CHAPTER XXV

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 youdare 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.

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 mythesisthat 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 wifeMargareta, 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 thefinessesof 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 anImperial 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.

Mannersà labarracks 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 tractabilitycarte blancheto 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 loveà labarracks 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.

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—assummus 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'ssalon. 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.

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 abit. 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-têtewith 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.

Has only eyes for me at the grand manœuvres, 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 manœuvrefield 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 breakfastof 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.

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 acocotte. 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 andSchnapps, 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 theReichstag, 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 haveher 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:[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.

[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.

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, whilelettres de cachetare 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 wasfin-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 ofennui, 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 aking, 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 ofMademoiselleChouin?"

"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."

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 therendezvous, 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 herliaisons.

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, Ialways 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 thereal 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 theRautenkrone, 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.

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 losingground, he began to bark and yell, whereupon Melita interrupted him by saying, "I beg you to take notice that you are inmyhouse."

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'tallfun, 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 wholebrochuresof 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 whatthe 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, Idon'tinterfere. 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 onad infinitum, and a goose like me abuses herself for a bit of goo-goo-eyeing.

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