CHAPTER LII
PRINCE GEORGE REVEALS TO ME THE DEPTH OF HIS HATRED
A terrible interview – "The devil will come to claim you" – Uncertain how much the King and Prince George know – I break into the nursery and stay with my children all day – Prince George insults me in my own rooms and threatens prison if I disobey him.
Pillnitz, May 23, 1901.
I caught Prince George in the park after laying in wait for him three long hours.
"Why does Your Royal Highness forbid me to see my children?" I demanded, every nerve aquiver.
"His Majesty's orders. He thinks you are not fit company for growing children. You are leading a godless life."
"What does Your Royal Highness mean?"
"What I said. A godless life, such as you entered upon, is an invitation to the devil. Sins are the devil's envoys. When you are black with sin, the devil himself will come to claim you."
He dropped his theological lingo and continued: "My fine daughter-in-law wants to be everybody's lady-love. If she had her sweet will, she would ruin every young chap in the residence and the surrounding country."
He looked about him and, seeing we were unobserved, eased his bile in this pretty epigram as rank as a serpent's saliva: "An adulterous wife, that's what you are. Satan alone knows how many you seduced."
It was more than I could stand and I burst into tears. In moments like this women always cry, but even if I hadn't felt like doing so, I would have cried because George hates it.
"Prove to me, prove to the King that you are sorry for what you have done, return to the path of righteousness, to God, and we will see about the children," he whispered as he moved away.
"What does he know?" "How much have they found out?" I kept saying to myself as I withdrew to my lonely apartments.
Pillnitz, May 24, 1901.
No answer to the questions in my last entry. The silent persecution continues unabated. I am growing desperate.
Pillnitz, May 25, 1901.
This morning at eight-thirty I went to the nursery.
The Baroness tried to speak to me. I held up my hand. "Not a word from you, or something terrible will happen."
Fräulein von Schoenberg, who is really a sweet girl, offered some respectful advice. I begged her to be silent. If the door had been locked I would have forced it with the dagger I carried in my bosom.
Lucretia came and whispered. "I have decided to stay, and stay I will. Let them do their worst if they dare," I told her.
I changed the children's curriculum. "You can drive every day; you can't have mother every day. Let's have some games."
I remained in the nursery till all the children were asleep. They partook of the breakfast, lunch and dinner I ordered for myself. A great treat for them. We were very happy.
But I waited in vain for interference. Nothing happened to clear the situation. Those questions were still unanswered when I returned to my apartments.
I had just sat down to read the evening papers, when Prince George entered unannounced.
"If ever again you dare disobey my commands" – he shouted without preliminaries.
I cut him short: "Are the children yours or mine?"
"They belong to Saxony, to the Royal House," he bawled, and poured forth a torrent of abuse without giving me a chance to put in a word. "You shall be disciplined to the last extremity. We will imprison you in some lonely tower, without state or attendants. You shall not see your children from one year's end to the other."
"Prison for the Crown Princess? Would you dare, Prince George?"
"At the Tower of Nossen rooms are in readiness for your Imperial Highness," sneered my father-in-law as he walked out.
Nossen! A ruined country-house, flanked by a mediæval tower in the midst of swamps. The nearest habitation miles away. Neither railway nor post-office, neither telegraph nor telephone – just the place to bury one alive. And I only thirty-one.
Augustus the Physical Strong imprisoned Countess Cosel at Nossen six months before he sent her to her prison-grave in Stolpen. After Cosel's departure, another royal mistress was lodged in Nossen, and as she would neither commit suicide, nor succumb to the fever, they starved her to death. And it all happened in the eighteenth century.
The word Nossen sent cold shivers down my spine. I am sure I won't sleep a wink.
CHAPTER LIII
REVOLVER IN HAND, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION
An insolent Grand Mistress, but of wonderful courage – Imprisonment, threats to kill have no effect on her – Disregards my titles – My lover's souvenir and endearing words – How she caused Henry to leave me – My paroxysms of rage – Henry's complete betrayal of me.
Pillnitz, May 26, 1901.
This morning I awoke a mental and physical wreck, but determined to solve those vexatious questions: "What do the King and Prince George know?" "What have they found out?"
I slipped on a dressing-gown, fetched my small revolver from its hiding-place in the boudoir and rang for the Tisch.
I received her politely enough. I was quiet, cold, calculating. She gave a start as she observed my stony countenance.
"Baroness," I said, motioning her to come nearer, "explain the attitude assumed by His Majesty, Prince George and the rest."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I want to know. Do you hear, Grand Mistress? I command you to speak," I cried.
A sneer of contempt hovered about her lips. She is a viper, this woman, but has the courage of the rattle-snake in action.
I turned the keys in the several doors and threw them under the bed. From under the pillow I drew my revolver.
I showed her the weapon and calmly announced, accentuating each word: "You won't leave this room alive until the question I put to you is answered to my satisfaction. I want the whole truth. You needn't excuse your own part in the business. As Henri Quatre said to the lover of Diane de Poitiers, secreted under her bed, as he threw him half a cold bird: 'We all want to live, some honestly, some dishonestly.' You choose the dishonest road. Be it so.
"But I want you to state what you accuse me of. Hurry," I added menacingly.
The Tisch was unmoved. Either she thinks me a horrible dastard or is brave to madness. She looked at me fearlessly and smiled. She seemed to enjoy my rage.
"Answer or I will shoot you like the dog you are."
And then her cold and fearless voice rang out: "Put your revolver away. I am not afraid to tell you, and that thing might go off. Is it possible," she continued sarcastically, "you have to ask?"
This woman dared to address me "you." "Tisch," I thundered, "my title reads Your Imperial Highness."
Another contemptuous smile curled her thin lips as she answered insolently: "At your commands. But if you want me to talk, put away the weapon. I won't open my head while threatened."
I threw the revolver into a drawer of my chiffonier and the Tisch approached me. "Do you know this?" she hissed, whipping from her desert bosom the golden Portebonheur, Henry's present.
I had missed it for two days. Fear seized my throat.
"Do you know this?" repeated the Tisch, pushing the button and disclosing Henry's miniature with the legend "To my sweetest Louise."
"Where did you get it?" I asked, half-dead with shame and fear.
"Never mind. It's the last piece of evidence that fell into my hands. The real facts I have known for a long while."
"And sold that knowledge?"
"I did my duty."
"Report, then."
And she told the story of her infamy – or mine?
My true relations with Henry were discovered by her at Loschwitz. He is a distant relative of hers and she an intimate friend of his mother. Hence she took care not to compromise the young man. The entire blame was put on me.
"Her Imperial Highness is indulging in a dangerous flirtation with Baron Bergen," she advised the King. "They must be separated at once lest that exemplary young man fall victim to her seductive wiles. I beseech Your Majesty to order the Crown Princess to Pillnitz and put a stop to her most reprehensible conduct."
Hence the royal command to proceed to Pillnitz without a moment's delay. "The King and Prince George deem your honor unsafe unless you are under their watchful eyes," she had the effrontery to tell me.
She drew a key from her pocket and opened one of the bedroom doors.
With her hand on the knob, she said, bowing formally:
"By Your Imperial Highness's leave, I will keep the Portebonheur to use in case you are ever tempted again 'to throw me out of doors like a thieving lackey!'"
A low bow, a sarcastic smile, – my executioner was gone. And I broke some priceless bric-a-brac, stamped my foot on the pearl necklace Frederick Augustus had given me, tore three or four lace handkerchiefs and stuffed the rags in my mouth to prevent me from crying aloud.
Pillnitz, May 27, 1901.
Lucretia finished the Tisch's report. The good soul hadn't had the courage to tell me before, but now that the Grand Mistress had spoken, considerations of delicacy no longer stood in the way.
What a judge of character I am, to be sure: Henry, whom I raised from obscurity, whom I befriended, loved, advanced, rescued from the hands of usurers – a traitor, pshaw, worse, – I cannot write down the word, but it's in my mind.
Henry, who hadn't the time to take leave from me, devoted an hour to the Tisch before he went away with the Vitzthums.
He told her all and gave her his word of honor – the honor of a man who accepted money from the woman weak enough to love him – that, first, he would never see me again of his own accord and would reject both my entreaties and commands; secondly, that he would petition to be transferred to a distant garrison to be out of the path of temptation; thirdly, that he would burn my letters.
The Tisch, on her part, promised to tell the King only half the truth – not for my sake, of course, but to shield her dear, seduced young relative.
CHAPTER LIV
FORCED TO DO PENANCE LIKE A TRAPPIST MONK
"By the King's orders" – I submit for the sake of my children – Must fast as well as pray – In delicate health, I insist upon returning to Dresden – Bernhardt, to avoid being maltreated by King, threatens him with his sword – The King's awful wrath – Bernhardt prisoner in Nossen – I escape, temporarily, protracted ennui.
Pillnitz, May 28, 1901.
Though I am in delicate health, the King, having recovered from his illness, commanded me to do penance, – almost public penance.
Fast and pray, pray and fast is the order of the day for the next two weeks.
I arise every morning at five. At six a closed carriage takes me to a distant nunnery of the Ursulines, a good hour's travel. I am forced to attend mass, which also lasts an hour. Then a half-hour's sermon, dealing with fire and brimstone, hell and damnation.
When that's over the Mother Superior kindly asks me to her cell and lectures me for an hour on the duties of a wife and mother, and on the terrors that follow in the wake of adultery.
(I wonder where she gets her wisdom. She isn't married, she isn't supposed to have children, and she ought to know that the founder of her religion was most kind to the adulteress.)
Then back to Pillnitz and breakfast, for it's the King's express command that I worship on an empty stomach; some Jesuit told George my sins would never be forgiven unless the torture of the fast was added to that of early rising, travel, prostration before the altar and listening to pious palaver.
I stand it for my children's sake. They will be returned to me after I did penance full score. My only satisfaction: I compel the Tisch to attend me on my trips, and make her sit on the back seat of the carriage. I know this turns her stomach and watch her twitching face with devilish glee.
Dresden, June 15, 1901.
With the authority of the pregnant woman I demanded that I be allowed to return to town.
"If compelled to see Prince George and the rest of my enemies daily, my child will be mal-formed, or I will suffer an avortement," I told the King.
They let me go and I am breathing more freely. I still wear the chain and ball, but they don't cut into my flesh as in Pillnitz.
Yesterday I learned that Bernhardt was in Dresden, and sent for him. He came in company of two army officers who remained in the anteroom.
"I am a prisoner," he said resignedly, "those fellows outside will conduct me to Nossen."
The audience granted him several months ago took place only after my departure from the summer residence, and developed into a fearful scene.
"His Majesty," said Bernhardt, "was in a rage when I entered. 'State what you have to say,' said the King, 'and be brief.'
"'If Your Majesty will graciously permit me to reside in Dresden, I will promise to lead a life in accordance with Your Majesty's intentions and will obey your slightest wish.'
"'What?' cried the King, 'You dare name conditions for your good conduct?'"
Bernhardt denied any intention to impose conditions, but begged to submit to His Majesty that he couldn't exist in those small garrisons. If in Dresden, it would come easier to him to turn over a new leaf.
"Sure, all you young rakes want to live in the capital," sneered the King, "because it's easy in a big town to hide one's delinquencies."
"Your Majesty," cried Bernhardt, "if I ever did a reprehensible thing, it was forced upon me by intolerable conditions."
The King grew white with rage.
"No excuses," he thundered. "You are a rip and ugly customer and you will stay in the garrison I designated."
Even before the King had finished, Bernhardt interrupted him with a fierce: "Don't you call me names, Majesty. I won't stand for that."
"Won't stand for anything that I think proper to mete out to you, rascal? I will make you." The King had risen and was about to box Bernhardt's ears.
Bernhardt jumped back two paces and shouted like mad: "Don't you dare touch me. I will defend my honor sword in hand, even if I have to shoot myself on the spot."
For several seconds the King stood speechless, then he reached out his hand and touched an electric button. Marshal Count Vitzthum responded.
"Take him," said the King hoarsely – "he is your prisoner."
Bernhardt drew his sword and threw it at the King's feet. He was conducted to a room, and sentinels were posted outside his door and under his windows. Presently the telephone called together a council of war and it was decided that Bernhardt go to Nossen during the King's pleasure, or rather displeasure.
"The army officers that act as my guards are not allowed to speak to me," said Bernhardt, "and the garrison in Nossen will likewise be muzzled." He laughed as he added: "I suppose I shall have to make friends with the spirits of the great Augustus's mistresses haunting the old burg. They were gay ones! If the King remembered that, he would send me to the Trappists rather than to Nossen."
Dresden, July 1, 1901.
I never dreamt that science would come to my rescue, but a clever woman has more than one trick up her sleeve. On a visit to a book store I happened to see a new publication on the Hygienics of Pregnancy and had it sent to the palace.
Last night, when nearly dead with ennui, I turned over the leaves of the volume and came across an article advising women in my condition to seek plenty of merry company. My mind was made up at once.
First thing in the morning I sent for the Court Physician, and with many a sigh and groan gave him to understand that I feared to have melancholy if I continued the monotonous life I was leading.
I happened to strike one of the doctor's pet theories, and he recited whole pages from the book I had been reading. Then he asked me a hundred questions, and rest assured that my answers were in accordance with my wishes.
"I will have the honor to report to His Majesty at once," said the Councillor at the end of the examination, "that some diversion is imperative in Your Imperial Highness's case. Would Your Imperial Highness be pleased to visit the theatre or the Opera if the King approves?"
The King did approve, and the Crown Princess of Saxony is once more permitted the privilege of Frau Schmidt and Frau Müller; namely, to go to the theatre when she feels like it.
CHAPTER LV
FRANCIS JOSEPH JOINS MY SAXON ENEMIES
Cuts me dead before whole family – Everybody talks over my head at dinner – I refuse to attend more court festivities – Husband protests because I won't stand for insult from Emperor – I give rein to my contempt for his family – Hypocrites, despoilers, gamblers, religious maniacs, brutes – Benign lords to the people, tyrants at home – I cry for my children like a she-dog whose young were drowned.
Dresden, November 2, 1901.
Great family concourse to look my new baby over, dear Marie Alix, born at Wachwitz, September 27.
Emperor Francis Joseph was first to arrive, the Majesty who is forever posing as the family's good genius, as upholder of peace and amity among his countless cousins and nieces, and the many uncles and aunts and other relatives of his grand-children.
Behold how he lived up to this reputation!
I had been commanded to attend the reception in the Queen's salon, and made my bow to him. He bowed all around, looking at each present, but managed to overlook me.
Then he commenced a long and weary conversation with the Queen, at whose elbow I sat, and when his stock of platitudes was exhausted, turned to fat Mathilde, congratulating her on the possession of the Stern Kreuz decoration, an Austrian order which I likewise wore at my corsage. It was none other than the late Empress Elizabeth who pinned it on me.
Presently dinner was announced. The Emperor took in Her Majesty, the King, nolens, volens, had to conduct me, but gave me neither word nor look. Nor did the others. I couldn't have been more isolated on a desert island, than at this royal board.
They talked and cracked their silly jokes, and paid compliments to each other and were careful not to let their tongues run away with their intriguing minds, but all went above my head. No one spoke to me but the lackeys: "If it please Your Imperial Highness – "
Frederick Augustus tore into my bedroom some little time after I had retired. Picture of the offended gentleman, if you please. I got no more than I deserve, but it "reflected on him, h-i-m, HIM." Though it was a "family dinner," he, the Crown Prince of Saxony, was "publicly" disgraced. The Emperor had treated the Crown Princess as air. He had not deigned to address a single word to her. The Crown Princess was a trollop in the Imperial eyes – it was enough to drive the Crown Prince to drink.
"Drink yourself to death then," I shrieked.
During the night I speculated what to do: ask a private audience of the Emperor, state my side of the case and beg his forgiveness and protection, beg, especially, for better treatment at his hands?
And if he refused?
Francis Joseph is a good deal of a Jesuit. When he hates, he never lets it come to a break; when he loves, he never attaches himself.
If I stooped to humiliate myself, he might choose to debase me still more. It was entirely probable that he would betray my confidences to the King and Prince George.
I will defy him and – all of them!
"Her Imperial Highness regrets – " my Court Marshal wrote in answer to all invitations or rather "commands" for the next three days. When I refused to participate in the "grand leave-taking," Frederick Augustus came post-haste to expostulate with me.
"You must. It would be an affront without precedent."
"Take leave of a man who didn't say good-day to me on his arrival, and who probably intends to slight me in similar fashion on going away – "
In lieu of argument the Prince Royal abused me like a pick-pocket; I had waited for it and now I let loose.
"You are like the rest of your family," I shouted: "ignorant, thoughtless, brutal en venerie, sanctimonious in dotage. I know few people for whom I have so great a detestation as for the Royal Saxons. Look at your father, there is no more jesuitical a Jesuit, the inward man as hideous as the outward. He would be an insolent lackey, if he didn't happen to be a prince.
"And Johann George – a shameless inheritance-chaser, despoiler of pupillary funds, gambler at the bourse, who whines like a whipped dog when he loses.
"The royal Bernhardt, companion of street-walkers!
"Prince Max, who talks theology, but keeps his eye on Therese.
"Your Queen, a victim of religious madness, your King and his system – organized selfishness. Chicanery for those dependent upon him, ruin for all more gifted than the average Wettiner.
"While living here I have learned to look upon my father's discrowning as a stroke of good luck for, since kings can no longer indulge their brutalities against their subjects, they turned tyrants at home.
"If your father did to the humblest of his subjects what he did to me, he would be chased from home and country. The people, the parliament, his own creatures would rise against him and blot his name from the royal roster.
"In the palace, in boudoirs, in the nurseries, he plays the prince – extortioner – executioner. To the public he is the benign lord, whining for paltry huzzas."
Frederick Augustus was so dumfounded, he could only grind his teeth.
I continued: "You prate of respect due the Majesty. There's nothing to induce feelings of that sort. Round me there is naught but weakness, hypocrisy, pettiness. I see shame and thievery stalking side by side in these gilded halls – gilded for show, but pregnant with woe.
"Fie on you, Prince Royal, who allows his wife to be dogged by spies. Thieves, paid by your father, steal my souvenirs; a burglar's kit hidden in their clothes, they besiege my writing table. Jailers stand between me and my children.
"My children!
"Like a she-dog,7 whose young were drowned, I cry for my babies – I, the Crown Princess of Saxony, who saved your family from dying out, a degenerate, depraved, demoralized, decadent race."
When I had said this and more I fell down and was seized by crying convulsions.