To this day the identity of the writer of the anonymous letters
remains a secret to the general public in Germany, as well as abroad,
but it is pretty generally known in court circles at Berlin and at
Vienna; and if steps have been taken by the authorities to prevent the
true facts from getting into print, and the writer was merely expelled
from Germany, instead of being brought to justice and sentenced to a
long term of imprisonment, it is only because the culprit could not
have been tried and convicted without the name of one of the greatest
personages in Germany being dragged into the case.
Needless to add that the anonymous letter writer was a woman--a
foreign lady of title--who for a time was one of the most admired
beauties at the Court of Berlin, where, thanks to her inimitable chic,
elegance and brilliancy of wit, everybody, men and women alike, were
charmed. Old Emperor William, who was always very attentive to the
fair sex, up to the very last, and easily smitten by a pretty face,
had introduced the lady to his court without taking much trouble to
investigate her antecedents or character, and of course, with such
a sponsor, everyone took it for granted that she was above reproach,
socially, as well as morally. She became very intimate with many of
the court people, notably with the Hohenaus, the Kotzes, etc., and was
even admitted to the intimacy of Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen,
the emperor's eldest sister. She possibly might have, in spite of
all, retained her social eminence, had she not allowed herself to be
compromised, first, in the eyes of a few, and subsequently, in a
more general fashion, by the only brother of the empress, Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg. The association of
their names ultimately became such that the great ladies of the
Berlin Court, commenced to cut adrift from the fair foreigner, whose
resentment at this treatment naturally became particularly bitter
against precisely those with whom she had been most intimate.
Her animosity against Countess Fritz Hohenau was especially
intensified by the particularly offensive manner in which she was
cut by "Charlotte of Prussia," whose bitter and contemptuous remarks
concerning her were naturally communicated to the foreign lady by
the men who still frequented her salons. Through these noblemen and
princes she was kept _au courant_ of everything that went on at court,
and there is no doubt that she was able to extract much information
concerning the emperor and his family from the duke, who visited her
daily, and who was infatuated by her potent and undeniable charms
beyond all reason.
Of course, no one dreams to-day of accusing the duke of having
knowingly played any part in the fabrication of the anonymous letters;
but there is no doubt that, with his utter absence of discretion, his
lack of intellectual brilliancy, and the thoroughly royal predilection
for gossip and tittle-tattle, which monopolize to this day his
interest, he imparted to her, in the course of his daily visits, a
vast amount of news and information which she could not possibly have
obtained from any one else. Dissipated, foolish and indiscreet to an
incredible extent, the duke is nevertheless an honorable man, and in
spite of the suspicions entertained at one time concerning him by the
Schraders, the Hohenaus, the Anhalts, and the Reischachs, there is no
doubt that he had not the slightest conception of the manner in which
the gossip which he retailed day by day to his _inamorata_ was used by
her for the fabrication of her anonymous letters.
It was Baron von Kotze's cousin, Captain Dietrich Kotze, mentioned in
the preceding chapter as having espoused the cause of his unfortunate
relative with particular vigor, to whom belongs the credit of having
discovered the culprit. He accomplished this more through a piece of
good fortune than by design, for he was put on the right scent by a
mere chance remark which he happened to overhear at a dinner party in
Paris. The information which he obtained was imparted to the emperor,
and the latter without a moment's hesitation gave orders that his
palace police should visit the "Grande Dame's" residence during the
following night, take possession of all her papers and correspondence,
and convey her to a small town, near the Belgian frontier, where she
was to be kept by the police under strict surveillance, without being
permitted to see any one, until further orders.
It is impossible to say exactly what was discovered among these
papers, but it is generally understood that the police recovered
possession of the missing diary of Princess Charlotte, and obtained
ample proofs of the fact that the fair foreigner was the author of all
the anonymous letters.
After a twenty-four hours' detention, she was conducted to the
frontier by the police, and warned against returning to Germany. If no
severer measures were taken against her, it is because it would have
resulted in a more or less public disclosure of the indiscreet rôle
played by the duke in the matter, and likewise because she really
knew too much! In fact, there is scarcely a secret pertaining to the
reigning family, or to the Court of Prussia, with which she is not
acquainted, and the fact that she should have refrained from
making any attempt to publish them to the world, gives rise to the
presumption that means of a financial character, or else some threats
of terrorism, have been used to insure her silence.
At the time of the descent of the police upon her house, Duke
Ernest-Gunther was staying at Lowther Castle, in Westmoreland,
England, as the guest of Lord Lonsdale, and was to have gone on at the
end of the week to Sandringham, to stay with the Prince and Princess
of Wales. On receiving telegrams, however, from his beautiful friend,
notifying him of her expulsion from Germany, he left Lowther Castle,
literally at an hour's notice, and without taking leave of his host,
proceeded immediately to Paris for the purpose of meeting her, in
order to find out to what extent the situation was compromised. There
is every reason to believe that it was not until then that he realized
that the writer of the long series of anonymous letters was no
other than the lady by whose fascinations he had been so completely
captivated. A considerable time elapsed before he returned to Berlin.
In fact, a very serious estrangement between himself and the emperor
ensued, William declining to hold any intercourse with a relative
whose susceptibility to feminine charms, and whose extraordinary
absence of even the most elementary discretion, had contributed to one
of the most painful scandals that have overtaken the Prussian Court
since the close of the last century.
Not even the Kaiser's fondness for his wife, nor his anxiety to please
her, could soften the anger which he felt against his brother-in-law,
and when after a prolonged voyage to India and elsewhere, the duke
on landing at Trieste, ran over from there to the neighboring seaside
resort of Abbazia, for the purpose of visiting the German imperial
couple, who were spending the early spring there with their children,
the kaiser declined to receive his brother-in-law and went out
shooting, so as to avoid an interview with him, the princely prodigal
meeting with no one except his sister, the empress, with whom he had
an interview of a couple of hours.
It is generally believed that Princess Charlotte's missing diary is
to-day in the possession of the emperor, after having been seized
by the police among the correspondence of Duke Ernest-Gunther's fair
friend; for the former very warm affection manifested by William for
his eldest sister, arising from the belief that she had been subjected
to as harsh treatment as he imagined himself to have received at the
hands of their mother, the imperious, masterful and immensely clever
Empress Frederick, appears since the anonymous letter episode to
have given way to feelings of distrust, and even dislike. Princess
Charlotte and her husband have been ever since that time virtually
banished from the Court of Berlin, at which they are rarely if ever
seen. Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen, was transferred to the
command of the troops at Breslau, although he has but little taste for
a military career, and is far more devoted to art, literature, music,
and the drama, than to soldiering. At Berlin his duties as a general
were more or less titular, and he had all the leisure which he
required for the researches into the affairs of modern and ancient
Greece, which have won for him celebrity as one of the most erudite
Hellenists of the present time. He was surrounded by a congenial
circle of friends possessed of the same disposition as himself, and
had access to some of the finest libraries and museums in the world,
while his still charming wife was the most conspicuous figure in a
circle composed of all that was most elegant, witty, brilliant and
clever in the so-called "_Athens on the Spree_" Indeed, her palace
in the Thiergarten was the centre of everything that was eclectic and
brilliant, and her salons were the rendezvous of all that was best in
Berlin society.
Imagine, therefore, a prince and princess with tastes and dispositions
such as these compelled to close up their lovely home, to bid adieu to
all their friends, and to take up their residence in the dullest,
most uninteresting and provincial of cities, situated in the least
picturesque portion of the empire; where the only society consists
of bureaucrats of the most starchy description, with no ideas
beyond their office, or of impoverished landowners, belonging to the
district, whose nobiliary pretensions can only be compared with the
paucity of their resources, and whose conversation and even intellect
is restricted to mangelwurzels, potatoes, and the different grades of
fertilizers.
Breslau, to say the whole truth, is a city utterly without any
attractions, either social or intellectual; the only other royal
personage in the place is an eccentric Wurtemberg princess, a cousin
of the now reigning King of Wurtemberg. This lady sacrificed her royal
rank and prerogatives in order to marry a physician of the name of
Dr. Willim, who had attended her father in his last illness. She could
not, however, bring herself to descend to the social level of her
husband, who is of plebeian origin, and a mere commoner, but thought
that she had done enough in that direction when she contented herself
with the name and title of Baroness Kirchbach, which she now bears. Of
late years she has become a convert to socialism, much to the dismay
and distress of her eminently respectable husband, and at the last
Socialist Congress held at Breslau, took a very prominent part in the
proceedings, arrayed in a blouse of flaming red.
I am very sorry to have to destroy the romance by which the name of
this Princess Wilhelmina of Wurtemberg has until now been surrounded,
especially that portion thereof which represents her as a lovely and
interesting woman. The truth is that she is fearfully homely, both in
face and figure, while her eccentricities are such that in America,
for instance, she would be described as a "crank." Thus she
distinguishes herself through her inordinate fondness for cats, goats
and rabbits; escorted by whole herds of which she is wont to wander
through the gloomy streets of Breslau. Her costumes are invariably
as queer as the one in which she appeared on the platform of the
Socialist Congress. Compare this strange figure so utterly unfeminine
in its lack of all elegance, with the dainty, spirituelle Princess
Charlotte! Yet Baroness von Kirchbach is the only lady of sufficiently
lofty birth either in Breslau or in the vicinity to associate with
Princess Charlotte on terms of any thing like equality!
It is probable that Princess Charlotte and her husband will be kept
at Breslau, virtually exiled from the Court of Berlin, until the
accession of Prince Bernhardt to the throne of Saxe-Meiningen, through
the death of his aged father. It is naturally surprising that Prince
Bernhardt, as heir to his father's crown, should not take up his
residence in the capital of the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, instead of
being condemned to vegetate at Breslau. The fact of the matter is,
however, that the atmosphere of the Saxe-Meiningen capital is even
less congenial than that of Breslau to Prince Bernhardt and Princess
Charlotte, for the old duke is morganatically married to an actress
of the local theatre, upon whom he has conferred the title of Baroness
Helburg, and the princess finds it difficult to associate with this
person.
How unrelenting William remains with regard to his sister, may be
gathered from the fact that when her only daughter, Princess Fedora,
was married the other day at Breslau, he himself, and the empress,
pointedly avoided being present at the ceremony, although they were
within a couple of hours' distance of Breslau at the time, spending
the day in shooting. The slight thus placed upon Princess Charlotte
and her husband was all the more marked, as not only were all the
other members of the reigning house of Prussia present, but even the
aged King of Saxony, the King of Wurtemberg and the Grand Duke of
Hesse, had all three taken the trouble to come from long distances in
order to attend the wedding, at which Queen Victoria was represented
by several members of her family, who had travelled from England for
the purpose. The sensation created, not only over all Germany, but
even throughout Europe by the absence of the emperor and empress from
the wedding of the only child of the hereditary Prince and Princess
of Saxe-Meiningen, when they were actually in the neighborhood, was so
great that it can only be assumed that the emperor intended to give a
public manifestation of his continued ill-will towards his sister;
and that his so kind-hearted and good-natured consort should have thus
joined him in this act of public discourtesy, can be explained by a
story current at Berlin to the effect that she, too, feels that she
can neither forget nor forgive the mingled ridicule, satire and even
downright contempt expressed not only about herself, but about the
emperor, her sisters, and her mother in the missing diary of Princess
Charlotte.
Another reason why Princess Charlotte and her husband are forced to
conform themselves to the command, by means of which the sovereign
keeps them almost permanently at Breslau, is that Prince Bernhardt has
little or no money at all, as long as his father lives, and that the
couple are, therefore, almost entirely dependent upon the allowance
which the princess receives as a member of the reigning house
of Prussia. Now it is the kaiser who, as chief of the family of
Hohenzollern, controls all its vast private possessions, and, if at
any time, a member of the House of Prussia declines to yield obedience
to his orders, he is empowered by the statutes of the Hohenzollern
family to suspend the allowances of those guilty of such
insubordination. Thus it is greatly because they are so poor that the
prince and princess invariably travel incognito when they go abroad,
although it has been asserted that the kaiser carries his irritation
against his sister to the extent of declining to permit her to leave
Germany, save on the understanding that neither she nor her husband
will anywhere exact, or receive the honors due to their royal rank.
At the time of the visit of the Emperor and Empress of Germany to
Rome, during the silver-wedding festivities of King Humbert and Queen
Marguerite of Italy, Prince Bernhardt and Princess Charlotte were in
the Eternal City, entirely ignored by the Italian court, as well as by
all the foreign royalties present. Indeed, while the emperor, and even
the pettiest foreign princelets invited for the occasion, were driving
about the streets and parks in royal equipages, the kaiser's sister
and brother-in-law had to content themselves with the dingiest of hack
cabs, and also with the rôle of ordinary sight-seers.
Those who imagine that Princess Charlotte prefers an incognito rôle
to that of a royal princess are singularly mistaken. No one is fonder
than she is of the prerogatives of rank, and like all clever and
pretty women, she is ever eager to be the centre of attraction, and
the object of much homage. She cannot, therefore, be said to relish
the treatment and neglect to which she is subjected through her
brother's displeasure.
In the Berlin great world the princess has always been popular, not
merely by reason of her devotion to society, but because a certain
amount of sympathy was felt for her in connection with the treatment
which she had received at the hands of her mother. For some strange
reason or other, Princess Charlotte was never appreciated by her
mother, who showed her preference for her younger daughters in a very
marked manner. Charlotte was always treated with a far greater degree
of strictness than any of the other girls, in spite of her being
vastly superior to them in intellect and in looks. Princess Charlotte
is still a very charming woman, and was in her younger days a
singularly attractive girl, one of the fairest indeed of all Queen
Victoria's numerous descendants, but her sisters are inclined to be
homely, absolutely deficient in feminine elegance or chic, and, while
accomplished, are extremely dull, and not a bit sparkling or witty.
Empress Frederick always declared that her daughter Charlotte was
frivolous, and as much inclined to be forward and rebellious to
discipline and control as her eldest son, the present emperor.
Therefore, as I have already stated, Charlotte and William were
treated by their mother with exceptional severity, were snubbed on
every occasion, often in the most humiliating manner, and were made to
feel that Prince Henry and their younger sisters held a higher place
in the maternal heart than they.
Sad is it to add that the youth of neither William nor Charlotte was
a particularly happy one, and thus it is not astonishing that one as
well as the other should have felt inclined to run a bit wild, like
young colts, when first emancipated from the school-room. It was
during the very few years that intervened between his leaving the
university at Bonn and his marriage, that William obtained his
reputation for dissipation. His shortcomings, due to the exuberance of
youth, were exaggerated until they were transformed from very venial
offences into the most mortal of sins, while in the same way the
delight manifested by Princess Charlotte at the admiration and homage
to which her comeliness gave rise--a very natural feeling when one
recalls the snubbings and humiliations to which she had been subjected
until then--were construed into frivolity and deep-dyed coquetry,
altogether unworthy of a royal princess. She was taxed, too, with an
absence of that simpering modesty, more or less affected, which is
_de mise_ with so many young girls in Germany and in France, when they
make their début in society, and even her most harmless flirtations
were condemned by her mother as grave indiscretions.
Empress Frederick became very soon imbued with the idea that it was
necessary to marry off Charlotte without delay, in order to avert
the danger, as she conceived it, of one or another of these girlish
flirtations developing into something calculated to compromise both
her dignity and her fair name. Had the princess been less hurried in
this matter, it is probable that she would have found a more suitable
husband, and above all one calculated to capture the fancy of a
young girl, reared at a court which can boast of some of the finest
specimens of manhood in the world. But she was married to the first
princelet who happened to catch the eye of Empress Frederick, namely
Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen--aye, and she was hustled into
matrimony in such a hurry, too, as to give a sort of foundation for
some shameful and base slanders, cruelly unmerited, but which one
hears even Germans who profess loyalty to the crown repeating to this
day. Prince Bernhardt, though an excellent man in his way, was very
far from meeting the requirements of the "Prince Charmant" fit to
be mated to a princess so gay and so brilliant as Charlotte of
Hohenzollern. His appearance is effeminate, his manner finicky and
old-maidish to a degree. He is neither stalwart nor good-looking; he
excels neither as a dancer nor as a rider, nor yet as an athlete, and
he gives one at first sight the impression of being an artist or a
composer, rather than a son of that grand looking old fellow, the
reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.
Indeed, there was at the time of the marriage but one voice in Berlin
society, condemning it as having been forced upon Princess Charlotte
against her inclinations by her mother. And after the marriage the
poverty of the prince rendered him to such an extent dependent upon
the financial assistance of his mother-in-law, that he, as well as
his wife, was compelled to remain subservient in every respect to
her wishes. Nor was it until William came to the throne and availed
himself of his position as head of the family to grant Princess
Charlotte an allowance suitable to her rank, that the princess and
her husband were emancipated from the strict control of her mother,
Empress Frederick.
Young married folks in America can form no conception of the extent of
such tyranny, and when, some time after the wedding, Prince Bernhardt
and Princess Charlotte secured permission from Empress Frederick--then
only crown princess--to visit Paris, and to make a stay there of three
weeks, she only gave her consent on the condition that they should
be accompanied by one of her chamberlains, and one of her
ladies-in-waiting who had known the princess from childhood, and whose
behests the prince and princess were obliged to obey throughout their
sojourn in the French capital, just as if they had been a little
boy and girl, instead of grown-up and married people. Probably the
happiest time of Princess Charlotte's life was the period which
elapsed between the death of her lamented father and her exile to
Breslau. She amused herself to her heart's content, fluttered about in
Berlin like a butterfly, took a leading part in every social movement,
was admired, fêted and petted by everyone, but gave her worthy husband
no cause whatsoever for uneasiness, and avoided all scandals, save
those contained in the anonymous letters, for which she cannot really
be held responsible.
To-day she must feel that she has exchanged the unbearable tyranny of
Empress Frederick for the yet infinitely more oppressive despotism of
her eldest brother, Emperor William,--a despotism so harsh that it has
won for her, somewhat late it is true, the kindly sympathy of her own
mother,--a severity which may be said to have its source in that most
dangerous of all the intimate friends and confidants of the princess,
namely, that diary of hers which was stolen from her, and which is
believed to be now in the possession of the kaiser.