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?
"You mustn't say these things," pleaded Frederick Augustus.
I pretended to melt. "May I not quote your father's own words?"
"What my father says is always correct," replied the dutiful son.
"Well, then, this is what he told House Minister von Seydowitz a couple of weeks ago: 'When I see one of these intending destroyers of the state and social order staring at me, hat on head and cigar in face, I doubly regret the good old times when kings and princes were at liberty to yank a scoundrel of that ilk to jail and immure him for life, giving him twenty-five stripes daily to teach him the desirableness of rendering unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar's.'"
Frederick Augustus was holding his hands to his ears when I finished. He ran out and slammed the door behind him.
CHAPTER XIII
UNSPEAKABLE LITTLENESSES OF PETTY COURTS
Another quarrel with my husband – Personal attendant to a corpse – Killing by pin pricks – The mythical three "How art thou's?" – Unwanted sympathy from my inferiors – Pride of the decapitated Queen of France is in me – Lovers not impossible – Court to blame for them – My husband acts cowardly – Brutalizes my household – I lock myself in.
Dresden, December 1, 1893.
I saved myself the trouble to record events for two or three months. I expect my child by the end of the year and, believing in prenatal influence, it would be a shame, I think, to poison the unborn baby's mind by dwelling on the unspeakable littlenesses that make up and burden life at this petty court.
But I may die in the attempt of presenting Saxony with another candidate for appanages and honors, and this threat, hanging over every expectant mother, makes me take up my pen again. If I perish, let there be a record of my sufferings and also of my defiance.
It turned out that the Queen's and George's apparent acquiescence to my sinful popularity marked the deceitful calm before the storm. Frederick Augustus has not succeeded in gaining the King's and his father's forgiveness even now. As a military officer he is shunted from pillar to post, and the generals and high officials of the court treat him like a recruit in disgrace. Of course he blames me, shouting that I wrecked his career.
As if a future king need care a rap whether, as prince, he got a regiment a few months earlier or later.
"When you are King," I sometimes say to him, "you may nominate yourself Field-Marshal-General and Great-Admiral above and below the sea – what do you care?"
"It isn't the same," he moans. "I would like to have my patents signed by uncle or father."
"Antedate your papers," I advised, "who dare dispute the king? Didn't the Kaiser nominate himself Adjutant-General to his grand-dad long after William I lay mouldering in Charlottenburg?"
But Frederick Augustus takes colonel-ships and his petty kingship of the future too seriously to see even the humor of appointing oneself personal attendant to a corpse.
As for me, if I weren't enceinte, they would send me to some lost-in-the-woods country house to die of ennui. But respect for public opinion forbidding drastic measures, George relies on a Russian expedient to humble my proud self and force me to submit to his meddling.
In the Czar's country, when a village resolves on the death of some obnoxious individual, they take him, or her, and bind the body naked to a tree. Then several papers of pins are distributed among the inhabitants, and each man, woman and child is asked to put a pin in the lady or gentleman, whom they must approach blindfolded. They stick the pin wherever they touch the body and if the thing leaks out are able to swear by all the saints that they don't know where it struck. The pin pricking is continued until the obnoxious one expires amid awful tortures and, while all contributed to the murder, none can be hanged for it.
In like manner George and his minions are trying to reduce me to the position of social and political corpse.
Court festivities and public acts, attended by the court, seem to be specially arranged to pillorize me and husband. We are invited, of course. We are next in importance to Prince George. Our entourage is more numerous and more richly costumed than that of the other princes. Four horse coaches for us; Ministers of State waiting on us. I have train-bearers, pages, what-not.
But the King and Prince George cut me and Frederick Augustus in sight of the whole court, of the public in fact!
I don't mean to say that the "All-highest Lords," as they call themselves, treat us as air, or offer insult plain to the ear and eye – they couldn't afford to – nevertheless the stigma of royal disfavor is stamped on us. This is the mode of proceedings: Ceremony obliges the King to address each member of the royal family with the words: "How do you do?", in the German fashion, "How art thou?"
To princes and princesses that are in disgrace, this momentous question is put only once. Those in good standing are asked three times.
Ever since that September day when all Dresden did me honor, the King and Prince George have said "How art thou's?" to me and mine but once, whenever and wherever we met, and be sure there were always listeners to report the double omission.
At first it amused me; then enraged me; I don't care a fig now. But Frederick Augustus! Poor imbecile, he is eating his heart out about those two missing "How art thou's?" and though he looks splendid in gala uniform he acts in the royal, but ungracious, presence like a green recruit expecting to be kicked and cuffed by his noncommissioned officer on getting back to the barracks.
As to my entourage, it surrenders to royal disfavor even as Frederick Augustus: depressed faces, pitying glances. I could box their ears for their sympathy.
Am I not the great-granddaughter of that mighty Maria Theresa that ruled Austria and Hungary with an iron hand, lined with velvet. "Moriamur pro rege nostro" (We will die for our King), cried the Hungarians, when she appealed to their chivalry, her new-born babe at her breast. "Rege," not "Regina." They called her King. They forgot the woman in the monarch, yet I am treated like an insipid female always, never as the Crown Princess!
Let them beware. My full name is Louise Marie Antoinette. I was named after the Marie Antoinette of history – another ancestor of mine – and the pride of the decapitated Queen of France is in me! My namesake was satisfied when she read the Saint-Antoine placard of June 25, 1791: "Whosoever insults Marie Antoinette shall be caned, whosoever applauds her shall be hanged." Some day I will dismiss the cattle that now grudge me the people's applause and punish those that insult me.
Come to think of it, Marie Antoinette had not only pride and defiance, she had lovers too. Well, some day this Marie Antoinette may have lovers, and if it's wrong, let the recording angel debit my sins to the Saxon court.
Thank God, I am blessed with that truly royal attribute, ability to dissimulate. "Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare" was all the Latin Charles VIII knew, yet he made a pretty successful king for one who died at the age of twenty-seven.
I always act as if the King, and father-in-law George, had asked me not once, or three times, but a dozen times "How art thou?" I don't know anything about being in disgrace, I don't anticipate being snubbed and when I am snubbed I don't see it.
The "all-highest Lord" looks daggers at me – I curtsy and smile!
Father-in-law Prince George exhibits the visage of a poisoned pole-cat at my table – I congratulate him on his good digestion!
Majesty pays no more attention to my presence than if I was a pillar, or a lackey; I greet him with my most devoted genuflections, rise from the carpet smiling all over the face and begin a frivolous conversation with the nearest man at hand, who in his fright acts as if he had taken an overdose of physic.
If Frederick Augustus only had an inch of backbone, a pinch of ginger in his constitution! But he always stands around with a red face and the mien of a penitent. No dog, accustomed to daily beatings, follows his master's movements with more anxious looks than the Crown Prince of this realm bestows upon the goings and sayings of the King and Prince George.
Then, as recompense for his royal feast of toads, he plays the tyrant at home. Jellyfish in the state apartments, a brute in our own and – on the drill grounds, I am told! He is always finding fault with the servants, and cares not whether he calls his Court Marshal, or a groom, "Lausbub." Poor Chamberlain von Tumpling earned that scurvy epithet the other day and he prides himself on being a nobleman and an army officer! Only this morning the prince roared and bellowed at one of my ladies, I thought she would have a stroke from righteous anger and vexation.
When he attempted to address me in the same fashion, I simply turned my back on him, went into my boudoir and locked the door. I will keep him "guessing" for two days, sending for the court physician every little while.
When he has to eat his meals alone and sleep alone for twice twenty-four hours, it will occur even to him that Louise is not made of the stuff that stands for being bullied.