Henry W. Fischer
Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess

EDITOR'S CARD

This is to certify that the Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, now called Countess Montiguoso, Madame Toselli by her married name, is in no way, either directly or indirectly, interested in this publication.

There has been no communication of whatever nature, directly or through a third party, between this lady and the editor or publishers. In fact, the publication will be as much a surprise to her as to the general public.

The Royal Court of Saxony, therefore, has no right to claim, on the ground of this publication, that Princess Louise violated her agreement with that court as set forth in the chapter on the Kith and Kin of the ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, under the heads of "Louise's Alimony and Conditions" and "Allowance Raised and a Further Threat."

Henry W. Fischer, Editor.

Fischer's Foreign Letters, Publishers

THIS BOOK AND ITS PURPOSE

By Henry W. Fischer

Of Memoirs that are truly faithful records of royal lives, we have a few; the late Queen Victoria led the small number of crowned autobiographists only to discourage the reading of self-satisfied royal ego-portrayals forever, but in the Story of Louise of Saxony we have the main life epoch of a Cyprian Royal, who had no inducement to say anything false and is not afraid to say anything true.

For the Saxon Louise wrote not to guide the hand of future official historiographers, or to make virtue distasteful to some sixty odd grand-children, bored to death by the recital of the late "Mrs. John Brown's" sublime goodness: – Louise wrote for her own amusement, even as Pepys did when he diarized the peccadilloes of the Second Charles' English and French "hures" (which is the estimate these ladies put upon themselves).¹

The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony suffered much in her youth by a narrow-minded, bigoted mother, a Sadist like the monstrous Torquemada; marriage, she imagined, spelled a rich husband, more lover than master; freedom from tyranny, paltry surroundings, interference. To her untutored mind, life at the Saxon Court meant right royal splendor, liberty to do as one pleases, the companionship of agreeable, amusing and ready-to-serve friends.

The Sad Saxon Court

Her experience? Instead of the Imperial mother who took delight in cutting her children's faces with diamonds and exposing her daughters to the foul machinations of worthless teachers – she acquired a father-in-law (Prince, afterwards King George) whose pretended affection was but a share of his all-encompassing hatred, whose breath was a serpent's, whose veins were flowing with gall; the supposed chevaleresque husband turned out a walking dictionary of petty indecencies and gross vulgarities when in a favorable mood, a brawler at other times, a coward always.

As to money – Louise wished for nothing better "than to be an American multi-millionaire's daughter for a week"! Amusements were few and frowned upon.

Liberty? None outside of a general permit to eat, drink and couple like animals in pasture, was recognized or tolerated. Nor could the royal young woman make friends. Her relatives-by-marriage were mostly freaks, and all were unbearable; her entourage a collection of spies and flunkeys.

If charity-bazaars, pious palaver, and orphaned babies' diapers had not been the sole topic of conversation at court; if there had been intellectual enjoyment of any kind, Louise might never have taken up her pen. As it was: "This Diary is intended to contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future, Myself. * * * These pages are my Father-Confessor. I confess to myself. * * * And as I start in writing letters to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self may be corresponding with my better self, or vice-versa."

At any rate she thinks "this Diary business will be quite amusing."

Louise's Amusing Writings

It is. The world always laughs at the – husband of a woman whose history isn't one long yawn.

Nor is Louise content with a bust picture.² She gives full length portraits of herself, family, friends, enemies, and lovers, which latter she picks hap-hazard among commoners and the nobility. Only one of them was a prince of the blood, and he promptly proved the most false and dishonorable of the lot.

When Louise's pen-pictures do not deal with her amororos, they focus invariably emperors and princes, kings and queens, – contemporary personages whose acquaintance, by way of the newspapers and magazines, we all enjoy to the full, as "stern rulers," "sacrificers to the public weal," "martyrs of duty," "indefatigable workers," "examples of abstinence," and "high-mindedness" – everything calculated to make life a burden to the ordinary mortal.

Kings in Fiction and in Reality

But kings and emperors, we are told by these distant observers, are built that way; they would not be happy unless they made themselves unhappy for their people's sake. And as to queens and empresses, – they simply couldn't live if they didn't inspect their linen closets daily, stand over a broiling cook-stove, or knit socks for the offspring of inebriated bricklayers "and sich."

Witness Louise, Imperial and Royal Highness, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Hungary and Tuscany, Crown Princess of Saxony, etc., etc., smash these paper records of infallible royal rectitude, and superhuman, almost inhuman, royal probity!

Had she castigated her own kind after royalty unkenneled her, neck and crop, her story might admit of doubt, but she wrote these things while in the full enjoyment of her rank and station, before her title as future queen was ever questioned or menaced.

Her Diary finishes with her last night in the Dresden palace. We do not hear so much as the clatter of the carriage wheels that carried her and "Richard" to her unfrocking as princess of the blood, – in short, our narrator is not prejudiced, on the defensive, or soured by disfranchisement. She had no axes to grind while writing; for her all kings dropped out of the clouds; the lustre that surrounds a king never dimmed while her Diary was in progress, and before she ceases talking to us she never "ate of the fish that hath fed of that worm that hath eat of a king."

Yet this large folio edition of obscénités royale, chock full, at the same time, of intensely human and interesting facts, notable and amusing things, as enthralling as a novel by Balzac, – Louise's life record in sum and substance, since her carryings-on after she doffed her royal robes for the motley of the free woman are of no historical, and but scant human interest.

The prodigality of the mass of indictments Louise launches against royalty as every-day occurrences, reminds one of the great Catharine Sforza, Duchess of Milan's clever mot. When the enemy captured her children she merely said, "I retain the oven for more."

Royal Scandals

Such scandalmongering! Only Her Imperial Highness doesn't see the obloquy, – sarcasm, cynicism and disparagement being royalty's every-day diet.

Such gossiping! But what else was there to do at a court whose literature is tracts and whose theatre of action the drill grounds.

But for all that, Louise's Diary is history, because its minute things loom big in connection with social and political results, even as its horrors and abnormalities help paint court life and the lives of kings and princes as they are, not as royalties' sycophants and apologizers would have us view them.

There is a perfect downpour of books eulogizing monarchs and monarchy; royal governments spend millions of the people's money to uphold and aggrandize exalted kingship and seedy princeship alike; three-fourths of the press of Europe is swayed by king-worship, or subsidized to sing the praises of "God's Anointed," while in our own country the aping of monarchical institutions, the admiration for court life, the idealization of kings, their sayings, doings and pretended superiority, as carried on by the multi-rich, are undermining love for the Republic and the institutions our fathers fought and bled for.

Un-American Folly

It's the purpose of the present volume to show the guilty folly of such un-American, un-republican, wholly unjustifiable, reprehensible and altogether ridiculous King-worship, not by argument, or a more or less fanciful story, but by the unbiased testimony of an "insider."

Let it be considered, above all, that a member of the proudest Imperial family in the wide, wide world demonstrates, by inference, the absurdity of King-worship!

Of course, whether or not you'll obey the impassioned appeal of the corner sermonizer, who, espying a number of very décolletée ladies passing by in a carriage, cried out: "Quand vous voyez ces tetons rebondies, qui se montrent avec tant d'impudence, bandez! bandez! bandez! vous – les yeux!" is a matter for you to decide.

Seek not for descriptions of ceremonials and festivities in these pages; only imbeciles among kings are interested in such wearying spectacles, intended to dazzle the multitude. The Czar Paul, who became insane and had his head knocked off by his own officers, appeared upon the scene vacated by his brilliant mother, Catharine the Great, with a valise full of petty regulations, ready drawn up, by which, every day, every hour, every minute, he announced some foolish change, punishment or favor, but I often saw Kaiser Wilhelm and other kings look intensely bored and disgusted when obliged to attend dull and superfluous court or government functions.

Royalty's Loose Talk

But for genuine expressions of the royal self consult Louise. Those who think that royalty shapes its language in accordance with the plural of the personal pronoun, sometimes used in state papers, will be shocked at the "négligé talk" of one royal highness and the "rag-time" expressions of others. Louise, herself, assures us over and over again that she "feels like a dog," a statement no self-respecting publisher's reader would allow to pass, yet I was told by a friend of King Frederick of Denmark that he loved to compare his "all-highest person" to a "mut," and I remember a letter from Victor Emanuel II to his great Minister, Count Cavour, solemnly protesting that he (the King) was "no ass."

When the same Danish ruler, the seventh of his name, was asked why, in thunder, he married a common street walker (the Rasmussen, afterwards created Countess Danner), he cried out with every indication of gusto: "You don't know how deliciously common that girl is."

Frederick's words explain the hostler marriages of several royal women mentioned by Louise, as well as her own and loving family's broulleries of the fish-wife order, repeatedly described in the Diary.

Royalty Threatens a Royal Woman

It is safe to say that few $15 flats in all the United States witnessed more outrageous family jars than were fought out in the gilded halls of the Dresden palace between Louise and father-in-law and Louise and husband. Threats of violence are frequent; Prince George promises his daughter-in-law a sound beating at the hands of the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess confesses that she would rather go to bed with a drunken husband, booted and spurred, than risk a sword thrust.

At the coronation of the present Czar, at Moscow, I mistook the Duke of Edinburgh, brother of the late King Edward, for a policeman attached to the British Ambassador, so exceedingly commonplace a person in appearance, speech and manner he seemed; Louise has a telling chapter on the mean looks of royalty, but fails to see the connection between that and royalty's coarseness.

Perhaps it wasn't the "commonness" of Lady Emma Hamilton, child of the slums, impersonator of risqué stage pictures, and mistress of the greatest naval hero of all times, that appealed primarily to Louise's grand-aunt, Queen Caroline of Naples, but the abandon of the beautiful Englishwoman, her reckless exposure of person, her freedom of speech, certainly sealed the friendship between the adventuress and the despotic ruler who deserved the epithet of "bloody" no less than Mary of England.

Covetous Royalty

Royal covetousness is another subject dwelt on by Louise. We learn that in money matters the kings and princes of her acquaintance – and her acquaintance embraces all the monarchs of Europe – are "dirty," that royal girls are given in marriage to the highest bidder, and that poor princes have no more chance to marry a rich princess than a drayman an American multi-millionaire's daughter.

Louise gives us a curious insight into the Pappenheim-Wheeler marriage embroglio, and refers to some noble families that made their money in infamous trades; that the Kaiser adopted the title of one of these unspeakables ("Count of Henneberg") she doesn't seem to know.

We hear of imperial and royal highnesses, living at public expense and for whom honors and lucrative employment are exacted from the people, who at home figure as poor relations, obliged to submit to treatment that a self-respecting "boots" or "omnibus" would resent.

Here we have a royal prince of twenty-four or twenty-five subjected to kicks and cuffs by his uncle, who happens to be king – no indignity either to the slugged or the slugger in that – but when a pretty princess gets a few "Hochs" more than an ugly, mouse-colored majesty, she is all but flayed for "playing to the gallery."

"High-minded" royalty robs widows and despoils orphans; re-introduces into the family obsolete punishments forbidden by law; maintains in the household a despicable spy system! Its respect for womanhood is on a par with a Bushman's; of authors, "lickspittles" only count; literature, unless it kowtows to the "all-highest" person, is the "trade of Jew scribblers."

Right Royal Manners

As to manners, what do you think of kings and princes and grand-dukes who, at ceremonial dinners, pound the table to "show that they are boss"?

Louise tells of an emperor at a foreign court ignoring one of his hostesses absolutely, even refusing to acknowledge her salute by a nod. We hear of expectant royal heirs who engage in wild fandangoes of merriment while their father, brother or cousin lies dying.

"Personal matter," you say? "A typical case," I retort.

"Ask the Duc du Maine to wait till I am dead before he indulges in the full extent of his joy," said the dying Louis XIV, when the De Profundis in the death chamber was suddenly interrupted by the sound of violent laughter from the adjoining gallery. And the fact that almost every new king sets aside the testament of his predecessor, – is this not evidence of the general callowness of feeling prevailing in royal circles?

The Irish Famine and Royalty

In famine times, the kings and princes of old drove the starving out of town to die of hunger in the fields, and as late as 1772 one hundred and fifty thousand Saxons died of hunger under the "glorious reign" of Louise's grandfather-by-marriage, Frederick Augustus III. And the "Life of Queen Victoria," approved by the Court of St. James, unblushingly informs us that in 1847 "Her Most Gracious Majesty" was chiefly concerned about investing to good profit the revenues of the Prince of Wales, her infant son (about four hundred thousand dollars per annum).

Yet, while Victoria pinched the boy's tenants to extort an extra penny for him, and "succeeded in saving all but four thousand pounds sterling" of his imperial allowance, the population of Ireland was reduced two millions by the most dreadful famine the world remembers!

Before the famine Ireland had a population of 8,196,597, against a population of 15,914,148 in England and Wales, while Scotland's population was 2,620,184.

Six years after the famine Ireland's population was 6,574,278, Scotland's 2,888,742, England and Wales' 17,927,609. Today Ireland's population is less than Scotland's, the exact figures being: Scotland 4,759,445, Ireland 4,381,951, England and Wales 36,075,269.

Royalty Utterly Heartless

However, as the waste of two million human lives, the loss of four millions in population, subsequently enabled the Prince of Wales to tie the price of a dukedom³ in diamonds around a French dancer's neck and to support a hundred silly harlots in all parts of Europe, who cares?

According to Louise and – others, royalty is the meanest, the most heartless, the most faithless and the most unjust of the species – that in addition she herself disgraced its womanhood, after the famous Louise of Prussia rehabilitated queenship, is regrettable, but to call it altogether unexpected would be rank euphemism.

Louise's Character

If Louise had lived at the time of Phryne, the philosophers would have characterized her as "an animal with long hair"; if he had known her, the great Mirabeau might have coined his pet phrase, "a human that dresses, undresses and – talks" (or writes) for Louise; as a matter of fact, she is one of those "Jansenists" of love who believe in the utter helplessness of natural woman to turn down a good looking man.

Her great grand-uncle, Emperor Francis, recorded on a pane of glass overlooking the courtyard of the Vienna Hofburg his opinion of women in the brief observation: "Chaque femme varie" (Women always change).

This is true of Louise and also untrue of her. While occupying her high position at the Saxon court she was fixed in the determination to make a cuckold of her husband, though Frederick Augustus, while a pumpkin, wasn't fricasseed in snow by any means.

The process gave her palpitations, but, like Ninon, she was "so happy when she had palpitations."

Changed Lovers Frequently

As to lovers, she changed them as often as she had to, never hesitating to pepper her steady romances by playing "everybody's wife," chance permitting, as she intimates naïvely towards the close of the Diary.

Qualms of conscience she knows not, but of pride of ancestry, of insistence on royal prerogatives, she has plenty and to spare.

"My great grand-aunt, Marie Antoinette, did this"; "my good cousins d'Orleans" (three of them) "allowed themselves to be seduced"; "ma cousine de Saxe-Coburg laughs at conventionalities," – there you have the foundation of the iniquitous philosophy of the royal Lais. And for the rest – when she is queen, all will be well.

Her Court – A Seraglio

Louise's fixed idea was that, as Queen of Saxony, she had but to say the word to establish a court à la Catharine II; time and again she refers to the great Empress's male seraglio, and to the enormous sums she squandered on her favorites. If the Diarist had known that Her Majesty of Russia, when in the flesh, never suffered to be longer than twenty-four hours without a lover, Louise, no doubt, would have made the most elaborate plans to prevent, in her own case, a possible interregnum of five minutes even.

She thought she held the whip hand because a king cannot produce princes without his wife, while the wife can produce princes without the king; besides Frederick Augustus was no paragon, and he who plants horns, must not grudge to wear them.

A wanton's calculations, it will be argued, – but Louise's records show that her husband, the king-to-be, fell in with her main idea, – that he forgave the unfaithful wife, the disgraced princess, because, as Queen, her popularity would be "a great asset."

And Americans, our women of whom we are so proud, are asked to bow down to such sorry majesties!

Sired and "Cousined" by Lunatics

And is there no excuse for so much baseness in high places? Our royal Diarist offers none, but her family history is a telling apology.

Be it remembered that Louise is not so much an Austrian as a Wittelsbacher of the royal house of Bavaria that gave to the world two mad kings, Louis II and Otho, the present incumbent of the throne, besides a number of eccentrics, among others Louise's aunts, the Empress Elizabeth and the Duchess d'Alencon, both dead; Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, her cousin, was also undoubtedly insane, the result of breeding in and in, Austrian, Bourbon and Wittelsbach stock, all practically of the same parentage, in a mad mix-up, the insane Wittelsbachers predominating.

To cap the climax, Louise has eighteen or nineteen insane cousins on her mother's side!

Once upon a time Louise's prosaic and stupid great-uncle, as a young husband, felt dreadfully scandalized when his Queen, Marie Antoinette, bombarded him with spit-balls.

"What can I do with her?" he asked "Minister Sans-culotte" Dumouriez.

"I would spike the cannon, Sire," replied the courtier.

"Enclouer le canon," if performed in time, might have saved Louise, but I doubt it.

Henry W. Fischer.

KITH AND KIN OF THE EX-CROWN PRINCESS OF SAXONY

Louise's Own Family

The royal woman whose life's history is recorded in this volume was born Louise Antoinette, Daughter of the late Grand Duke Ferdinand IV of Tuscany (died January 17, 1908) and the Dowager Grand Duchess Alice, née Princess Bourbon of Parma.

Louise has four brothers, among them the present head of the Tuscany family, Joseph Ferdinand, who dropped the obsolete title of Grand Duke and is officially known as Archduke of Austria-Hungary.

He is a brigadier general, commanding the Fifth Austrian Infantry, and unmarried.

Better known is Louise's older brother, the former Archduke Leopold, who dropped his title and dignities, and, as a Swiss citizen, adopted the name of Leopold Wulfling. This Leopold is generally regarded as a black sheep.

Louise more often refers to him in the present volume than to any other member of her family.

He is now a commoner by his own, more or less enforced, abdication, as Louise is a commoner by decree of her chief-of-family, the Austrian Emperor, Francis Joseph, dated Vienna, January 27, 1903.

A month before above date the Saxon court had conferred on Louise the title of Countess Montiguoso, while, on her own part, she adopted the fanciful cognomen of Louise of Tuscany.

Of Louise's two remaining brothers, one, Archduke Peter, serves in the Austrian army as Colonel of the Thirty-second Infantry, while Archduke Henry is Master of Horse in the Sixth Bavarian Dragoons.

Only one of Louise's four sisters is married, the oldest, Anna, now Princess Johannes of Hohenlohe-Bartenstein.

The unmarried sisters are Archduchesses Margareta (31 years old), Germana (28 years old), Agnes (22 years old).

Mother Comes of Mentally Tainted Stock

Louise's mother, née Princess Alice of Parma, is the only surviving sister of the late Duke Robert, who left twenty children, all living, and of whom eighteen or nineteen are either imbeciles or raving lunatics, the present head of the house, Duke Henry, belonging to the first category of mentally unsound.

Louise's first cousin, Prince Elias of Parma, the seventh son, is accounted sound, but Elias's sister, Zita (the twelfth child), developed maniacal tendencies since her marriage to Archduke Karl Francis Joseph, heir-presumptive to the crown of Austria-Hungary.

Francis Joseph's Autocratic Rule

Louise Formerly in Line of Austrian Succession

Louise was in the line of the Austrian succession until, upon her marriage to the Crown Prince of Saxony (1891), she officially renounced her birthrights.

Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary is Louise's grand-uncle as well as chief of the imperial family of Austria, the royal family of Hungary, the Grand-ducal family of Tuscany (now extinct as far as the title goes), and of the Estes, which is the Ducal Line of Modena, extinct in the male line. Finally he is recognized as chief by the ducal family of Parma, descendants of the Spanish Hapsburgs.

Emperor Francis Joseph rules all the Hapsburgers, Austrian, Hungarian, and those of Tuscany, of Este, of Modena and Parma, autocratically, his word being law in the family. Even titles conferred by birth can be taken away by him, as exemplified in the case of Louise and her brother Leopold.

Royal Saxons

As a member of the Austrian imperial family, the Hapsburgers, founded in 883, Louise ranked higher than her husband, the Crown Prince of the petty Kingdom of Saxony, whose claim to the royal title dates from 1806, – a gift of the Emperor Napoleon.

She married Frederick Augustus November 21, 1891, while the latter's uncle reigned as King Albert of Saxony (1873 to 1902).

Louise's father-in-law, up to then known as Prince George, succeeded his brother June 19, 1902. He was then a widower and his family consisted of:

Princess Mathilde, unmarried,

The Crown Prince Frederick Augustus, husband of Louise,

Princess Marie-Josepha, wife of Archduke Otho of Austria,

Prince Johann George, at that time married to Isabelle of Württemberg, and

Prince Max. The latter subsequently shelved his title and entered the Church July 26, 1896. He is a professor of canonical law and slated for a German bishopric.

At the time of Prince George's ascension, there was also living the late King Albert's widow, Queen Caroline, née Princess of Wasa, since dead.

The Marchesa Rapallo, née Princess Elizabeth of Saxony, is a sister of the late King George.

Louise and Her Father-in-Law

During King George's short reign, Louise ran away from the Saxon court, end of November, 1902.

On February 11, 1903, divorce was pronounced against her by a special court assembled by King George.

Louise was adjudged the guilty party and deprived of the name and style of Crown Princess of Saxony. As previously (January 27) the Austrian Emperor had forbidden her to use the name and title of Austrian Archduchess and Imperial and royal Princess, Louise would have been nameless but for the rank and title of Countess Montiguoso, conferred upon her by King George.

Louise's Alimony Conditional

At the same time Louise accepted from the court of Saxony a considerable monthly allowance on condition that "she undertake nothing liable to compromise the reigning family, either by criticism or story, either by word, deed or in writing."

Frederick Augustus, King

Upon his father's death, Frederick Augustus succeeded King George October 15, 1904. He is now forty-seven years old, while Louise is forty-two.

The King of Saxony has six children by Louise, three boys and three girls, five born in wedlock, the youngest born without wedlock. The children born in wedlock are:

The present Crown Prince, born 1893.

Frederick Christian, likewise born in 1893.

Ernest, born 1896.

Margaret, born 1900.

And Marie Alix, born 1901.

The youngest Princess of Saxony, so called, Anna Monica, was born by Louise more than six months after she left her husband and nearly three months after her divorce.

Louise desired to retain Anna Monica in her own custody, but though the child's fathership is in doubt, to say the least, Frederick Augustus insisted upon the little one's transference to his care.

Allowance Raised and a Further Threat

King Frederick Augustus raised Louise's allowance to $12,000 per year, "which alimony ceases if the said Countess Montiguoso shall commit, either personally, directly or indirectly, any act in writing or otherwise liable to injure the reputation of King Frederick Augustus or members of the royal family of Saxony, or if the said Countess Montiguoso contributes to any such libellous publication in any manner or form."

The Divorce of Royal Couple Illegal

After divorce was pronounced against her, Louise declined to accept the decree of the court, pronouncing the proceedings illegal on the ground that both she and husband are Catholics and that the Roman Catholic Church, under no circumstances, recognizes divorce. Her protest gained importance from the fact that her marriage to Frederick Augustus was solemnized by the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The Saxon court, on the other hand, justified its own decision by basing same on a certain civil ceremony entered into by Louise and Frederick Augustus previous to the church marriage.

Louise Marries a Second Time

When Louise realized in the course of years that Frederick Augustus would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian composer and pianist of small reputation.

This marriage was performed civilly. They have one child, a boy, about whose custody the now legally separated parents have instituted several actions in law. The boy has now been allotted to the care of Toselli's mother.

King Did Not Marry Again

King Frederick Augustus, though by the laws of Saxony and Germany allowed to contract a second marriage, has not availed himself of the license, probably in deference to the wishes of the Vatican. At the same time he spurned all of Louise's attempts at reconciliation, the most dramatic of which was her coup de tête of December, 1904, when she went to Dresden "to see her children," was arrested at the palace gate and conducted out of the kingdom by high police officials.

Other Royalties Mentioned in This Volume

Louise refers, in her Diary, to the Kaiser as "cousin." If there be any relationship between her and William, it is that imposed by the Saxon marriage, Saxon princes and princesses having frequently intermarried with the royal and princely Hohenzollerns, despite the differences of religion. There are four courts of Saxony despite that of Dresden: Weimar, Meiningen, Altenburg and Coburg and Gotha.

The latter duchy's ruler, Karl Eduard, is of English descent, a son of the late Duke of Albany. Hence, Louise's cousinship with Victoria Melita, sometime Grand Duchess of Hesse, now Grand Duchess Kyril of Russia.

Of course, Louise is closely related to all the Orleans and Bourbons.

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who died on the scaffold at Paris, October 16, 1793, she calls her great-grand-aunt and namesake, claiming, at the same time, most of the Kings and princes of France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as relatives.

CHAPTER I
MOTHERHOOD

A sterile Royal Family once fruitful – Diary true record of self – Long legs of Countess Solms – A child only because he can't help it – Wet nurse to Socialist brat – Royal permit for nursing – Royal negligee talk – A Saxon failing.

Castle Wachwitz, February 17, 1893.

I did my duty towards the Saxons. I gave them a Prince. The Royal House ought to be grateful to me: – I am helping to perpetuate it. Who would, if I didn't? My sister-in-law, Princess Mathilde, is an old maid. The other, Maria Josepha, as sterile as Sarah was before she reached the nineties. This applies also to Isabelle, the wife of brother-in-law, John-George. And Prince Max, tired of ballet girls, is about to take the soutane.

There is just one more royal Saxon princess, Elizabeth, and she succeeded in having children neither with her husband de jure, the late Duke of Genoa, nor with her husband-lover, Marquis Rapallo.

Louise, then, is the sole living hope of the royal Saxons that, only 160 years ago, boasted of a sovereign having three hundred and fifty-two children to his credit, among them not a few subsequently accounted geniuses. Augustus, the Physical Strong (1670 to 1733), was the happy father, the Maréshal de Saxe one of his numerous gifted offspring.

Alas, since then the House of Wettin has declined not in numbers only.

Poor baby is burdened with ten names in honor of so many ancestors. Why, in addition, they want to call him "Maria" I cannot for the life of me understand, for there never was a Saxon princess or queen that amounted to a row of pins.

I wonder whether they will say the same of me after the crown of the Wettiners descended upon my brow. Those so inclined should consult these papers ere they begin throwing stones, for my Diary is intended to contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future, Myself, and let no one judge me by what I say other than what is recorded here.

These pages are my Father Confessor. I confess to myself, – what a woman in my position says to members of her family or official and semi-official persons – her servants, so to speak – doesn't signify, to borrow a phrase from my good cousin, the Kaiser Wilhelm.

Father-in-law George tells me to trust no one but him, my husband, and Frederick Augustus's sisters, cousins and aunts, and to rely on prayer only, yet, stubborn as nature made me, I prefer respectable white paper to my sweet relatives.

Up to now my most ambitious literary attempts were intimate letters to my brother Leopold, the "Black Sheep." As I now start in writing letters to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self may be corresponding with my better self, or vice versa. If I was only a poet like Countess Solms, but, dear, no. All real bluestockings are ugly and emaciated. Solms is both, and her legs are as long and as thin as those of Diana, my English hunter.

I think this Diary business will be quite amusing, – at any rate, it will be more so than the conversation of my ladies. Ah, those ladies of the court of Saxony! If they would only talk of anything else but orphans, sisters of charity and ballet girls. The latter always have one foot in Hades, while you can see the wings grow on the backs of the others.

When the von Schoenberg struts in, peacock fashion, and announces "his royal Highness did himself the honor to soil his bib," I sometimes stare at her, not comprehending at the moment, and the fact that she is talking of my baby only gradually comes to mind. Isn't it ridiculous that a little squalling bit of humanity, whom the accident of birth planted in a palace, is royalty first and all the time, and a child only because he can't help it?

As for me, I am a woman and mother first, and my child is an animated lump of flesh and blood —my flesh and blood – first and all the time. Of course, when baby came I wanted to nurse it. You should have seen Frederick Augustus's face. If I had proposed to become a wet-nurse to some "socialist brat" he couldn't have been more astonished. Yet my great ancestress, the Empress Maria Theresa, nursed her babies "before a parquet of proletarians," at the theatre and at reviews, and thought nothing of giving the breast to a poor foundling left in the park of Schoenbrunn.

Frederick Augustus recovered his speech after a while – though he never says anything that would seem to require reflection, he always acts the deep thinker. "Louise," he mumbled reproachfully, – "what will his Majesty say?"

"I thought you were the father of the child," I remarked innocently.

"No levity where the King is concerned," he corrected poor me. "You know very well that for an act of this kind a royal permit must be previously obtained."

Followed a long pause to give his mental apparatus time to think some more. Then: "And, besides, it will hurt your figure."

"Augusta Victoria" (the German Empress) "nursed half a dozen children, and her décolleté is still much admired," I insisted.

Frederick Augustus paid no attention to this argument. "Anyhow, I don't want the doctors to examine your breast daily," he said with an air of mixed sentimentality and brusqueness.

These were not his own words, though. My husband, not content with calling a spade a spade, invariably uses the nastiest terms in the dictionary of debauchery. When he tells me of his love adventures before marriage it's always "I bagged that girl," or "I made something tender out of her," just as a hunter talks of game or a leg of venison.

He doesn't want to be rude; he is so without knowing it. His indelicacy would be astounding in a man born on the steps of the throne, if the Princes of this royal house were not all inclined that way.

Two weeks after my accouchement George and Isabelle called. Though brother and sister-in-law, we are not at all on terms of intimacy. Frederick Augustus made some remarks of a personal nature that sent all the blood to my head; Isabelle seemed to enjoy my discomfort, but George had the decency to go to the window and comment on the dirty boots of a guard lieutenant just entering the courtyard. Frederick Augustus thought he had made a hit with Isabelle and applauded his own effort with a loud guffaw, while pounding his thighs, which seems to give him particular satisfaction.

CHAPTER II
THE SWEET FAMILY

Husband loving, but family nasty – Money considerations – Brutal caresses in public – Pests in the family – Awful serenity – Meddle with angels' or devils' affairs – Father-in-law's gritty kiss.

Castle Wachwitz, February 24, 1893.

I have been married some fifteen months and I love my husband. He is kind, not too inquisitive and passionate. I have better claims to domestic happiness than most of my royal sisters on or near the thrones of Europe. Of course when I married into the Saxon royal family I expected to be treated with ill-concealed enmity. Wasn't I young and handsome? Reason enough for the old maids and childless wives, my new sweet relatives, to detest me.

Wasn't I poor? I brought little with me and my presence entailed a perpetual expense. Now in royal families money is everything, or nearly so, and the newcomer that eats but doesn't increase the family fortune is regarded as an interloper.

If I hadn't "made good," that is if, in due time, I hadn't become a mother, my position among the purse-proud, rapacious and narrow-minded Wettiners would have become wellnigh intolerable. But I proved myself a Holstein. I rose superior to Queen Carola, who never had a child, and to Maria, Mathilda, Isabelle and Elizabeth, who either couldn't or didn't. But, to my mind, acting the cow for the benefit of the race did not invite stable manners.

I wasn't used to them. They hadn't figured in the dreams of my girlhood. I thought love less robust. I didn't expect to be squeezed before my ladies. Even the best beloved husband shouldn't take liberties with his wife's waist in the parlor.

And Frederick Augustus's negligee talk is no less offensive than his manner of laying loving hands on my person. As a rule, he treats me like a third-row dancing girl that goes to petition the manager for a place nearer the footlights. There is no limit to his familiarities or to the license of his conversation. "Fine wench" is a term of affection he likes to bestow on his future queen; indeed, one of the less gross. He has the weakness to like epithets that, I am told, gentlemen sometimes use in their clubs, but never towards a mistress they half-way respect.

My father-in-law, Prince George, is a pest of another kind. While Frederick Augustus is jovial and rude, George is rude and serene of a serenity that would make a Grand Inquisitor look gay.

One of my famous ancestresses, the Princess-Palatine, sister-in-law of Louis the Fourteenth, once boxed the Dauphin's ears for a trick he played on her, by putting his upright thumb in the centre of an armchair which her royal highness meant to sit on.

Whenever I behold George's funereal visage, I long to repeat the Dauphin's undignified offense. I would like to see this royal parcel of melancholy jump and dance; change that ever-frowning and mournful aspect of his. Indeed, I would like to treat him to one of the anecdotes that made the Duchess de Berri explode with laughter.

Frederick Augustus lives in deadly fear of him, and never gets his hair cut without first considering whether his father will approve or not. George isn't happy unless he renders other people unhappy. I actually believe he would rather meddle with the angels' or devils' affairs than say his prayers, though he is a bigot of the most advanced stripe.

Sometimes when the itch for meddling has hold of him, he cites all the married princes of the royal house and lectures them on the wickedness of having no children, winding up by commanding each one to explain, in detail, his failure to have offspring.

Of course, these gentlemen put the blame on their wives, whereupon the ladies are forthwith summoned to be threatened and cajoled.

Prince George had the great goodness to approve of my baby and to congratulate me, also to set me up as an example for Isabelle. When I return to Dresden I shall be made Colonel of Horse.

Twice has George kissed me, – upon my arrival in Saxony and five days after the birth of my child. It felt like a piece of gritty ice rubbing against my forehead.

CHAPTER III
WEEPING WILLOW – EMBLEM ROYAL

A pious fraud – Theresa Mayer – Character of the Queen – Mopishness rampant.

Castle Wachwitz, March 1, 1893.

Prince Max came unexpectedly. He is studying for the priesthood and looks more sour than his father even. I was in bed, nursing a sick headache, but presuming upon his future clerical dignity, he walked in without ceremony and sat down on a chair near my bed. Then he raised his hands in prayer and announced that he had come to assist in my devotions.

"Forget that I am your brother-in-law and cousin," he said; "tell me what's in your heart, Louise, and I will pray to the good God for thee."

"Don't trouble yourself," I replied, "I have a court chaplain charged with these affairs. Rather tell me about the latest comic opera."

"Comic opera!" he stammered. "You don't intend to go to such worldly amusements now that you are a mother?"

"Of course I do. The very day I return to Dresden I will take a look at your girl."

"My – what?" gasped Max.

"Your Theresa – Theresa Mayer. I understand she made a great hit in the Geisha, and everybody approves of your taste, Max."

Max turned red, then green, and I thought to myself what a fool I was. He's a favorite with the King and Queen, and my father-in-law believes every word he says.

Castle Wachwitz, March 10, 1893.

Queen Carola is a good soul though she doesn't dare call her soul her own. I never heard her say "peep" in the presence of his Majesty. She looks forlorn and frightened when King Albert is around.

I like her better since I am a mother, for she loves baby. Yes, though she is a Queen, I saw her actually smile at the child once or twice.

Poor woman, the point of her nose is always red, and, like Father-in-law George, she believes weeping willow the only fit emblem for royalty. The look of the whipped dog is always in her weak eyes.

I am too young and – they do say – too frivolous to stand so much mopishness. These mustard-pots, sedate, grave, wan and long-faced, make me mad. I don't know what to say, – all I can do is try to hide my "un-princess-like" cheerfulness when they are around.

I wish I had an ounce or so of diplomacy in my composition. It might enable me to sympathize with the fancied troubles of the Queen and Prince George, but I am incorrigible.

CHAPTER IV
MY UNPLEASANT YOUTH

Father hard to get along with – Royal imaginations – Kings cursing other kings – Poverty and pretense – Piety that makes children suffer – Up at five to pray on cold stones – Chilblains and prayer.

Castle Wachwitz, March 11, 1893.

It occurs to me that, if this is intended as a record of my life – somewhat after the fashion of the Margravine of Bayreuth's Memoirs – I ought to tell about my girlhood.

Let me admit at once that my marriage to the Crown Prince of Saxony was, politically speaking, a stroke of good luck. My father, the Grand-duke of Tuscany, had been deprived of land and crown ten years before I was born, and, though he likes to pose as a sovereign, he is, as a matter of fact, a mere private gentleman of limited resources, whom the head of the family, the Austrian Emperor, may coax or browbeat at his sweet pleasure. If papa had been able to save his thronelet, I have no doubt he would be a most agreeable man, open-handed and eager to enjoy life, but instead of making the best of a situation over which he has no control, he is forever fretting about his lost dignities and about "his dear people" that don't care a snap for his love and affection. This makes him a trying person to get along with, – mention a king or prince in the full enjoyment of power, and father gets melancholy and calls Victor Emanuel, the second of his name, a brigand.

He seldom or never visits his confrères in the capitals of Europe, but when I was a girl our gloomy palace at Salzburg saw much of the ghosts of decaying royalty. The Dukes of Modena and Parma, the King of Hanover, the Kurfurst of Hesse, the King of Naples and other monarchs and toy-monarchs that were handed their walking papers by sovereigns mightier than themselves, visited us off and on, filling the air with lamentations and cursing their fate.

And, like papa, all these ex'es are ready to fly out of their very skins the moment they notice the smallest breach of etiquette concerning their august selves. If they had the power, the Imperial Highnesses would execute any man that called them "Royal Highness," while the Royal Highnesses would be pleased to send to the gallows persons addressing them as "Highness" only.

And papa has other troubles, and the greatest of them, lack of money. Poverty in private life must be hard enough, but a poor king, obliged to keep up the pretense of a court, is to be pitied indeed.

Add to what I have said, father's share of domestic unhappiness. Mother is a Bourbon of Parma, serious-minded and hard like my father-in-law, and almost as much of a religious fanatic.

Oh, how we children suffered by the piety of our mother. There were eight of us, myself the oldest of five girls, and seven years older than my sister Anna. Yet this baby, as soon as she could walk, was obliged to rise, like myself, at five o'clock summer and winter to go to the chapel and pray. The chapel was lighted only by a few wax candles and, of course, was unheated like the corridors of the palace. And like them it was paved with stones. Many a chilblain I carried away from kneeling on those granite flags.

And the stupidity of the thing! Instead of saying our prayers we murmured and protested, and as soon as we were old enough we slipped portions of novels in our prayer-books, which we read while mass was said. That trick was not unfraught with danger though, for mother's spies were always after us, and the bad light made reading difficult.

I am sure that if mother had found us out, she would have whipped us within an inch of our lives.

CHAPTER V
A FIERCE DISCIPLINARIAN

Diamonds used to punish children – Face object of attacks – Grunting and snorting at the royal table – Blood flowing at dinner – My brother jumps out of a window.

Castle Wachwitz, April 1, 1893.

Nothing of consequence happened since my last entry, and I continue the story of my girlhood.

Her Imperial Highness, my pious mother, had a terrible way of punishing her children. The face of the culprit was invariably the object of her attacks. She hit us with the flat of her bony hand, rendered more terrible by innumerable rings. The sharp diamonds cut into the flesh and usually made the blood flow freely.

The court chaplain at Salzburg was a peasant's boy without manners or breeding of any kind. While the least violation of etiquette or politeness on the children's part was punished by a box on the ear, or by withholding the next meal, mother overlooked the swinishness of the chaplain simply because he wore a black coat.

One of the chaplain's most offensive habits was to grunt and snort when eating. On one occasion my brother Leopold gave a somewhat exaggerated imitation of these disgusting practices at table, whereupon mother, blind with fury, for she thought a priest could do no wrong, struck Leopold in the face, causing the blood to gush from his lacerated cheek.

Father immediately rose from table and savagely turning upon mother said, "Understand, Madame, that as a sovereign and head of the family I will have no one punished in my presence. If I think punishment necessary, I will inflict it myself in a dignified way."

Mother immediately began to cry. She always had a flood of tears ready when father offered the slightest reprimand. Afterwards she upbraided father and us, the children. If it were not for her incessant prayers, she said, and for the Christian life she was leading, God would have destroyed the Tuscans long ago, and she wasn't sure that either of us would attain Paradise except for her intercession with the Almighty.

This and similar scenes and incidents disgusted me with religion early in life. Myself and all my brothers and sisters hated the very sight of the court chaplain who licked our mother's boots, while heaping punishments and indignities upon us.

At one time my brother Leopold didn't know his catechism. "I will teach your Imperial Highness to skip your lessons," said the court chaplain. "Kneel before me and read the passage over ten times as a punishment."

Leopold promptly answered: "I won't."

"Yes, you will, Imperial Highness, for such are my orders," cried the court chaplain.

Leopold said doggedly, "I kneel before the altar and before the Emperor, if he demands it, not before such as you."

"Suppose I call on your Imperial Highness's mother and ask her to forbid you to mount a horse for a month or so?" queried our tormentor.

Horseback riding was Leopold's chief pleasure, and the chaplain had no sooner launched his threat, when Leopold opened the window and apparently jumped out. As the school-room was situated in the third story, the teacher thought his pupil dead on the pavement below, but Leopold was merely hanging on to the stone coping and shutters. That gave him the whip hand over the teacher. "I will let go if you don't promise not to inform mother," demanded the twelve-year-old boy.

"I promise, only come in," moaned the teacher.

"Promise furthermore there shall be no punishment whatever for what I did and said."

"None whatever, your Imperial Highness."

"Swear it on the cross."

The chaplain did as ordered and Leopold crawled back to safety.

Leopold is a good deal like me, and has been in hot water more or less all his life.

When I was a girl of fifteen, he defended my honor at the risk of the fearful punishments my mother had in store for those children that wouldn't buckle down to the chaplain, but that is so sad a chapter of my girlhood days I cannot bring myself to put it down today.

CHAPTER VI
LEOPOLD DEFENDS MY HONOR AT HIS PERIL

Punished for objecting to familiarities – Awful names I was called – Locked in the room with wicked teacher – Defend myself with burning lamp – My brother nearly kills my would-be assailant.

Castle Wachwitz, April 2, 1893.

I want to finish with evil recollections. Maybe I will be able to forget them, when I have done with this narrative. My mother, as pointed out, had more confidence in our rascally court chaplain than in her own children, and was far more concerned about the chaplain's dignity than ours. She never hesitated to doubt her children's veracity, but regarded all the chaplain said as gospel truth.

About two weeks before Easter, 1885, the time when I was just budding into young womanhood, the chaplain began to pay me a great deal of attention. The lessons he gave me to learn were insignificant compared with those of my brothers and sisters, and it mattered not whether I came to school prepared or otherwise. The strict disciplinarian had all of a sudden turned lenient. He began to pat my hair, to give me friendly taps on the shoulder, and never took his eyes off me. I was too young and innocent to see the true significance of his strange behavior, but I woke up suddenly and ran crying to my mother, telling her what had happened.

"I won't take another lesson from that man, unless my lady-in-waiting is present," I sobbed.

"You are a malicious, lying, low-minded creature," hissed my mother, at the same time striking me in the face with her big diamonds. "It's mortal sin to throw suspicion on so holy a man, and I will not have him watched."

I ran out of mother's room crying, intending to go to papa, but met the boys in the corridor, who told me that father had just departed for the chase. Then I took Leopold aside and told him everything. He was half-mad with rage and was hardly able to articulate when he rushed to mother's room demanding protection for me.

"I will protect the holy man instead," answered my fanatic mother. "Louise shall be locked in the room with the chaplain while she has her lesson." And my mother actually carried out that wicked design inspired by fanaticism.

Locked in a room with me, the chaplain was sweetness itself, but for a while at least remained at a distance. When he attempted to approach me, I seized the burning kerosene lamp, as Leopold had advised.

"One step more," I cried excitedly, "and I will throw the lamp in your face."

The coward stood still in his tracks, and began whispering to me in a hoarse voice things I hardly understood, but that nevertheless wounded me to the quick. I kept my hand at the burning lamp during the whole hour and was ready to faint when the fiend at last left me.

As the door opened, I saw Leopold standing outside, an enormous dog whip in hand. Without a word he applied the whip to the chaplain's broad face, lashing him right and left. The scoundrel offered no resistance, but fled like the dog he was, Leopold after him through the long corridors, upstairs and downstairs, through the picture gallery and the state apartments, lashing him as he ran, the two of them filling the palace with cries of rage and pain. Only the fact that Leopold stumbled over a footstool, enabled the chaplain to reach his room alive, where he barricaded himself.

CHAPTER VII
PRINCES AND PRINCESSES DANCE TO THE TUNE OF THE WHIP

The result shows in the character of rulers – Why English kings and princes are superior to the Continental kind – Leopold's awful revenge – Mother acts the tigress – Her mailed fist – "I forbid Your Imperial Highness to see that dog."

Castle Wachwitz, April 21, 1893.

If my Diary ever fell into plebeian hands, I suppose such stories as the above would be branded as rank exaggerations.

A Queen endangering life and health of her children by a form of punishment otherwise known only in the prize ring.

An Imperial Highness using her diamonds to graft scars on the cheeks of a little girl!

Royal children beaten worse than dogs, deprived of sleep, subjected to cold and damp and, withal, given over, bound hand and foot, so to speak, to the tender mercies of low-minded, unworthy, and even dangerous persons without manners or education.

And, to cap the climax, a Royal maid in the first blush of budding womanhood grossly repulsed and physically attacked when she appeals to her mother for protection; that child locked in a room with her would-be ravisher and obliged to defend her honor by a threat of murder.

Only the uninitiated – men and women living outside the pale of royal courts – will deem such things impossible. Let me tell these happy ignoramuses that all through the nineteenth century the princes and princesses of Europe were brought up to the tune of the whip and of physical and mental humiliation. It was the fashion.

The only eminent monarch of the immediate past – Frederick the Great – was all but flayed alive by his father when a boy and young man, – emulate the second King of Prussia's brutalities and your offspring will be destined for greatness, argued princes.

The first Emperor William of Germany had a gentle mother, my famous namesake; he was always a gentleman. The Russian Czars, Paul, Nicholas I, and Alexander III, were brought up with the knout, their preceptors used the boys at their sweet pleasure. The first turned out a madman; the second a brute; the third his people's executioner.

Czar Paul would run a mile to cane a soldier who had a speck of dust on his boots. My grand-uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, sometimes travels tens of miles to box the ears of a member of his family.

Francis Joseph had a cruel bringing up.

At the Royal Library in Berlin I saw the manuscript of Les Mémoires de ma vie: la princesse de Prusse, Frederice Sophie Wilhelmine, qui epousa le Margrave de Bayreuth, – the original, unedited save by the corrections of the authoress. A good many passages of this "most terrible indictment of royalty" reminded me of home. There is even a parallel, or a near-parallel, of my own case just recorded. The Princess Wilhelmina's all-powerful governess was Madame Leti, who pummelled the child "as if she had been her mother." This Leti was undoubtedly a Sadist; to inflict torture, to practice refined cruelties was a joy to her. Not content with whipping the little girl, she added, shortly before her dismissal, some poisonous matter to Wilhelmina's wash water "that gnawed the skin and made my face all coppery and inflamed my eyes." This species of wickedness, at last, resulted in the discharge of Leti, "but she decided to leave me a few souvenirs in the shape of fisticuffs and kicks. She had told my mother that I was suffering from nose bleed and punched my nose whenever she was unobserved. During the last week of her stay at the palace I sometimes bled like an ox, and my arms and legs were blue, green and yellow from her kicks and cuffs. I am sure if she could have broken my legs with impunity, she would not have hesitated a moment to do so."

History and the court gossip of the day afford plenty of precedents for what happened to me and my brothers and sisters in Salzburg. Indeed, Prince Albert, Consort of the late Queen Victoria, was the only royal father of the first half of the century that used the rod in moderation. To my mind that is one of the reasons why English kings and princes are so far superior to the Continental kind.

But to return to Salzburg.

Leopold had it all his own way for a quarter of an hour, as none of the servants would interfere in favor of the hated chaplain and mother was engaged in her oratory in a far away part of the castle. So my brother kicked in the door and went for the cowering brute again, raining stripes on every part of his bloated body, alternately using the whip and the whip-end. Undoubtedly Leopold would have killed him then and there if his boy's strength had not given out. He left him more dead than alive, bleeding and moaning.

I will never forget the spectacle when Leopold came down the stairs after leaving the chaplain's room. I and my brothers and sisters were huddled together behind our ladies in the blue ante-chamber. A dozen or more lackeys stood in the corridor, whispering.

Leopold's face was deathly pale as he descended the stairs, and blood was dripping from his whip, reddening the white linen runners protecting the carpet. He wore his army uniform, that should have saved him from violence at any rate. At that moment I prayed my sincerest that father would come home. I would have thrown myself on my knees and told everything, servants or no servants. But mother came instead.

She was fully informed and she sprang upon poor Leopold like a tigress, knocking him from one end of the corridor to the other with her diamond-mailed fist. It was terrible, and all of us children cried aloud with terror. But the more we cried and the more we begged for mercy, the harder were the blows mother rained upon poor Leopold's face and head. His blood spattered over the white enameled banisters and doors until finally he was dragged out of my mother's clutches by an old footman who placed his broad back between the Imperial Highness and her victim.

Now, it was the rule in our house that the whipped child had to ask our mother's forgiveness for putting her to the trouble of wielding the terrible back of her hand.

Six weeks Leopold stayed at Salzburg after the scene described, and daily my mother urged him to beg her forgiveness. The boy stood stockstill on these occasions, never twitching a muscle of his face and never saying a word in reply. During all these six weeks he waited on mother morning, noon and night, according to ceremony, but never a word escaped him, never did he look in her direction unless actually forced to do so. He played the deaf and dumb to perfection.

Father must have thought that Leopold got enough punishment, for he never mentioned the matter to him and forbade the servants to even allude to the court chaplain. Mother, on her part, placed the chaplain in charge of two skilled surgeons and sent every little while to inquire how he was doing.

On the third day she said to my father at table, that she was going to pay a visit to the court chaplain.

"I forbid your Imperial Highness to see that dog," said my father in an icy voice that brooked no reply. "I will have his carcass thrown out of here as soon as his condition permits."

That was the only time I heard father speak like a sovereign and man.

That Leopold nearly killed the scoundrel, as he promised to do, is evident from the fact that the court chaplain lay in the castle three weeks before he could be transported to a monastery. Some monks – for none of the servants would lend a helping hand – carried him away by night and none of the children ever saw or heard of our tormentor again.

The only sorry reminder of the episode is the estrangement of Leopold and our mother. Though mother tried her hardest to win back the boy's confidence and affection, he remained an iceberg towards her, ceremonious but cold, polite but wholly indifferent.

CHAPTER VIII
PLANNING TO GET A HUSBAND FOR ME

Dissecting possible wooers at Vienna – Royalty after money, not character – "He is a Cohen, not a Coburg" – Prince who looked like a Jew counter-jumper in his Sunday best – Balkan princes tabooed by Francis Joseph – A good time for the girls – Army men commanded to attend us.

Castle Wachwitz, April 25, 1893.

A change of scene. I was eighteen and my parents were anxious to get a husband for me. Royalty marries off its princes at an early age to keep them out of mischief; its princesses as soon as a profitable suitor turns up or can be secured by politics, diplomacy, the exercise of parental wits or the powerful influence of the head of the House.

Sister Anna, now Princess John of Hohenlohe, myself and mother were invited to Vienna. It was my introduction to royal pomp and circumstance. The Hofburg, our town lodging, seemed to me the first and also the last cry in sumptuousness – all that was beautiful and expensive in days gone by is there, and all that is new and desirable is there, too; Schoenbrunn, the Imperial summer residence, is a dream of loveliness wedded to grandeur. Between the Emperor and my mother and between her and the numerous archduchesses and archdukes every second word uttered referred to me as the possible wife of someone or another. And that someone was well dissected as to fortune, success in life and political exigencies.

Whether he was good-looking or a monkey in face and figure mattered not. Health, good character, uprightness didn't count.

Has he expectations for gaining a throne? Will he be wise enough to retain that throne? What kind of an establishment will he be able to set up? How long may his parents live, hanging on to the family fortune? – These were the only considerations deemed worthy of discussion.

Three or four of the archduchesses seemed to be acting as marriage brokers for Ferdinand, just elected hereditary prince of Bulgaria, whose mother, Princess Clementine, a daughter of the dethroned King Louis Philippe of France, was reputed to be rolling in gold.

Leopold irreverently called Ferdinand's partisans "Fillons" after famous "La Fillon," who supplied the harem of our jolly ancestor, the Regent of France, Duke of Orleans, and he insisted that Ferdinand was a Cohen, not a Coburg. As a matter of fact, Ferdinand's great fortune is derived from a Kohary, which is Hungarian for Cohen. The original Kohary was a cattle-dealer, who supplied the armies of the Allies during the Napoleonic wars. In this way he accumulated so much wealth that an impoverished Coburg prince fell in love with his daughter and made her his wife, after she exchanged the name of Rebecca for Antonie and the Mosaic faith for that of Rome.

Young and proud and flippant as I was, Leopold's talk filled me with hearty contempt for the "Coburger" long before we were introduced. And as to his ambassador, who was forever dancing attendance upon me, I hated him. Yet the Imperial "Fillons" kept up their clatter, and one fine morning Prince Ferdinand was announced.

He wasn't half bad looking, but struck me as too much of a mother's-boy. Princess Clementine seemed to decide everything for him. Anyhow, I wouldn't have him and he marched off again.

I next reviewed, as another Balkan matrimonial possibility, Prince Danilo of Montenegro, a small, thin person, looking like a Jew counter-jumper in holiday dress – Vienna "store-clothes."

Danilo spoke the worst table d'hôte French I ever heard in my life, and I told mother I would rather marry a rich banker than this crowned idiot. For once she agreed with me and said his father was only a "mutton-thief," anyhow.

Finally there was talk of King Alexander of Servia, six years younger than I. Queen Natalie, who a few days ago celebrated one of her several reunions with ex-King Milan, spoke feelingly of her "Sasha" to mother, lauding him as the best of sons and the most promising of sovereigns, but the oft-divorced Majesty was less communicative when mother asked how many millions she would pass over to Alexander on his marriage day. That settled "Sasha's" ambitions as far as my hand was concerned. Marry a Balkan King and the née Keshko holding the purse-strings! Not for my father's daughter! I didn't want to marry into a Russian Colonel's family, anyhow. I believe Queen Natalie's father was a colonel, or was he only a lieutenant-colonel?

These marriage negotiations aside, Anna and myself had a mighty good time in Vienna (I forgot to say that Emperor Francis Joseph agreed with me that Danilo and Alexander were quite impossible and that henceforth Balkan marriages should be taboo).

"I have ordered a dozen young officers to report for tonight's dancing," said my Imperial uncle one evening. "Select from among them your tennis partners, girls." Baron Cambroy of the Guards was my choice, and a mighty handsome fellow he is. He seemed pleased when I commanded him to tennis duty every afternoon during our stay. He is tall and spare in appearance and I might have fallen in love with him sooner, but for his dark skin. I am an Italian and, by way of contrast, prefer blondes to any other sort of man.

Anna, myself and our ladies bicycled to the tennis court every afternoon, and on our way back to the castle were escorted by the Baron and the other officers.

Trust a girl with a dress reaching an inch below her knees to find out scandals! On the second day after our meeting with the Baron, Anna told me that he was the lover of Draga Maschin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie of Servia.⁴

Draga was in attendance upon Queen Natalie when she called on us, a beautiful girl, somewhat too full-bosomed for an unmarried one, like my great-aunt, Catharine, who became the wife of that upstart, Jerome Napoleon. At home we have her picture, and mother, who was rather skinny as a girl, never failed to point out that it was painted before Queen Catharine's marriage, despite her voluptuous bust.

If my Baron was really Draga's beloved, that would more than half explain mother's puzzle.

CHAPTER IX
LOVE-MAKING

The fascinating Baron – The man's audacity – Putting the question boldly – Real love-making —Risqué stories for royalty.

Castle Wachwitz, May 1, 1893.

I am in love but, like a prudent virgin, I admitted the fact to myself only shortly before we departed for Salzburg. After I put several hundred miles between me and my fascinating Baron, all's well again.

My first love, and it was the man's audacity that won the day!

Imagine an Imperial Highness, decidedly attractive, eighteen, and no tigress by any means, wheeling at the side of a mere lieutenant who has nothing but his pay to bless himself with and nothing but good looks to recommend him. And, as before stated, he wasn't even my style.

Anna pedalled ahead some twenty-five paces; our ladies wheezed and snorted that many behind. This devil of a lieutenant took a chance.

"Imperial Highness," he commenced, "I wager you don't know what love is."

It was the one theme I was aching for, scenting, as I did, the odor of forbidden things. Never before had I the opportunity.

"R-e-a-l love," he insisted.

"Do you blame me?" I asked, vixen-like. "Would be a poor specimen of Guard officer who didn't know more about real love than a mere girl of eighteen and a princess at that."

"Will your Imperial Highness allow me to explain?" This, oh so insinuatingly, from the gay seducer.

"Why not?" I asked, with the air of a roué and hating myself for blushing like a poppy – I felt it.

"Charmed to enlighten you – with your Imperial Highness's permission," whispered the Baron, his knee crowding mine as he drew nearer on his wheel.

"Explain away."

"Not until I have your Imperial Highness's express command and your promise not to get angry if I should offend."

Anna, always an enfant terrible and invariably in the way, was waiting for us in the shadow of a tree and now rode by the Baron's side. She had evidently heard part of our conversation.

"Permission and pardon granted beforehand," she cried. "Go ahead."

The Baron looked at me, and not to be outdone by the parcel of impudence in short petticoats, I said carelessly: "Oh, tell. I command."

The Baron began to stroke his moustache and then related a story of Napoleon and our ancestress Marie Louise, the Austrian Archduchess, not found in school books.

On the day before her entry into Paris, he said, and when they were destined to meet for the first time, Napoleon waylaid his bride-to-be at Courcelles and without ceremony entered her carriage. They rushed past villages, through towns en fête and at last, at nine o'clock in the evening, reached the palace of Compiègne. There the Emperor cut short the addresses of welcome, presentations and compliments, and taking Marie Louise by the hand conducted her to his private apartments. Next morning they had breakfast in bed. The marriage ceremony took place a few days later.

"That's love," said the Baron, shooting significant glances at me.

"Henry Quatre did the same to Marie de Medici – an Italian like you, Imperial Highness."

Anna didn't know what to make of it, and as for me, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

The impudent fellow seems to have misinterpreted our silence, for, brazen like the Duc de Richelieu, who boasted of sleeping in the beds of queens, he continued:

"Catharine the Great, too, knew what love was. One fine afternoon when she wasn't a day older than you, Imperial Highness, she looked out of the window of her room at Castle Peterhof. In the garden below a sentinel, very handsome, very Herculean, very brave, was pacing up and down. Catharine, then Imperial Grand-duchess and only just married, made a sign to the soldier. The giant, abandoning his rifle, jumped below the window and Catharine jumped onto his shoulders from the second story.

"That's real love," concluded the Baron.

Anna got frightened and fled down the avenue, but I had the weakness to remain at the Baron's side until we reached the palace.

Alas, Frederick Augustus wasn't as good a talker as the Baron.

CHAPTER X
MY POPULARITY RENDERS GEORGE DYSPEPTIC

The Cudgel-Majesty – Prince George's intrigues – No four-horse coach for Princess – Popular demonstration in my favor – "All-highest" displeasure.

Dresden, September 1, 1893.

I haven't lived up to my promise to keep a daily record, or even a weekly one. Those tales of my girlhood days disgusted me with diary keeping as far as my early experiences at home went and I reflected that many of the subsequent happenings in my life might be safer in the shrine of memory, than spread over the pages of a blank-book, even though no one sees it and I carry its golden key on a chain around my neck.

We are back in the capital now and things are moving. Great doings had been planned for our reception, for the re-entry of the little prince, my baby, and his mother who is expected to give another child to Saxony at the end of the year. Two babies in one year! I am going to beat the German Empress, and if Wilhelm doesn't send me a medal I will cut him dead the next time I see him!

Well, about that reception. Flags, triumphal arches, speeches by the burgo-master, white-robed virgins at the station and all that sort of thing!

But Father-in-law George said "no." Anything that gives joy to others goes against his royal grain, gives him politico-economic dyspepsia. He doesn't want me to be popular, – neither me, nor Frederick Augustus, nor the baby.

George will be the next king, and if the Dresdeners or the Saxons want to "Hoch the King," they must "Hoch" George. They MUST. "It's their damned duty," says George the Pious, who never blasphemes on his own account, but allows himself some license concerning his subjects. His attitude recalls the story told of Frederick William the First of Prussia, whose appearance on the streets of Berlin used to cause passers-by to run to save their back. Upon one occasion His Majesty caught one of these fugitives, and whacking him over the head with his Spanish reed, cried angrily: "What do you want to run away from me for?"

"Because I'm afraid of your Royal Majesty," stuttered the poor devil.

"Afraid?" thundered Frederick William, giving the fellow another whack with his cane. "Afraid?" – the beating continuing – "when I, your King, commanded you to love me. Love me, you miserable coward, love God's Anointed." And the loving Majesty broke his cane on the unloving subject's back.

Two days before our arrival Prince George sent his adjutant, Baron de Metsch-Reichenbeck, to the Mayor of Dresden, stopping all reception arrangements contemplated.

To have children was a mere picnic to Her Imperial Highness, lied George's messenger, – if the physicians hadn't used chloroform I would have perished with the torture. Ovations intended as a sort of reward or recognition of my services to the country, then, would be entirely out of place, and must not be thought of.

The municipality thereupon officially abandoned preparations. I was a little vexed when I first heard about George's meanness, yet again felt tickled that he went out of his way to intrigue against me, the despised little princess of a House that ceased to reign. And I had an idea that the Dresdeners would give us a good welcome anyhow.

I had contemplated ordering my special train to leave in the early morning or at noon, but the Ministry of Railways informed me that it was impossible to accommodate me at the hours mentioned.

"We will take the ordinary express, then, and will be in Dresden at four in the afternoon," I suggested.

"According to the new schedule, the express doesn't stop in Dresden," protested Frederick Augustus.

"We will command it to stop," I cried.

Frederick Augustus looked at me as if I had asked him to borrow twenty marks from the Kaiser. "For God's sake!" he cried, "don't you know what happened to John the other day?"

I confessed my ignorance.

"Well," said Frederick Augustus, "John ordered the Continental express to pick him up at his garrison, and he had no sooner arrived in Dresden than he was commanded by the King to appear before him. His Majesty walked all over John, accusing him of 'interfering with international traffic' and forbidding him to issue another order of that character."

"Pshaw!" I said, "John is merely a childless princeling. I am the mother of Saxony's future king. The regeneration, the perpetuation of your race depends on me."

It was a mere waste of breath, for at that moment came a telegram, announcing that our special was billed to leave at 3:30, getting us to Dresden at half-past five – King's orders.

"Did you command the Daumont coach-and-four to meet us at the station?" I asked.

"My dear child, you are dreaming," replied Frederick Augustus. "The State carriages are the property of the Crown and we don't own a four-horse team in Dresden. They will send the ordinary royal carriage, I suppose."

I was mad enough to wish my husband's family to Hades, the whole lot of them, but the people of Dresden took revenge in hand and dealt most liberally. Of course, having fixed our arrival at a late and unusual hour, George expected there would be no one to welcome us, but the great concourse of people that actually assembled at the station and in the adjacent streets, lining them up to the palace gates, was tremendous instead.

One more disappointment. George had sent an inconspicuous, narrow coupé to the station, – the Dresdeners shouldn't see more than the point of my nose. I saw through his scheme the moment I clapped eyes on that mouse-trap of a vehicle standing at the curb.

And then I remembered the brilliant stagecraft of August the Physical Strong – he of the three hundred and fifty-two – and how he always managed to focus everybody's eyes on himself. And I stood stockstill on the broad, red-carpeted terrace when I walked out of the waiting room and held up my baby in the face of the multitude. You could hear the "Hochs" and Hurrahs all over town, they said. Hats flew in the air, handkerchiefs waved, flags were thrust out of the windows of the houses.

"What are you doing, Imperial Highness?" whispered Fräulein von Schoenberg, my lady-in-waiting.

"Never mind, I will carry the baby to the carriage," I answered curtly.

"But the King and Prince George will be angry, – everything will be reported to them."

"I sincerely hope it will," I said.

And before I entered that petty souricière of a royal coach, I danced the baby above my head time and again, giving everybody a chance to see him. And as I stood there in the midst of this tumult of applause, this waving sea of good-will, this thunder of jubilation, I felt proud and happy as I never did before. And when the thought struck me how mad George would feel about it all, I had to laugh outright.

I was still grinning to myself when I heard Frederick Augustus's troubled voice: "Get in, what are you standing around here for?" – These manifestations of popularity spelt "all-highest" displeasure to him, poor noodle. He anticipated the scene at the palace, George fuming and charging "play to the gallery," the Queen in tears, the King threatening to banish us from Dresden.

"Be it so," I said to myself, "we might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb." And I refused to enter the carriage until I had waved and smiled profound thanks to everybody in the square and in the windows and on the balconies of the surrounding houses.

I saw the Master of Horse address the coachman and immediately divined his purpose. So I pulled at the rope and commanded the coachman to drive slowly. I said it in my most imperious manner, and the Master of Horse dared not give the counter order with which Prince George had charged him. Poor man, his failure to subordinate my will to his, or George's, cost him his job.

And so we made our royal entry into Dresden amid popular rejoicings. I glued my face to the carriage window and smiled and smiled and showed the baby to everyone who asked for the boon.

Baby took it all in a most dignified fashion. He neither squalled nor kicked, but seemed to enjoy the homage paid him.

When we reached the palace there was another big crowd of well-wishers, who shouted themselves hoarse for Louise and the baby, and, malicious thing that I am, I noticed with pleasure that it all happened under George's windows.

"This will give father-in-law jaundice," said baby's nurse in Italian. She is a girl from Tuscany and very devoted to me.

"If he dies, I will be Queen the sooner," thought I, – but happily I didn't think aloud.

CHAPTER XI
SCOLDED FOR BEING POPULAR

Entourage spied upon by George's minions – My husband proves a weakling – I disavow the personal compliment – No more intelligent than a king should be.

Dresden, September 5, 1893.

I wrote the foregoing at one sitting, without interruption. It's not so easy a matter to put down the consequences of our triumph, or rather mine and baby's.

When I entered my apartments, I met a whole host of long faces. The Commander of the Palace, in great gala, offered a most stiff and icy welcome. The adjutants, the chamberlains, the maître d'Hôtel, all looked ill at ease. They evidently felt the coming storm in their bones and didn't care to have it said of them, by George's spies, that they lent countenance, even in a most remote way, to my carryings-on. Even the Schoenberg – my own woman – shot reproachful glances at me when the Commander of the Palace happened to look her way.

Frederick Augustus looked and acted as if he was to be deprived of all his military honors.

"Your courage must have fallen into your cuirassier boots, look for it there," I said to him in an undertone when he seemed ready to go to pieces at the entrance of the King's grand marshal, Count Vitzthum.

With that I advanced towards His Excellency and, holding out my hand to be kissed, took care to say to him with my most winning smile,

"I trust His Majesty will be pleased with me, for of course our grand reception was but a reflex of the love the people have for their King. I never for a moment took it as a personal compliment."

My smart little speech disconcerted the official completely. Maybe he had orders to say something disagreeable, but my remark disarmed him, forestalled any quarrel that might have been in the King's or Prince George's mind.

Frederick Augustus, who is no more intelligent than a future king should be, was so amazed, he had to think hard and long before he could even say "Good evening" to the Count. As for the latter, he hawed and coughed and stammered and cleared his throat until finally he succeeded in delivering himself of the following sublime effort:

"I will have the honor to report to His Majesty that during the time of your Imperial Highness's entry, your Imperial Highness thought of naught but the all-highest approval of His Majesty."

Whereupon I shook his hand again and dismissed him. "It will please me immensely, Count," I said, "immensely."

CHAPTER XII
ROYAL DISGRACE – LIGHTNING AND SHADOWS

Ordered around by the Queen – Give thanks to a bully – Jealous of the "mob's" applause – "The old monkey after 'Hochs'" – Criticizing the "old man" – Royalty's plea for popularity – Proposed punishments for people refusing to love royalty.

Dresden, September 8, 1893.

Thrice twenty-four hours of royal disgrace and I am – alive. This morning: "All-highest order," signed by Her Majesty's Dame of the Palace, Countess von Minckwitz: "The Queen is graciously pleased to invite your Imperial Highness to audience."

Of course her pleasure is a command. I dressed in state and ordered all the ladies and gentlemen of my court to attend me to the royal chambers.

Queen Carola was very nice, giving the impression that she would be more lovely still if she dared.

"Prince George has just commanded your husband," she said, – "the King ordered this condescension on my brother-in-law's part. You will have to thank him for it."

Isn't it amusing to be an Imperial Highness and a Crown Princess to be ordered around like a "boots" and to be "commanded" like an orphan child to say thanks to one's betters!

I promised and the Queen, assuming that I intended to act the good little girl, took courage to say – for she is the biggest of cowards – "You are too popular, Louise. Such a reception as you had! All the papers, even the Jew-sheets, are full of it."

And before I could make any excuses for my popularity she added in sorrowful, half-accusing tones: "I lived here ever so many years and the mob never applauded me."

"It's so fickle," I quoted. I had to say something, you know.

"And contemptible," added the Queen heartily. "But how is baby?"

I begged permission to send for him. Her Majesty was pleased to play with the little one for a minute or two and that secured me a gracious exit. The Queen attended me to the door, opening it with her own royal hand, thereby rehabilitating me with my entourage waiting outside.

Meanwhile Frederick Augustus had a "critical quarter of an hour" with father-in-law, who assumed to speak on behalf of the King.

"The King," he said, "despised 'playing to the gallery' worse than the devil hated holy water." (This court is overrun with Jesuits, and we must needs adopt their vernacular.)

The King, he repeated, thought it very bad taste for anyone to take the centre of the stage in these "popularity-comedies," and he told a lot more lies of the same character. Then he bethought himself of his own grieved authority.

"Tell your wife," he said, "that I, her father-in-law, and next to the throne, do everything in my power to escape such turbulent scenes, and that I would rather ride about town in an ordinary Droschke (cab) of the second class, preserving my incognito, than in a state carriage and be the object of popular acclamation."

When Frederick Augustus repeated the above with the most solemn face in the world, I thought I would die with laughter and actually had to send for my tire-woman to let my corset out a few notches.

"The old monkey," I cried – "as if he wasn't after 'Hochs' morning, noon and night; as if he thought of anything else when he mounts a carriage or his horse."

"You forget yourself, Louise," warned Frederick Augustus in the voice of an undertaker, and I really think he meant it. But I wasn't in the mood to be silenced.

"And as if I didn't know that, like Kaiser Wilhelm, he keeps a record of towns and villages that were never honored by one of his visits, intending to make his ceremonial entry there at the first plausible opportunity."

"It isn't true," insisted Frederick Augustus.

Then I got angry. "It may be thought polite in the bosom of your family to call one another a liar," I retorted, "but don't you get into the habit of introducing those tap-room manners in the ménage of an Imperial Highness of Austria. I forbid it."

And then I gave rein to some of the bitterness that had accumulated in my heart against the old man. Didn't I know that George was mad enough to quarrel with his dinner when, on his drives about town, he observed a single person refusing to salute him? And wasn't it a fact that the Socialists had combined never more to raise their hats to him just because he insisted on it? And wasn't that one of the reasons why the government was more hard on them than happened to be politic?

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1

"Be civil, good people, I am the English hure," said Nell Gwyn, addressing a London mob that threatened to storm her carriage, assuming that its occupant was the hated Frenchwoman.

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2

"Your biography give a faithful portrait of self," said Fontenelle, the famous French Academician, to an 18th Century Marquise, "but I miss the record of your gallantries."

"Ah, Monsieur, c'est que je ne me suis peinte qu'en buste!" replied her ladyship.

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3

The Prince of Wales' revenue is derived from the Duchy of Cornwall, amounting to about half a million dollars per year.

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4

The same who afterwards became the Queen of King Alexander of Servia and eventually the cause of his death and of the extinction of the Obrenovitsch dynasty. Alexander and Draga were both slaughtered in their beds May 29, 1903, ten years after the above was written.

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