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CHAPTER XXIX
THE SHAH COMPROMISES ME IN PUBLIC

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

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

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

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

"The Grand March has begun, Your Majesty."

"Bother the Grand March."

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXX
MY LIFE AT COURT BECOMES UNBEARABLE

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

Dresden, January 5, 1895.

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

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

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

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

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

March 10, 1895.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXXI
PRISON FOR PRINCES THAT OPPOSE THE KING

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

Dresden, September 1, 1895.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Kettledrums?" I asked.

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

I looked bewildered.

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

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

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

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

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

"Who is the lady?"

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

"Bernhardt!"

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

CHAPTER XXXII
PRINCE GEORGE SHOWN THE DOOR BY GRAND-DUCHESS MELITA

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

Dresden, February 5, 1896.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dresden, February 10, 1896.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Am I flirting, then?

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

April 1, 1896.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXXIII
MELITA'S LOVE AFFAIRS AND MINE

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

Dresden, April 15, 1896.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And George went.

Dresden, June 1, 1896.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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