid you to introduce your
mess-room jargon into my parlor; at the same time I am sincerely sorry
that a Prince of Saxony should stoop to buy cigarettes and gasoline with
the pittance stolen from his cousin's widow and her three little
children."

I went to the door and told the lackey on duty to fetch his Royal
Highness's carriage.

CHAPTER XXXV

FLIRTATION DEVELOPS INTO LOVE

    At the theatre--My adorer must have felt my presence--Forgot his
    diplomacy--The mute salute--His good looks--His mouth a promise of a
    thousand sweet kisses--Our love won't be any painted business.

    DRESDEN, _April 6, Night, 1897_.

The talk with Johann George had excited me so, I wanted a diversion.
Frederick Augustus sent word that he wouldn't be home for dinner. Hence,
I decided to go to the theatre after an absence of months. It was after
six when I telephoned that I would occupy my box at the Royal Opera. If
I should see Him there, in the absence of announcements in the
newspapers!

He was there. In his usual seat. I won't rest until I find out how he
manages to get wind of my theatrical ventures at such short notice. The
Opera, Faust, had been in progress for ten minutes when I arrived. I
espied him at once, but kept well behind the curtains of the box for a
second or two. Then, suddenly, I dropped into the gilded armchair and
the very same moment our eyes met.

I am sure he expected me; he must have known I was near when I entered
the house. To his ears the hundred and one melodies of Gounod's
masterpiece were naught compared with the music of my silken skirts.

He was so overcome, he forgot his diplomacy. Twice he pressed his right
hand to his heart, then bowed his head in a mute salute.

Fortunately the house was dark at the time and the audience,
unacquainted with my visit, paid strict attention to the stage. No one
but him saw my heart leap within me and the blood mount to my cheeks.
Presently his diplomatic tact got the upper hand again, and he fixed his
eyes on the score. That afforded me the chance to take a pictorial
inventory of my lover-at-a-distance. I used my opera-glasses
unmercifully.

He's a fine looking man--if he were a woman he would be hailed a beauty.
His forehead is a dream of loveliness; his mouth a promise of a thousand
sweet kisses.

If this man wants me, I mean if he wants me badly, our love won't be any
painted business, I assure you.

    DRESDEN, _April 25, 1897_.

Ball at the Roumanian Embassy. Royal command to attend.

As if it needed a command to throw me into the arms of Bielsk.

CHAPTER XXXVI

COUNT BIELSK MAKES LOVE TO THE CROWN PRINCESS

    Fearless to indiscretion--He "thou's" me--Puts all his chances on
    one card--Proposes a rendezvous--Shall I go or shall I not
    go?--Peril if I go and peril if I don't.

    DRESDEN, _April 26, 1897, Night_.

We went to the ball as His Majesty's representatives, Frederick Augustus
and I, and were obliged to say a few nothingnesses to a hundred paltry
persons or more. When the Ambassador introduced Count Bielsk, I said in
the most careless voice of the world, "I hear you love the theatre,
Count."

"I don't care a rap for the theatre," he replied. "I go to opera and
operetta simply to see you, Imperial Highness."

Such audacity! And he spoke quite loud.

Frightened, I turned to the next person presented, saying something
imbecile, no doubt.

Later I withdrew upon the dais to watch the dancing, and at a moment
when I was quite alone, he came up to me, making it appear as if I had
commanded his attendance.

"I have much to say to Your Imperial Highness."

I didn't have my wits about me and didn't know how to act. He repeated
twice or oftener: "Pray, Your Imperial Highness, I have something to say
to you," until, at last, I threw etiquette to the winds and asked:

"Why should you wish to talk to me in private, Count?" No royal woman
indulging in lovers ever encouraged a rogue more carelessly.

"Because my life and happiness depend on what I have to say to you."

And, weaker still, I assented by the tone of my voice rather than words:
"You make me curious, Count. Whatever you have to say, say it now."

He raised his eyes to me, with a soul and reputation-destroying look.
"Thanks!" Then wildly, clamorously: "Louise, I love you."

Instinctively I thought of flight, but his eyes wouldn't let me rise.
From that moment on he dropped my title.

"Stay," he whispered, "I beseech you, stay. Don't you see that I love
you to distraction? I have kept silent these many months. Now I must
talk. I love thee, Louise."

I tried in vain to collect my thoughts while his love talk fanned my
blood. Finally I managed to say: "Can't you see that you are playing _va
banque_?"

"I know, but it doesn't interest me. Let my career be wrecked, I care
not; I've got only one thought in the world--thee, only one wish--thee.
And I must either love thee or die."

I turned my eyes away and rose abruptly. As he bowed to kiss my hand, he
whispered, still "_thou'ing_" me: "I expect you tomorrow at the end of
the Grand Boulevard. Come when you please. I will wait all day."

And here I am thinking, thinking, thinking.

"The end of the Boulevard" is the beginning of Dresden's _Bois_. Does
this madman really suppose that Her Imperial Highness, the Crown
Princess of this kingdom, will lower herself and respond to his demand
for a rendezvous?

Yet, how he must love me to risk saying what he did say to me. He is no
ill-balanced youth; he is a man of ripe judgment. His passion got the
better of him.

I adore passion.

I must go no more to the theatre. Impossible for me to see him nightly.

But it's a fine thing to be loved as I am. The most beautiful thing in
the wide, wide world!

    DRESDEN, _April 27, 1897. In the Morning._

He is waiting. Doubtless he expects me. What a persuasive thing love
is, to be sure! Because he loves me, he argues that the Crown Princess,
the wife and mother, will rush to meet him, fall into his arms.

Of course, he will be most unhappy if I don't go, for I am sure he is
not your ordinary "petticoat-chaser." He will suffer, he is suffering
now while I sit here quietly.

Am I quiet? If I weren't determined to stay at home, I would half-admit
to myself that my soul is obsessed with longing for this man.

A diplomat, who has seen much of court life, assumes that a woman in my
position is at liberty to keep rendezvous! Let's reason it out.

To begin with, Lucretia has to be won over. That's easy enough, but the
coachman and lackey! They must be told that Her Imperial Highness is
graciously pleased to _walk_ in the _Bois_, the carriage waiting at the
end of the Grand Boulevard.

    _After Luncheon._

I ought to have said to him, I won't come. It's cruel to let him wait on
a street corner and not even send notice, and to tip him off is
impossible.

And come to think of it, if Lucretia and I were promenading in the
_Bois_ and met the Count by accident, where's the harm? And if I don't
go--Good Lord, he might kill himself. He is desperate enough for that.
And he might leave letters compromising me.

I will go to give him a piece of my mind. I will be very harsh with him,
very adamant.

And I will try to find out how he manages to select always the same
theatre as I.

CHAPTER XXXVII

RAPID LOVE MAKING IN THE BOIS

    A discreet maid--"Remove thy glove"--Kisses of passion, pure kisses,
    powerful kisses--I see my lover daily--Countess Baranello offers
    "doves' nest"--Driving to rendezvous in state--"Naughty Louise," who
    makes fun of George.

    DRESDEN, _June 1, 1897._

A month of untold happiness. I went to the _Bois_ and I am going there
every afternoon.

He was splendid; he was modest, quiet. He seemed to exude happiness.

Lucretia is discretion itself. She kept behind us, but out of ear-shot.

"I came to tell you that you acted like a madman last night, and that
the offense must not be repeated," I said sternly to Bielsk.

"I _am_ a madman--in love," he replied, looking at me with big, soulful
eyes.

I chattered a lot of nonsense, prohibitions, commands, entreaties.

"Remove thy glove," he begged.

"You mustn't 'thou' me."

"Remove thy glove," he repeated.

Why I complied, I don't know, but I ripped off my glove, and he held my
hand in both his hands and kissed it and kissed it.

"What right have you got to treat me like a woman unmindful of her
duties?"

"I know that thou art lonesome, forlorn, Louise."

He struck at my heart as he spoke these words, and my eyes filled with
tears. He pressed his warm, pulsating lips on the palm of my hand,
covering it from wrist to finger-tips with wild kisses.

We were standing among the trees, and Lucretia, at a little distance,
was plucking flowers. The remnant of common sense I mustered told me:
"He is dishonoring you, repulse him," but his "I love thee, Louise,"
rang like music in my ears. However, I tore myself free at last.
"Farewell, we must never meet again."

And then I lay in his arms, on his broad chest, and he covered my face
with kisses, not passionate or insulting kisses. His lips touched
lightly my eyes, my cheeks, my own lips--recompense for the long fast he
had endured during all the months he had loved me at a distance.

Marvelous kisses kissed this man, pure kisses, lovely kisses, powerful
kisses. And I thought the whole world was falling to pieces around me
and I didn't care as long as only he and I were living. He himself freed
me.

"Tomorrow," he whispered.

I awoke confused, ashamed of my weakness, trembling.

"I'll never see you again. Never," I said as if I meant it.

"Tomorrow, love," he repeated. And I ran and joined Lucretia.

When we were riding home I told Lucretia to draw the curtains, and fell
upon her neck and told her all.

The good soul was nearly frightened to death and we cried a good deal.

    DRESDEN, _January 5, 1898_.

I neglected my diary, I neglect everything, for I'm in love. What care I
for the King, Prince George and the rest who are trying to make life
miserable for me? I laugh their pettinesses to scorn, for I have no
other thought now but Romano Bielsk, no other interests. He is my all,
my happiness.

Of course, his "_Tomorrow, love_," prevailed and it has been "_Tomorrow,
love_," ever since. On the day after our first meeting I actually
thought I was warring against nature if I resisted his entreaties. It
seemed to me that I had always known him, that we were predestined for
each other. I still think so.

Lucretia has a relative here, an aunt, member of the court set. Old
Countess Baranello delights in intrigue and hates Prince George. When I
told her of my affair, she placed her palace at our disposal, saying:

"Bielsk shall have a key to the garden gate and to the pavilion inside
the walls, which connects, through a subterranean passage, with my
sun-parlor. You can meet your love there any time. I will see to it that
none of the servants or workmen disturb you."

A capital arrangement, worthy of an old lady who has seen many gallant
days! There can be no possible objection to my visits at her palace, and
the grounds to which Romano has the _entrée_ fronts on a street
unfrequented by society or carriages.

I descend from my carriage at the palace gate; a knot of people, a small
crowd, perhaps, collects to salute me and gape at the horses and livery.
I sweep up the stoop, lined by my own, and the Countess's, servants. The
bronze doors open. The Countess advances with stately curtsy; a few
words _sub rosa_, and I--fly into the arms of love, while faithful
Lucretia mounts guard at the street side, and Her Ladyship's spy glasses
cover the garden;--needless precautions, but----

It's rare fun, and, after all, where's the harm?

I made good as propagatrix of the royal race, and a union of soul such
as exists between me and Romano never entered into my relations with
Frederick Augustus.

Romano is very intelligent. I can learn from him; Frederick Augustus
taught me only coarseness, and if it came high, _double entendres_. Yet
my lover is only a Councillor of Legation! Because his superiors,
fearing his adroitness, keep him down.

My children! Have I ever been allowed to be a real mother to them? The
King, the nation, owns my little ones. I see them at stated intervals
for half an hour or so, and romp with them as I do with my dogs.

Still, I don't altogether approve of Louise, malicious girl! When I am
at the top-gallant of my happiness I sometimes say to myself: "Oh, if
only George could see me now!"

Naughty Louise--it's unworthy of thee. What do I care for George, what
do I care for the world?

CHAPTER XXXVIII

"IN LOVE THERE ARE NO PRINCESSES, ONLY WOMEN"

    A diplomatic trick--Jealous of Romano's past--The pact for life and
    the talisman--If there were a theatre fire the talisman would
    discover our love to the King--Some ill-natured
    reflections--Bernhardt's escapades cover up my tracks--The "black
    sheep" jumps his horse over a coffin--King gives him a
    beating--Bernhardt's mess-room lingo--Anecdotes of royal
    voluptuaries--Forces animals to devour each other--Naked
    ballet-girls as horses--Abnormals rule the world.

    DRESDEN, _May 20, 1898_.

Romano learned about my theatre going by a diplomatic trick. He told one
of the minor attaches of the Embassy that he had orders to watch
me--"all-highest command." The official, consequently, negotiated with
the box offices of all the theatres to phone him the moment Her Imperial
Highness ordered seats.

I am crazy to know how many women Romano loved in the twenty or more
years since he grew to man's estate, and how many he seduced. It
agitates and pains me to think of it, but all my questions are barren of
results.

Yesterday I asked him whether he ever knew a Princess of the Blood
before me--"knew" in the biblical sense.

"In love," he said, "there are no princesses, there are women only."

He saw that I was hurt and added quickly: "Now don't be unreasonable,
Louise--no prejudices. With the thought in my mind that you are an
Imperial Highness, or that you consider yourself of better clay than I,
I couldn't love you as I do."

    DRESDEN, _July 1, 1898_.

We made a life-pact. Romano cut a gold piece in two and bored a hole in
each half. He drew thin gold chains through the holes, gave me one of
the amulets, and kept the other. Our combined monograms were already
engraved on the bits of gold _en miniature_. Each swore to wear the
talisman on the naked body for life, but we exchange amulets daily, or
as often as we meet.

When I am enthroned in the royal box and look down upon my lover below,
I think all the time of this, our secret understanding, and it sometimes
occurs to me, that the opera house might get on fire and both of us
perish.

Next day our bodies would be found. In or near the royal box, that of a
woman, burned so as to be unrecognizable at first. ("We are all of the
same clay," says Romano.)

And down in the orchestra floor they would find Romano's body, likewise
unrecognizable.

And on my charred breast they would find the half of a twenty-mark
piece. And on his charred chest they would find the half of a
twenty-mark piece.

And they would put the two together and discover that they match.

Consternation, speculation!

Someone suggests that the mysterious gold pieces be photographed for
publication and the engraver who made the monogram, and the jeweler who
sold the two chains come forward as witnesses.

Meanwhile the identity of my body is established. That of Romano's
follows. _Scandalum magnatum!_ But what are you going to do about it,
_Messieurs_?

If you had only known it a week ago! A prison _à la_ Princess Ahlden, or
the Danish Queen Caroline Matilda, for me, disgraceful dismissal for
Romano, for times are happily past when comely gentlemen, who have the
wit to amuse royal ladies, durst be murdered in cold blood like
Koenigsmarck, or be-handed, be-headed and cut into ninety-nine pieces as
Struensee was in Copenhagen market-square.

What are you going to do about it, King, George, Frederick Augustus?

I'll tell you. You will bury me with the pomp of kings; and your
sycophants will print beautiful stories about me, asserting that I died
trying to rescue others, or did something of the sort; and your Court
Chaplains will weep and pray and lie for me. And the tip of Queen
Carola's nose will be redder than ever.

    DRESDEN, _September 1, 1898_.

My young friend Bernhardt is doing me a great service and himself a lot
of harm.

A good-natured, tractable boy _au fond_, they made him a poltroon and
worse by their persecutions, their meanness, their petty tyranny. He is
proud, and they sent him to reside on a village manure heap; he is
ambitious, and must drill raw recruits from morn till night; he is eager
to learn and they try to embalm his intellect with tracts and kill his
initiative by the endless, watery _ennui_ of tu-penny environment.

Of course, he gets desperate and kicks over the traces, and while
attracting the dear family's disapproving attention, I am more free than
ever to devote myself to my Romano.

Bernhardt's "latest" is really inexcusable. "I wonder we don't turn
tigers with the education we receive," said one of the brothers of Louis
XVI when upbraided for thoughtlessness and lack of consideration for the
feelings of others--but Bernhardt seems to qualify for a vulture, and no
original one at that, for a like offense as he is charged with was,
several years ago, laid at the door of my cousin, Archduke Otho of
Austria.

Observe half a dozen young officers riding horseback in the neighborhood
of their garrison town, Bernhardt at the head. At a bend in the road, a
rural funeral _cortège_ hoves into sight: coffin borne on the shoulders
of half a dozen peasants; weeping relatives; friends promising
themselves a good time at the widow's expense on returning home. A black
cross lifted high; priest and choir-boys in their robes.

"Halt," thunders Bernhardt, blocking the way.

The priest tries to expostulate with the half-drunken fellow.

"Shut up, black-coat. I am His Royal Highness, Prince Bernhardt."

Then--the devil must be riding him--he orders the coffin put down on the
ground.

"Out of the way, yokels."

And he leaps his horse three or four times across the coffin.

The outrage is duly reported in the newspapers and Bernhardt is summoned
before the King. "Don't you dare to appear in uniform," Albert added in
his own hand.

"What has happened?" I asked the ne'er-do-well, when he begged for an
audience after meeting the King.

He pointed to a swollen cheek.

"He hit me three times in _the eats_." (I beg the Diary's pardon for the
language; I report literally.) "Three times," repeated Bernhardt,
"that's the reason he wanted me to appear in mufti. As I went out one of
the lackeys said: 'I never heard His Majesty rave so.'"

"But why did you make a beast of yourself?" I asked.

"To force the King to transfer me to another garrison, of course. I
can't remain where I am, for the people are terribly incensed against
me."

"Did you tell His Majesty?"

"Not on your life," answered Bernhardt. "If I did, I would have to stay
there until my last tooth falls out. As things are, the Colonel will
insist upon my speedy transference, and that's worth the three slams on
the face I got in addition to the various _Lausbubs_."

"He called you, an army officer, a '_Lausbub_.' Where is his vaunted
respect for the uniform?"

"Didn't he hit me in _the eats_?" lamented Bernhardt tragically in his
terrible lingo. "I responded both to insult and injury by knocking my
heels together and saying: 'At Your Majesty's commands.'"

Of course, I told Romano. "Royalty," he said, "has only, on the face of
it, advanced beyond the pirate and robber-baron period. _Au fond_ all
princes and kings would be criminals if they happened not to be crowned
heads."

[Illustration: THE LATE KING ALBERT OF SAXONY

Louise's Uncle by Marriage]

He told me of a Balkan prince--young Alexander of Servia, the same mamma
Natalie intended for my consort--whose chief amusement consists in
having mice and rats chased by ferocious tom-cats in a big cage made for
that purpose. Once, growing tired of that sport, he incarcerated ten
tom-cats in the same cage without food many days in succession, visiting
the prison hourly to see whether they wouldn't take to devouring each
other.

When, in the end, they did, tearing one another to pieces, His Majesty
danced around the cage in high glee, pronouncing the battle of the poor
beasts a bully spectacle.

"You visited Castle Sibyllenort a week ago," continued Romano--"a most
proper place, this royal residence, is it not? You ought to have seen it
before your puritan King inherited it, ten years ago, upon the death of
the last Duke of Brunswick. At that time it was a veritable museum of
pornography, the apotheosis of Paphian voluptuousness. The palace, which
has over four hundred rooms and halls--not one which a decent woman
might enter without a blush--acquired its equipment as a _lupanar_ and
its reputation for debauchery under the famous, or notorious, 'Diamond
Duke,' a brother of the Highness who left the estate to King Albert.
Both Dukes held high carnival in its gilded halls, but he of the
diamonds rather outdid William in outraging decency.

"One of his chief amusements was to hire a drove of ballet girls for
parlor horses. He had a carriage constructed no bigger or heavier than
a Japanese jinrickshaw, and to this hitched ten or twenty ballet girls
in their birthday suits, walking on all fours, himself rider and driver.

"Gracious--how he lashed his treble and quadruple teams of human flesh
as they pulled him from room to room, and his was no make-belief
ferocity, either. He was a niggardly rake, but in order to indulge his
Sadist tendencies, agreed to pay one _Thaler_ (Seventy-five cents) for
every drop of blood shed by the girls.

"To make the count easier, white linen sheets were spread over the
carpets, and the sum total was paid over to the two-legged horses after
each entertainment, the girls showing the sorest stripes or wounds
getting the larger share."

Romano, who lived at half a dozen courts and is primed with the
scandalous gossip of them all, could certainly write an entertaining
book on the fallacies and vices of the world's Great.

It's most indelicate, to be sure, but I laughed long and hard over the
sexual specialty of my uncle, Archduke Karl Ludwig, who is bad, anyhow,
as everybody knows.

One morning His Highness rose at an unusually early hour, even before
the scrub-women made their exit. In the corridors, in the parlors,
everywhere blonde and dark percherons, cleaning away for dear life and
courting housemaid's knee!

Karl Ludwig has no more use for women than the late Chevalier de
Lorraine, the President of the _Mignons_, but the exaggerated
protuberances he met so unexpectedly on all sides, appealed to his sense
of humor, or some other sense which I would hate to name. Anyhow, he ran
into the garden and cut himself a switch. And ever since then his chief
amusement is to switch scrubbing percherons. If he succeeds in dealing
one a blow unforeseen by lying in wait for her, or coming upon her all
of a sudden, he is particularly satisfied with his day's work and is
liable to give a beggar a copper instead of the usual demi-copper.

And of such abnormals the rulers of the world are recruited.

CHAPTER XXXIX

MY PUNISHMENT

    I lose my lover--Quarrels with me because I did my duty as a
    mother--Royalty extols me for the same reason--My pride of kingship
    aroused by Socialist scribblers--Change my opinion as to Duke's
    widow--Parents arrive--Father and his alleged astrolatry--His
    finances disarranged by alimony payments--My uncle, the Emperor,
    rebukes mother harshly for complaining of _roué_ father.

    DRESDEN, _Christmas, 1898_.

God punished me for my sins. My children, one after the other, were ill
with scarlet fever, and the youngest is only now out of danger. Of
course, I abandoned all my frivolities. I can say without boasting that
the mother atoned for the short-comings of the wife and princess.

Hence I thought justified to arrange for a right royal Christmas
present: Romano.

Lucretia went to see him. He received her coldly, hardly vouchsafed a
word. From a secret drawer of his desk he took a letter, ready written,
dated and gave it to Lucretia. "It explains," he said curtly, as he
opened the door for her.

He has abandoned me. Because I loved my children better than him,
because I am a mother first, Lais second, he throws away his Imperial
_fille de joie_ like a lemon sucked dry and prates of tendernesses and
heavenly fancies that he alone feels, that are outside the pale of my
understanding.

He even refuses to thank me, this proud wooer of the royal bed. He "has
given me the best that is in man to give to a woman," etc., etc.

Be it so! God desired to punish me and, because I loved much, he meted
out to me mild chastisement.

He stole my lover, but I have my children.

    DRESDEN, _January 15, 1899_.

The King, Prince George, my brothers-in-law, my cousins and aunts are
trying to make a hero of me. Because I followed the inclinations of my
heart and helped to save my children, there's no end of their praise and
admiration. Did they take me for a raven? I am disgusted with so much
unctuousness.

Nevertheless I changed my mind about the Duke's widow. When I felt
friendly towards her and quarrelled with Johann George for taking her
money and with the King for embezzling the testament and offering
accommodation at the poor-house for his kin's children, I thought it a
family affair, but now that the Socialist papers meddle with the case,
which concerns the royal house and the royal house alone, it's time for
the Crown Princess to stand by her colors.

Those Jews have actually the audacity to reprimand the King and the
royal princes, to impute ignoble motives to us all! They talk of us as
if we were _Messieurs_ and _Mesdames_ Jones or Browns, trying to enrich
ourselves at the expense of a corpse!

They call us "inheritance-chasers," "purloiners of pupillary funds,"
"starvers of innocent children."

The Duke's kept-woman is "a lady of the highest character" and we are
not; her children are of the blood royal--only better for the dash of
plebeian.

It makes me boil to read such things; to see the reverence due the
throne set aside, the royal banner dragged into the mire, and of course
it's the kept-woman to whom we are indebted for this pretty kettle of
fish. It is she who set the press against us, and it's me, Louise, who
protests with all her might that her demands and petitions be denied.

Let her starve with her brats. If she was sent to the poor-house she
might make anarchists out of loyal paupers.

    DRESDEN, _April 1, 1899_.

My parents came to see the children and make merry because I am basking
in the sun of royal grace. Mother has a new maid of honor, as ugly as
the Tisch, and when we are _entre nous_ every second word is: "when
Louise is Queen." They know to a penny what our inheritance from the
King, the Queen and Prince George will amount to and are forever making
plans and specifications how to spend the money for the glory of Saxony
and of our own family.[6]

Mother's scare-crow of a maid of honor had at least sense enough to tell
Lucretia of a few scandals that happened at home, which mother never
intended for my ears.

It seems that papa, some few months ago, suddenly became possessed of
the ambition to become an astronomer. Nothing would do, but he must buy
a heap of instruments and set them up in a distant tower of Salzburg
Castle. And there he spent all his evenings--star-gazing, he gave out.

He seldom reached the nuptial couch before one or two in the
morning,--utterly exhausted by the night's work.

Well, mamma thought he labored too hard, and one forenoon when he had
gone hunting, climbed up many stairs to investigate. Imagine her
surprise when she found, in the astrolatry, a young lady in the act of
getting out of bed, a girl, by the way, whom I used to know.

Mamma had the _mauvais genre_ to report the case to Emperor Francis
Joseph, while papa sought another climate, remaining away until mother
begged him on her bended knees, so to speak, to come home. Nor did she
get satisfaction from Vienna. That great moral teacher, the Emperor,
told her not to make a scare-crow of herself, but on the contrary make
herself pretty and agreeable for, and to, her lord and master. I
understand now why mamma says: "All men stick together like gypsies."

As a matter of fact father's limited resources are considerably affected
by the various alimonies he has to pay to his own mistresses and those
of my brothers. The third born of our boys, only a week ago, made too
free with the _fiancée_ of the pastry-cook, who threatened to kill him.
It cost father several thousand florins to appease the ruffian and
Heinrich Ferdinand renewed acquaintance with mother's boxing
proclivities.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The fortune of the present King of Saxony (Louise's
ex-husband) amounts to 25 million marks ($6,225,000)--no more than many
an American parent paid for his daughter's seedy coronet. It will be
remembered that Gladys Vanderbilt and Anna Gould brought to their
husbands fifteen million dollars each, and the Castellanes and Szechenys
are only nobles of the second class, their ancestors never having
possessed ever so small a territory as sovereign lords. The bigger half
of the Saxon King's fortune comes from the Brunswick inheritance already
mentioned.]

CHAPTER XL

A PLEBEIAN LOVER

    In need of a friend--My physician offers his friendship--I discover
    that he loves me, but he will never confess--I give him
    encouragement--We manage to persuade the King to further our
    intrigue--Not a bit repentant of my peccadilloes--Very
    submissive--Introduced to my lover's wife.

    DRESDEN, _in May, 1899_.

Privy Councillor von Barthels, my body physician, is a very agreeable
man. I have no use for his services, _professional_ services at present,
yet insist upon receiving him daily. Still I love him not. Only esteem
him as a friend, I need a friend. Physicians can keep secrets, and I
have many of them. I look upon Barthels as my Father-confessor.

The tears came into his eyes when I told him, and he said: "Imperial
Highness, this is the most beautiful hour of my life."

He spoke with enthusiasm; there was fire in his eyes and in his voice,
yet a moment later he was again the most reserved of men and
conversation lagged.

It happened three days ago. He has paid me four visits since and I
notice with astonishment, with curiosity and with alarm, that this man
is in love with me.

How long has he loved me?

His love is like a warm mantle 'round my shoulders on a chilly night. It
exudes warmth, strength, beatitude, yet there is none of the animal.

He is a good talker on a thousand and one subjects, a thinker and
psychologist. Psychology is his strong point. He argues brilliantly on
the subject, yet I need only look at him to upset his _thesis_, to make
him stammer and redden.

He's no Count Bielsk and will never tell me of his own accord that he
loves me. Is his admiration greater than his love? Perhaps so. It gives
me a feeling of security.

Lucretia knows, but in the presence of the Tisch, he plays the servant,
deeming himself thrice honored by being allowed to breathe the same air
as her Imperial Highness.

    DRESDEN, _June 15, 1899_.

I frequently drive to the _Bois_ nowadays with the children, the _Bois_,
where I was so happy with Him.

Romano was right, a thousand times right, that he abandoned me when our
love was at its zenith.

    _At Midnight._

It's done.

Barthels came tonight. He was so feverish, so passionate, there was so
much humble solicitation in his looks and manners, I was moved to pity.

This man is too over-awed by my rank to ever permit himself to express
his feelings by word of mouth. He talked of everything but love and was
in the midst of a learned dissertation when I sunk my eyes in his and
said:

"Why do you try to hide things from me? Don't I know what's in your
heart?"

Like a little criminal--as my oldest boy does occasionally--he turned
red, then white, then red again. He buried his face in his hands. He
trembled. He seemed to be crying. I arose, and lightly laid my hand upon
his blonde head.

He's got the finest, silkiest hair in the world, shimmering like beaten
gold.

And then he lay at my feet, covering them with kisses. And instantly all
his force, his courage, his eloquence returned.

He went away like a man a-dreaming.

I long for him; I confess I long for him. Whether I love him or not I
don't know. But that I know, I _will_ love him.

And if I cannot, what matters it? I don't have to love to be happy. To
_be_ loved is enough. I want to be his Queen, his life.

    DRESDEN, _July 1, 1899_.

Privy Councillor von Barthels told the King that my delicate condition
needs constant watching. I go to his clinic every second day, while he
visits me once or twice daily at the palace.

Like Melita I am never a bit repentant of my peccadilloes.

If I don't want to do a thing, neither Kaiser, King, George, Frederick
Augustus, my parents, the Pope, nor the whole world, can make me. But if
I resolve to follow my sweet inclinations, rueing and pining are out of
question.

Ferdinand is the most devoted of lovers. He has unlimited
tendernesses--a new experience for me.

The lover of my girlhood days overwhelmed me by audacity. The Shah used
me like a show-girl. Romano was imperious, super-mannish. For him I was
only the female of the species.

Sometimes, in the midst of an embrace, Ferdinand suddenly seems to
recollect that a Queen trembles in his arms; the master turns _âme
damnée_. I am Sultana, Louise-Catherine.

Like Catherine the Great, I would throw millions to my favorites and
millions more when I dismissed one. At any rate, I would give each a
hundred thousand marks "to furnish himself with linen and silks,"--a
_mot_ invented by the Semiramis of the North.

    DRESDEN, _July 5, 1899_.

No more clinic for me. Ferdinand begged so hard, that I allowed him to
introduce his wife. She came in after we finished our "consultation," a
little heap of misfortune, execrably dressed, frightened, almost dead
with submissiveness.

And I am robbing this poor creature; it's like stealing pennies from a
child. And under her own roof.

It must not be. I am going to the country.

CHAPTER XLI

AN ATROCIOUS ROYAL SCANDAL

    A royal couple that shall be nameless--The voluptuous Duchess--Her
    husband the worst of degenerates--"What monsters these royalties
    be"--Nameless outrages--A Duchess forced to have lovers--Ferdinand
    and I live like married folk--Duchess feared for her life--Her
    husband murdered her--I scold and humiliate my overbearing Grand
    Mistress--The medical report too horrible to contemplate.

    ----R, _July 15, 1899_.

I am afraid to date this entry. Another terrible indictment of royalty.
And, as usual, things criminal are at the bottom of the abuse of
sovereign power.

The Duchess had a baby and asked me to be godmother to the little girl.
The King, eager to oblige his rich cousin, favored the journey. I
insisted that Ferdinand accompany me. "Marie," I said, "hates Tisch, and
she must, under no circumstances, be commanded to attend me." Lucretia
would do. It would be cheaper.

The King first wouldn't hear of Dr. von Barthels going. People might
think I had some chronic disease. But he finally gave in for the sake of
the child I expect. "We need a few princes more from you," said His
Majesty benignly. "When you got about a dozen boys, you can rest."
Pleasant job, that of a Crown Princess.

    ----R, _July 16, 1899_.

The Duchess is a pretty woman, her face a lovely oval. She has small
eyes, the color of amethysts. Her complexion is as white and harmonious
as if she washed in sow's milk, like the late Ninon.

Her mouth is sweet, but certain lines indicate that it can bite as well
as smile. She has abundant hair, the color of Ferdinand's.

This dainty, albeit voluptuous, little person, is mated to a bull-necked
He, pompous, broad and full of the conceit of the _duodez_ satrap.

Marie was forced to marry him; their honeymoon scarcely lasted a
fortnight and he treated her shamefully after that. Of course, babies
she must bear like any other "royal cow."

Gradually, very gradually, she got over her disappointment and shyness,
developing into a cunning, world-wise woman. Then came the man she was
bound to love, even as the violet is bound to be kissed by the sun. She
had no scruples about accepting him, thinking herself entitled to
compensation for the sorrows of her married life. And revenge is sweet.

The Duke found them out in the first month of their young love, walked
into her boudoir one fine afternoon and remarked casually that none of
his hats would fit him,--"on account of the horns you kindly planted on
my forehead."

Marie was more dead than alive when he asked her for the key of her
writing desk. She lied and lied; to no purpose.

He kicked open the writing desk, and with his iron fists broke the
shelves and pigeon holes, laying bare a secret drawer and stacks of love
letters it shielded. These he confiscated. Then locked himself into his
room to enjoy his disgrace. This monster is a _Masochist_ and Sadist
combined. He loves both to inflict suffering upon himself and upon
others.

What monsters royalties be!

In the meanwhile Marie experienced all the tortures of purgatory; she
thought of flight, of suicide. Before she could indulge in either her
husband was back: Othello in the last act.

Marie was frightened stiff, her brain a whirl, her limbs inert. Rape
most foul this crowned satyr committed. "He fell upon me as a pack of
hounds overwhelm a hunted, wounded she-stag," she said.

Afterwards he commanded her to describe minutely every detail of her
relations with the other. He was primed with the letter-accounts; he
made her dot her amorous I's and cross her bawdry T's. And every attempt
at omission he punished with kicks and cuffs; no drayman or brick-layer
could give a more expert exhibition of woman-beating! And he violated
her again.

This was the beginning of a series of outrages of the same gross
character. Marie suffered for years and years that His Royal Highness
may gratify his unclean fancies: he the pander; she the Cyprian.

"If I ceased having lovers, I think he would kill me," says Marie.

Alas, such is the stuff "God's Anointed" are made of! In the face of
such, we pronounce a hypocritical _j'accuse_ upon the Louis's and
Pompadours, upon Marie Antoinette even.

The Duchess, who knows, gave Ferdinand an apartment near my own. We are
living here like man and wife. He sometimes calls me "_Frau Professor_."

    LOSCHWITZ, _July 19, 1899_.

Marie is dead. "Died suddenly," said the telegram. I understand now why
she begged me, with tears in her eyes, to remain at least two weeks. She
was afraid that, though ill and suffering after the confinement, he
would treat her as he did when he first found her unfaithful.

"Don't go," she cried. "It will be my death." And when I showed her the
King's letter commanding me to return at once, she made her confidential
tire-woman swear on the Bible that she wouldn't leave her for a minute,
day or night, until she herself released her from the promise.

Private advices from ----r say His Highness brutally kicked the faithful
maid out of his wife's bedroom and outraged his sick wife while the
servant kept thundering at the door, denouncing her master a murderer.

Ferdinand says the great majority of crowned heads are sexual
voluptuaries, deserving of the penitentiary or the straight-jacket.

    LOSCHWITZ, _August 1, 1899_.

I caught the Tisch stealing one of my letters. Happily there was nothing
incriminating in it, though addressed to Ferdinand,--just the letter the
Crown Princess would write to a Privy Councillor. But the petty theft
indicates that she suspects. Prince George, I am told, receives a report
from her every few days.

Well, I had my revenge. The Queen called today to see the children, and
when Her Majesty and myself withdrew into my closet, the Tisch, who had
been spying, didn't retire as promptly as she might.

"Can't you see that you are _de trop_," I said sharply to her. "Please
close the door from outside." The Baroness gave a cry of dismay and the
Queen was scandalized.

"Louise," she said, "that is no way to treat servants. You should always
try to be kind and considerate with them."