Great is the contrast between the Court of Berlin to-day and the
aspect which it presented during the closing years of the reign of old
Emperor William, and were any of the latter's familiars to return to
the place where so much of their existence had been spent, they would
indeed find themselves amidst strange surroundings and strange faces.
In those days, grey and white hair were the rule rather than the
exception. To-day the contrary is the case, and not merely do
the dignitaries of the court and of the army belong to a younger
generation, but also the members of the imperial circle, that is to
say, the princes and princesses of the blood, with whom the emperor
and empress associate as kinsfolk and near relatives.
The few older members of the reigning house of Prussia who
survive--the contemporaries of the grandfather and father of William
II.--find the atmosphere of the court so different from what they have
been accustomed to in the past, so out of keeping with their ideas--in
one word, feel themselves so little at home there, that they prefer to
stay away as much as they can. Thus Prince Albert of Prussia, one of
the grandest looking soldiers of the imperial army, and certainly one
of the most gigantic in stature, divides his time between Brunswick,
where he holds a court of his own as regent, and England, where he
is accustomed to spend his holidays. The widowed Princess
Frederick-Charles lives nearly all the year round in Italy with
her chamberlain, Baron Wangenheim, whom she is understood to have
morganatically married, and in whose company she occasionally visits
the pope, a circumstance which has led to the rumor that she has
joined the Church of Rome. The widowed Empress Frederick is either
at her lovely castle of Kronberg, near Homburg, which is stocked from
garret to cellar with those art treasures of which she is one of the
finest _connaisseuses_ in Europe, or else is traveling about in Italy,
Austria or England. Indeed the only contemporary of the old Emperor
who still remains at Berlin, and who is occasionally to be seen at
court, giving one the impression of a spectre of the past, is
Prince George, who bears a startling resemblance to the old kaiser
particularly when arrayed in uniform.
While slightly eccentric, he is remarkably accomplished, and has not
only written a number of German plays over the pen-name of "George
Conrad," which have been successfully staged in Germany, but is even
the author of a drama written in the purest and most exquisitely
correct French, sparkling with Parisian wit and brilliancy, which has
had long runs in many theatres without either the actors or the public
being aware that it was from the pen of a prince of Prussia.
Until the war of 1870, Prince George was on terms of the utmost
intimacy with the de Goncourts, the Dumases, de Girardin, and all
the principal literary lights of France, with whom he was wont to
foregather on a footing of artistic equality each year at Ems, a
German watering-place much frequented by the French prior to the great
struggle of 1870; of course, since that time his intercourse with
French people has been much more restricted, and through a feeling
of delicacy and tact, with which he is not usually credited, he has
refrained from visiting Paris, or even from setting his foot on French
territory since the war. This, however, has not prevented him from
keeping himself _au courant_ of every literary and dramatic event that
takes place on the banks of the Seine, and a French academician of
my acquaintance who was presented to him last summer at Ems, and
who spent several days there in his company, could not sufficiently
express his amazement, not merely at the extraordinary purity of the
prince's French, but likewise at the amazing manner in which he seems
to have kept track of everything that has happened at Paris in the
world of letters and art, as well as of the French idioms, figures of
speech, and even witticisms of the present day.
The delicacy which Prince George manifests with regard to the
French people, and his fear lest his admiration for them should be
misinterpreted, is largely due to the treatment that he received at
the hands of Empress Eugénie at Carlsbad, in 1874 or 1875. Having
been a frequent and welcome guest at the Tuileries during the reign of
Napoleon III., the prince, when he found that the widowed empress had
arrived at Carlsbad, and had taken up her residence at the very hotel
at which he was staying, naturally considered that he could not do
otherwise than take some notice of her presence; if he affected to
ignore her, he would have exposed himself to the reproach of gross
discourtesy; at the same time he felt that any public form of
attention might prove unwelcome to her, and might possibly serve to
impair her son's prospects of recovering his father's throne; so he
contented himself with sending her every day magnificent baskets of
flowers, and with bowing to her with the utmost deference, but without
attempting to accost her when he met her in the gardens or park. He
likewise caused it to be intimated to her secretary, M. Pietri, that
if at any moment she felt disposed to accord him an audience, he would
be only too glad of the opportunity to "lay his homage at the feet of
her majesty." That was all. Yet such as it was, the empress managed to
turn it to political account, for she suddenly left Carlsbad, making
it known throughout France, by means of the press, that she had been
compelled to quit the baths, and to interrupt the cure, in consequence
of the undesirable attentions which Prince George of Prussia persisted
in forcing upon her. Naturally, the newspapers made the most of her
story, and were filled with denunciations and abuse of the prince,
some of the sheets asserting, by way of explanation of his
conduct, that he was mentally unbalanced, his mother having been an
acknowledged lunatic, and his brother. Prince Alexander, an imbecile.
Nothing can be further from the truth. It cannot be denied that he
has a few harmless and kindly eccentricities which would attract no
attention whatever in an ordinary septuagenarian, but which excite
comment merely by reason of his rank as a prince of the blood. He is
a gentle, brilliantly accomplished, chivalrous old fellow, without
an enemy in the world, and is a great favorite with the emperor's
children, who will deeply miss him when he passes over to the
majority, and is laid to rest in the family vault of the house of
Hohenzollern.
With this exception, the princes and princesses of the blood of the
Court of Berlin are all of much the same age as the emperor. They
comprise Prince Henry, his only brother, who is due home from China in
the spring of 1900, and his consort, Princess Irene of Hesse, sister
of the young czarina. Then there is Prince Frederick-Leopold, the
extremely wealthy son of Prussia's celebrated cavalry general, Prince
Frederick-Charles, to whom belonged the credit of taking the French
stronghold of Metz, in the war of 1870. He is married to a younger
sister of the empress, and is, therefore, not only the cousin, but
likewise the brother-in-law of the kaiser.
Prince Adolph, of Schaumburg-Lippe, although nominally stationed at
Bonn, is also accustomed to spend the entire season at Berlin, with
his wife, Princess Victoria of Prussia, a sister of the kaiser. The
latter is credited with the intention of investing Prince Adolph with
the regency of Brunswick, should it be vacated by Prince Albert, or
else of appointing him Viceroy of Alsace-Lorraine. Princess Aribert
of Anhalt and her husband, too, are very conspicuous figures in the
imperial circle, the princess being a special favorite of the kaiser.
She is his first cousin, being the offspring of Queen Victoria's
daughter Helena, who married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein,
the guardian of the present empress, who spent much of her girlhood
in England with Prince and Princess Christian, so that her friendship
with Princess Aribert may be said to date from childhood. Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, the only brother of the empress,
has quieted down to a great extent since his marriage a year ago to
Princess Dorothy of Coburg, and inasmuch as his eighteen-year-old wife
appears to be supremely happy, there is every reason to believe that
he has demonstrated the truth of the good old adage, according to
which "reformed rakes make the best husbands!" The only daughter of
the King of Wurtemberg has made her home at Potsdam and at Berlin
since her marriage to the Prince of Wied, and as she is not only the
cousin, but likewise the most intimate friend of the young Queen
of Holland, the kaiser finds considerable political advantage in
lavishing tokens of his affection and regard upon both her and her
husband.
Another young couple belonging to the Court of Berlin are Prince and
Princess William of Hohenzollern. The princess is a daughter of the
Sicilian branch of the house of Bourbon, while her husband is the
eldest son of that Leopold of Hohenzollern, on account of whose
election to the throne of Spain in 1870, France embarked upon her
disastrous war with Germany. Young Prince William of Hohenzollern, it
may be added, figured for a time as Crown Prince of Roumania, and as
heir to the throne of his uncle, King Charles; but after living
for some time at Bucharest, he came to the conclusion that life in
Roumania as crown prince was infinitely less agreeable than that of
a scion of the house of Hohenzollern at Berlin, so he renounced his
rights to the Roumanian throne, and came back to Berlin to live.
His younger brother, Charles of Hohenzollern, divides his time between
Berlin and Potsdam; he is married to Princess Josephine of Belgium,
daughter of that Count of Flanders, who is brother and next heir to
King Leopold. Besides these, there are Prince and Princess Albert
of Saxe-Altenburg, and several other young couples belonging to the
junior sovereign houses of the German empire, who prefer to make
their home at Berlin, and at Potsdam, rather than in the smaller and
infinitely less brilliant capitals of their respective countries.
Moreover, it has now become the fashion among the various non-Prussian
rulers of the German Confederation, to send the junior members of
their families--the young men--to Berlin for a time, in order to
complete their military education under the eyes of the kaiser, and
to be in touch with that general staff which is virtually the Supreme
Council of War of the German army.
It is for this reason that Prince Louis of Bavaria, although he
notoriously dislikes the kaiser and resents his assumption of
superiority, claiming that the members of the Wittelsbach family are
not the vassals, but the allies of the emperor, nevertheless has sent
first his eldest son, and then each of his younger ones in turn,
to spend a year or two at the Court of Berlin, under the immediate
direction and eye of the kaiser. Prince Louis was particularly anxious
that his eldest son, Rupert, as future King of Bavaria, should get
in touch with the emperor, and become thoroughly acquainted, not
only with Prussian methods, but also with the leading statesmen and
generals, and with the trend of political aims and aspirations at
Berlin. The example of Prince Louis has been followed by all the other
petty German sovereigns, so that there are always about a score of
non-Prussian but German young princes of the blood, giving life and
gayety to the Courts of Berlin, and Potsdam, and taking a leading part
in Berlin society.
Among the princes there is none, however, who possesses so striking an
individuality as William's only brother, Henry. His assignment to the
command of the German naval forces in the far Orient a couple of years
ago, created much comment and speculation, being construed by many,
both in Germany and abroad, as a banishment resulting from the
kaiser's jealousy and dislike of the very popular Sailor Prince. I
do not believe for one moment that this supposed jealousy exists,
although everything that can possibly be conceived has been done,
unintentionally and intentionally, to create it, in a manner which I
will describe a little further on.
The reason of Prince Henry's being sent to the far Orient was of a
twofold character. In the first place, the Chinese Empire seemed to
be on the eve of a break-up, and each of the various Great Powers of
Europe, was exerting its utmost energies to secure the lion's share in
the game of grab in progress at Pekin. Scions of European royalty who
visit China and Japan are few and far between, and the emperor very
naturally thought that the presence of Prince Henry at the head of
the German naval forces in Chinese waters--a prince who in addition
to being the kaiser's only brother, is brother-in-law to the Russian
czar, and a grandson of the Queen of England,--would have the effect
of giving to the cause of Germany in the Orient an importance and a
prestige which would atone for the inferiority of its naval strength
in that part of the globe. Then, too, the emperor is generally
believed to have foreseen the conflict between Spain and the United
States, and to have known beforehand of the intention of the latter to
make a dash upon Manila, in order to secure possession of the rich and
fertile Philippine archipelago at the first outbreak of hostilities.
Germany's navy is of such relatively recent origin that its
flag-officers are far from possessing either the spirit of resource,
or the cleverness and diplomacy for which the commanding generals of
the German army are so distinguished. They are men who, officially,
intellectually, and socially, are of an inferior calibre, the majority
of them being of plebeian birth. The emperor held, therefore, that it
was all-important that Germany's squadron in the far Orient should be,
at that particular juncture, under the command of an officer such
as Prince Henry, who, by reason of his royal rank and his intimate
knowledge of his brother's views and wishes, would have the necessary
boldness, tact, and presence of mind to know exactly how to deal with
any crisis that might arise.
I am perfectly aware that there is a disposition in the United States
to blame Prince Henry for the bad feeling which was caused by the
attitude of the German warships at Manila during the few months that
followed the great American naval victory gained under the guns of
that city, but the trouble was due to the Prussian rear-admiral,
Diederichs, who, to use the expressive phrase of the English captain,
Sir Edward Chichester, in endeavoring to excuse him in the eyes of
Admiral Dewey, "had no sea-manners," and there is no doubt that had
Prince Henry been at Manila, instead of Diederichs, at that moment,
there would have been no friction whatsoever, either between the naval
commanders, or subsequently between the two nations, for Prince Henry
possesses precisely those qualities which would have resulted in
feelings of good-will and friendship with Admiral Dewey. He is modest,
honest, broad-minded, speaks English perfectly, and is entirely free
from any affectation or pose. He is a man, indeed, who has so many
qualities in common with Dewey that it is impossible that they should
not have understood each other, and under the circumstances it is most
unfortunate that the prince happened to be in the northernmost portion
of the China seas at the very time that the battle of Manila was
fought. It may be remembered that matters went on very much more
smoothly between the Germans and the Americans at Manila after the
withdrawal of Admiral Diederichs.
There was another very important reason for sending Prince Henry to
Manila; he is, of all the members of his house, the one most strongly
imbued with liberal and progressive ideas in political affairs. In
fact, he seems to have inherited all those political views of his
father, Emperor Frederick, which were a source of so much concern
and apprehension to the late Prince Bismarck. To tell the truth, the
political views and aspirations of Henry are diametrically opposed to
those of his elder brother, a circumstance which does not, however, in
any way impair the affection existing between the two.
At the time when he sent off Prince Henry to China, the kaiser was far
from well, and was suffering more than usually from the painful
malady of the ear already referred to, and which is identical with
the disease which first of all wrecked the mind and then killed his
grand-uncle, King Frederick William IV. Added to this, he is firmly
imbued with the idea that he is destined to meet with a sudden death
at the hands of an assassin, a conviction which never leaves him,
and which is perhaps responsible for that species of stern and even
aggressive air with which he, gazes at the cheering crowds when he
rides home at the head of his troops through the streets of Berlin
or of Potsdam after a day spent in military manoeuvres on the great
plains of Tempelhof.
If any of my readers feel disposed to condemn him for this
apprehension,--it would be unjust to style it fear,--let them try to
imagine how they themselves would feel if they knew that there were
scores of desperate men and women who had sworn to take their lives by
means of bullets or explosive bombs, fired or hurled from the centre
of some dense crowd, which would destroy the life of the victim of
such an outrage without a moment's warning, or without being able to
even so much as raise a hand in self-defense.
Now at the time when Prince Henry sailed for China, the young crown
prince was sixteen years of age; that is to say, he lacked two years
of the attainment of his majority. Had anything untoward happened
to the kaiser during the minority of the crown prince, Prince Henry
would, according to the laws of the house of Hohenzollern and of the
Prussian constitution, have been appointed as regent until his nephew
came of age. Prince Henry's right to the regency, as nearest
male relative, was one of which he could not be deprived, save by
altogether exceptional and questionable methods, which both policy
and fraternal affection forbade the emperor to employ. Yet he realized
that were Henry to be entrusted with the regency he would change
in the most radical fashion the course of the ship of state; would
introduce measures dear to the late Emperor Frederick, but to which
he, the kaiser, was unalterably opposed, and would, in short, undo
everything that he himself had done; so that when eventually the crown
prince came of age there would be no longer any possibility of his
continuing his father's policy, a policy which the emperor has been at
great pains to inculcate into his boy.
With Prince Henry at the Antipodes, there was an excuse for vesting
the regency either in the harmless hands of Frederick-Leopold, or in
those of Prince Albert, whose ideas on the subject of government are
to a great extent in keeping with those of the kaiser. That was one
of the reasons why Henry was sent off to China, and any doubt upon the
subject will be removed by remembering the fact that his sojourn in
the far East will terminate with the eighteenth birthday,--the coming
of age--of his nephew, the young crown prince.
That such real and lasting affection should subsist between
William and Henry is indeed surprising, and speaks volumes for the
warm-heartedness, and I might almost say magnanimity of the kaiser's
character. For everything that could possibly have contributed to
render him jealous of his brother, has been done, as I remarked above.
Henry was always favored at the expense of William by his father and
mother, as well as by the entire imperial family. In fact, the late
emperor gave a striking expression of his preference for his younger
son, when at the time of the prince's marriage to Princess Irene of
Hesse, he pressed into Henry's hand a slip of paper--he could not
speak any longer, owing to the awful malady which carried him off,--on
which he had written, "_You at least have never given me a moment's
sorrow, and will make as good a husband as you have been a loving
son_;" and when soon after this Emperor Frederick breathed his last,
it was found that he had left the major part of his fortune either
to Henry directly, or to Empress Frederick, in trust for this, his
favorite son.
This privileged position in the affection of his parents, aye, and
it may be added in the hearts of the German people, is due in a large
measure to Prince Henry's education. He was brought up, so to speak,
at sea, and the moral profession is of all others the one which
calls forth all the best qualities of a man, develops manliness, and
diminishes pride and affectation. Before he was twenty years of age,
he had twice circumnavigated the globe, visiting every corner of the
earth, and carrying the flag of Germany into regions where it had
never been seen before. This in itself was sufficient to interest
Germans in the young prince, the first of his house to seek adventures
in such far distant climes; and this healthy, manly, interesting mode
of life was compared to his advantage with the somewhat dissipated
existence of a young army officer, which his elder brother, prior to
his marriage, indulged in at Berlin.
Occasionally, stories reached the public through the press of feats
of gallantry performed by the royal sailor, such as the plunging
overboard once in a squall, and at another time in shark-infested
waters, to save drowning sailors; while every incident which thus
became known concerning the young prince served to confirm his
countrymen in the belief that he was endowed in an altogether
exceptional degree with those qualities which we are so fond of
ascribing to "those who go down to the sea in ships." These long sea
voyages had, moreover, the effect of keeping him clear of all
those court and political intrigues with which Emperor William was
surrounded, as if with a very network, prior to his accession to the
throne; intrigues, I may add, which since William became emperor, have
been devoted to many a futile endeavor designed to create mischief
between the two brothers. It is probable that they will have less
effect than ever from henceforth, since William, now that his eldest
boy has attained his majority, will have no longer any reason to
apprehend the possibility of Henry's undoing, in the capacity of
regent, all the work that he, the kaiser, has accomplished during the
eleven years of his reign; indeed, now that this danger is eliminated,
the two brothers are likely to become more intimate than ever, and the
Court of Berlin will probably see much more of the sailor prince than
heretofore. Henry is the very life of his brother's court, as he is
not only extremely fond of making fun, even at the expense sometimes
of his majesty, especially about the excessively earnest attitude
which the emperor assumes, with regard to the most trivial questions.
Absolutely unconventional, save on his own quarter-deck, he carries
about with him an atmosphere of brightness and breeziness which is
almost as infectious and as bracing as a whiff of sea air.
For all his love of skylarking, and the freedom of his manners, his
name has never been associated with any questionable story, save by
the gutter element of the Parisian press, which endeavored to drag him
into the Dreyfus case by declaring that Germany's strange attitude in
the affair was due to the alleged knowledge the French War Department
of terrible immorality proved to have been committed by Prince Henry
during frequent secret visits to Paris. Of course there is not a word
of truth in these contemptible stories, and the prince's reputation as
a perfect husband and a healthy-minded gentleman, stands high, even
in Berlin, where people are overfond of scandalous gossip. Certainly
there are plenty of stories current about the pranks that he has
played, but these are all of an innocent and boyish character. The
prince creates the impression of the most complete wholesomeness; his
six feet of well set up manhood, his bright eyes and clear, tanned
skin, seem the outward and visible sign of a thoroughly clean and
sound mind; common sense, frankness, fearlessness, dignity and
kindness, are written in his every feature in a way that reminds
people vividly of his lamented father; while the easy movements of
an athletic body, always apparently in the pink of condition, are
evidently allied to the smooth serenity of a mind confident in itself,
but modest with the humility of knowledge.
After having said so much that is pleasant of the prince, I must,
in pursuance of my determination to give the shadows as well as the
lights of my portraits, admit that there are two particulars in which
Prince Henry cannot be said to shine. One of these is public speaking,
and the other is shooting; he is as unfortunate in the one respect as
in the other.
His only public utterance of any importance was made at the time
of his departure for China, when he addressed the emperor in such
extravagant terms, referring to his "consecrated majesty," and so on,
that it created mingled feelings of amazement and amusement from one
end of the civilized world to the other! There has always been an
impression in my mind that there was in this extraordinary speech just
a suspicion of a disposition to guy his brother: for not only were the
terms that he used entirely foreign to his character,--their _outré_
tenor bordering on the ridiculous,--but it is impossible for anyone
who has ever heard him chaffing his seasick brother while out
yachting, putting his head in at the cabin door every now and again,
and calling out, "Well, Willie, how do you feel now, and what has
become of your imperial dignity?" to believe that he was really
serious when he so solemnly ascribed divine attributes to this
selfsame Willie.
I heard that after the prince's arrival in China, where banquets were
given in his honor by the German and English leading colonists, he was
repeatedly asked to make a few remarks in reply to the toasts drunk
in his honor, but that on each occasion he politely informed his hosts
that he would see them in Jericho before he got on his feet to address
them. "Only once in my life," he was wont to say, "did I make a
speech, and I shall never hear the end of that to the close of my
days!" A little later on, when the Shanghai correspondent of the
London _Times_ was presented to him, he himself referred to this most
celebrated and oft-quoted speech by inquiring good-humoredly, and
withal plaintively, "By the way, don't you think your newspapers have
roasted me enough about it?"
With regard to his shooting, there is no scion of royalty who has been
the cause of more gun accidents than the prince. He had not attained
his majority before he managed, while shooting in the game preserves
of his uncle, the Grand Duke of Baden, to wound a gamekeeper so
severely that the man was crippled for life, and has since been in the
receipt of a generous pension from the prince. Then in Corfu, while
clambering up a steep hill, he had the misfortune to unintentionally
discharge his gun, the lead lodging in a Greek gentleman who was
following a few feet behind him and grievously injuring him; while
at a later period he succeeded in inflicting serious damage upon a
Turkish dignitary appointed by the Sultan to attend him during his
shooting trips in Syria. It is of him, too, that is related the story
of how, when asked as a youth of twenty, by Queen Victoria, during
one of his stays at Balmoral, what sport he had had while out deer
stalking, he replied proudly: "Well, grandma, I did not succeed in
killing a stag, but I hit quite a number." It is recorded that there
was a painful silence after this remark, and that the prince was not
again urged to go out deer stalking during his stay at Balmoral!
Princess Henry is probably the least favored, both as to beauty and
brilliancy of intellect, of the daughters of the late Grand Duke of
Hesse, and of his consort, Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen
Victoria. Her three sisters, the Grand Duchess Sergius of Russia,
Princess Louis of Battenberg, and the young czarina, are renowned for
their loveliness and their cleverness, the latter inherited from their
talented mother; whereas Princess Irene and her brother, the reigning
Grand Duke of Hesse, take far more after their father. Princess Irene
was born in 1866, during the Seven Weeks' War, when her father was
called upon to fight his own brothers in the Prussian army, and his
brother-in-law, the late Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince of
Prussia. Her baptismal sponsors were the officers and men belonging
to the two cavalry regiments under her father's special command during
that war:--there is no other princess in Europe who has ever had two
entire regiments of cavalry for godfathers! The name of Irene was
bestowed upon her by way of gratitude for the restoration of peace,
and she used always to be known in her young days at Darmstadt as the
"Friedenskind," or "child of peace." After her mother's death from
diphtheria, it was the latter's eldest sister, the now widowed Empress
Frederick, who endeavored, as far as possible, to look after the
children, and it was perhaps this that led to Prince Henry's falling
in love with his cousin. The match was strongly opposed by Prince
Bismarck, partly upon the ground of the close relationship of the
parties, but mainly on account of his hatred for the reigning house of
Hesse. But when Prince Henry declared that he would remain single all
his life unless he were allowed to marry Princess Irene, consent was
given, and the wedding took place at Charlottenburg in the presence
of the dying Emperor Frederick, this being the last public ceremony at
which he was present. One of the saddest of sights, indeed, was that
presented by "Unser Fritz," almost too weak to stand, giving his
voiceless blessing after the ceremony to his favorite son, and to
his new daughter-in-law, who, having been born in a time of war and
misery, was entering upon her new life as a wife at a time when the
whole nation was once more sorrowing. While Princess Irene is
perhaps less attractive than her sisters, she is more interested in
philanthropic movements than any other member of her family, and at
Kiel, where she makes her home, she is greatly liked, especially by
the poor. She is a magnificent equestrienne, and a very clever shot,
being infinitely more successful in this respect than her husband, who
is so devoted to her that he bears this superiority with the greatest
equanimity.
Although Prince Frederick-Leopold has certainly relieved himself from
any imputation of effeminacy by the conspicuous part he took in the
long-distance rides between Berlin and Vienna, and by his magnificent
horsemanship, yet he does not convey to people the impression of
manliness that constitutes so distinguishing a characteristic of his
cousins, Prince Henry and the kaiser. He is lacking alike in virility
and intellect, and seems to have no other aim and aspiration in life
than to live up to his name and reputation as the leader of masculine
fashion or "Gigerl König," which may be rendered into English as
"king of the dudes." They say at the Court of Berlin that he is so
particular about the fit of his clothes that he will never remain
seated for more than five minutes at a time, not even when traveling,
for fear of spoiling the crease in his trousers or of making them
baggy at the knees! He does not attempt to disguise the fact that
the faultlessness of his coats or of his uniforms is an object of
paramount importance. These are, however, very harmless weaknesses,
which are more than atoned for by the fact that he is an excellent
father and husband, but the obstinacy of his temper and his vagaries
as a leader of masculine fashion at Berlin have often been a source of
impatience and irritation to the kaiser. It is only just to lay stress
on his excellence both as a husband and a father, as all sorts of
stories have been circulated, not merely in the foreign press, but
also in the German newspapers, charging him with intemperance and with
brutality towards his wife, who is a younger sister of the empress,
such as to necessitate the intervention of the kaiser.
These stories are pure calumnies, and originate in a confusion between
the prince and his father, the celebrated cavalry general. The latter,
popularly known as the "Red Prince," was the commander to whom Metz
capitulated in 1870, and was not only noted for his hard drinking,
but likewise for his rough usage of his amiable and formerly lovely
consort when he was in his cups. He is credited with having frequently
beaten her, either with his fist or with his riding whip, when crazed
with drink; and it is no secret that she left him on three occasions
with the avowed intention of securing a separation and even divorce,
and was only persuaded to return to her husband by the entreaties of
the old emperor.
Of course all this was a matter of court gossip at the time, and three
or four years ago the stories formerly current concerning the father,
who has been dead for more than a decade, were revived with regard to
his son, for no other reason than that the prince had quite frequently
rendered himself subject to disciplinary measures by the kaiser. If
the latter has, however, ordered him to remain under arrest in his
palace at various times, it has not been as a punishment for having
horsewhipped his wife when drunk, as some foreign illustrated papers
would have the world believe, but only because the prince had been
guilty of some neglect in military duty, or had disobeyed the wishes
of the emperor in connection with the management of his household.
Thus, some two or three winters ago, Princess Frederick-Leopold was
almost drowned while out skating near Potsdam; she broke through the
ice, was completely unconscious when miraculously rescued by four
peasants who happened to be in the neighborhood, and was only brought
back to life with the utmost difficulty. The emperor and empress
were naturally much concerned and distressed by this accident; but
William's sympathy changed into very serious anger when he learnt that
the princess had remained so long under the ice and had been dependent
on the courage and bravery of the peasants who rescued her, only
because neither her husband nor any of the gentlemen of his household
had been in attendance upon her. In fact, she was quite alone with a
lady-in-waiting, who lost her head, and was completely unable to offer
any assistance when the mishap occurred. The emperor also discovered
that on the previous day the princess had, without any escort
whatsoever, skated alone all the way from Potsdam to Brandenburg and
back, a remarkable feat, calling for much endurance and attended by
no little danger. Now, as I have already stated, it is contrary to the
rules of court etiquette and usage for any prince or princess of the
blood to leave their residence, unattended, and it was on account of
the infraction of this regulation that the kaiser sentenced both the
prince and his consort to several weeks' arrest in their palace. It
was this circumstance that gave rise to the ridiculous and sensational
tale of the prince having been punished by the emperor in consequence
of the latter having caught him in the act of beating the princess
while in a fit of drunken fury.
Prince Frederick-Leopold is a great traveller, and has not only spent
a considerable time in India as the guest of his brother-in-law, the
Duke of Connaught, when the latter was in military command at Bombay,
but, moreover, he has visited China and Japan, and devoted several
months to a tour in the United States, which was wound up by some
rather exciting events at Coney Island before his return home to
Berlin.
[Illustration: _SCENE IN DUKE ERNEST GUNTHER'S QUARTERS_
_After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo_]
Of the bachelorhood days of the kaiser's other brother-in-law, Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, already mentioned several times
in these pages, especially in connection with the anonymous letter
scandal, the least said the better. A hard-drinking, dissipated, and
somewhat coarse-mannered cavalry officer, he has often been a source
of perpetual anger to the kaiser and of distress to his sister, the
excellent empress. He managed to get his name involved in all sorts of
unsavory speculations on the stock exchange and in gambling scandals,
invariably, it is true, as a victim; while at least three foreign
footlight favorites were expelled from Germany by the police on
account of the scandals created by his association with them. On one
occasion, he even had the audacity to appear at Charlottenburg with a
notorious American "_demi-mondaine_" seated beside him on the box of
his drag, although his sister, the empress, was present at the races,
as well as a large number of ladies of the court and many great
dignitaries. Seeing the servants of his coach arrayed in the familiar
liveries of his house, they all naturally imagined that the
lady beside the duke was one of his sisters, either Princess
Frederick-Leopold or Princess Fedora, and accorded to her the homage
which would have belonged by right to either of these two princesses,
but which was totally misplaced when conceded to a woman of such
unenviable notoriety as the fair stranger who sat beside the duke.
Needless to add that the emperor was furious when he heard of the
affair, and after giving orders for the immediate expulsion of the
woman, directed the prince to leave Berlin, and to remain at his
castle of Prinkenau until he had expiated his gross and flagrant
breach of the proprieties.
Duke Ernest-Gunther was a suitor for the hand of quite a large number
of princesses, and among those to whom he proposed were the daughters
of the Prince of Wales and of the latter's brother, the Duke of
Coburg, his suit being rejected with touching unanimity in each
instance, in consequence of his unenviable reputation. Yet strangely
enough, as stated previously, he seems to have developed into
an exemplary husband, although his marriage was contracted under
circumstances which, verged on a tragedy; for his wife, a mere
seventeen-year-old girl, just issuing from the school-room when he
made an offer for her hand, was literally flung into his arms by both
her parents, who were determined to separate from each other, and who
had been informed by Emperor Francis-Joseph of Austria, and by King
Leopold of Belgium, that no such step could be tolerated until after
the marriage of little Princess "Dolly," the only daughter of this
ill-matched couple. The betrothal took place in due course at Vienna.
But before the marriage could follow, the young girl's mother, namely,
Princess Louise of Coburg and of Belgium, deliberately eloped from the
Austrian capital with her husband's chamberlain, the Hungarian Count
Keglewitch; and what was worse, took her daughter with her. The trio
fled to Nice, where they were visited by King Leopold, who after
endeavoring in vain to persuade the princess to return to her husband
at Vienna, discarded her in hot anger, declaring that she was no
longer his daughter!
The next act in the drama was a challenge issued by Prince Philip of
Coburg against Count Keglewitch, who left Nice for the encounter: the
duel was fought in the army riding-school at Vienna, the commander of
the metropolitan garrison and the minister of war acting as seconds
to Prince Philip, although duelling is strictly forbidden by law in
Austria, as it is in Germany. Prince Philip received a painful wound
in the hand, and the count forthwith left to rejoin the princess at
Nice. The publicity given to this duel had the unfortunate result,
however, of calling attention to the presence of poor little Princess
Dorothy at Nice with her misguided mother and the count, and the
princess having been warned by the Austrian authorities and the French
police that her daughter would be taken from her by force unless she
relinquished her hold upon the child, she sent her back to Vienna,
whence the girl was immediately dispatched to Dresden and placed under
the care of the mother and the unmarried sister of the German empress,
with whom she remained until her marriage.
Shortly after her departure from Nice, her mother was forced to take
flight in consequence of the persecution to which she was subjected by
her creditors; and with a shamelessness that can only be explained on
the score of an unbalanced mind, she deliberately returned to Austria
with her lover, and coolly took up her residence at his castle near
Agram, where the count actually made preparations for a siege, in
order to resist by force any attempt on the part of the authorities to
take the princess from him.
Ultimately, both were captured by strategy, and while the princess was
conveyed under police escort to Vienna, and lodged at the request of
her husband in a lunatic asylum, on the sworn statements of two court
physicians concerning her insanity, the count was placed under close
arrest at Agram on the charge of grossly immoral conduct, unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman. Before he had been very long in the
military prison, this charge was changed to one of forgery; for it was
discovered that there were notes in circulation at Vienna and Paris
to the extent of more than a million dollars, which the count had
negotiated, and which bore the forged signature of Princess Louise's
sister, the widowed Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria.
The count of course denied that he had forged the signature, but
as the fact remains that he negotiated the notes, and that Princess
Louise, who, failing himself, can alone have been the culprit, is
officially declared insane, and legally irresponsible, he has had to
bear the brunt of the affair, and is now, after having undergone the
terrible ceremony of military degradation, working out a sentence of
five years' penal servitude in a fortress; doubtless comparing his
fate with that of the celebrated Baron Trench, who was imprisoned
for years in the dungeons of Spandau, and of Magdeburg, for having
compromised the fair name of the sister of Frederick the Great by
indiscreet attentions.
Princess Louise is now under strict restraint in an asylum for the
insane near Dresden, and inasmuch as both her father, King Leopold of
the Belgians, and her husband, have declined to pay any of her
debts, public sales of her belongings, even of her dresses and her
under-garments, were permitted to take place at Vienna and at Nice
for the benefit of her creditors. It is only fair to the unfortunate
princess to state that her entire married life has been one of
uninterrupted misery, owing to the brutality and drunken habits of
her husband, who is noted as one of the most dissolute princes in
all Europe. In fact if court gossip at Berlin and Vienna is to be
believed, the princess first became enamored of Count Keglewitch when
the latter, in attendance on the princely couple as their chamberlain,
interfered one day to protect her from the blows of her husband.
It was amidst circumstances such as these that Princess Dorothy was
married to Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, neither her
father nor her mother being present at her marriage; the reigning Duke
of Coburg, as chief of the Coburg family figuring in the place of her
parents, and giving her away at the altar. That with such a father,
such a mother, and with a husband of such a past reputation for
dissipation and wildness, the little princess should have found
happiness in marriage, is, to say the least, surprising. But the duke
seems devoted to his little wife, while she on her side is completely
wrapped up in her husband, and thinks him perfect, in every way.
Yet another brother-in-law of the kaiser who is a conspicuous figure
at the Court of Berlin, is Prince Adolphus of Schaumburg-Lippe,
married to Princess Victoria, the least attractive and least
popular of William's sisters. After several flirtations of a rather
sensational character with young Count Andrassy, and several other gay
diplomats and noblemen, which were a source of amusement to the court,
although of great concern to her mother, she ultimately fell in love
with Prince Alexander of Battenburg, who at the time had just been
forced to abandon the throne of Bulgaria, and who was certainly one of
the handsomest and most fascinating of European princes. The prince,
who was at the time, to put matters plainly, out of a job, being
without fortune or future, was persuaded by his relatives, notably by
his brother Henry, who had married Princess Beatrice of England,
to apply for her hand; this he did, on the understanding that his
marriage to her would facilitate his restoration to the German army,
from which he had resigned on ascending the throne of Bulgaria; for as
a general of the Prussian army, he anticipated retrieving the prestige
and fame which he had lost as ruler of Bulgaria.
Prince Bismarck, however, set his face strongly against the match on
the ground that it would impair the friendly relations between the
Courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg, Prince Alexander being for
personal reasons an object of the most intense animosity to the late
czar. Indeed, it was this hatred on the part of the late Emperor of
Russia that had rendered it impossible for Prince Alexander to retain
his throne of Bulgaria. Old Emperor William, supported his chancellor
in the matter, and while the late Emperor Frederick, at that time
merely crown prince, remained quite passive, the cause of Princess
Victoria and Prince Alexander was strongly championed by Empress
Frederick and Queen Victoria. The controversy continued even after the
death of old Emperor William, and finally, in face of the persistent
hostility in the matter displayed by Prince Bismarck, and by the
present kaiser, it was arranged that the couple should be married, not
in Germany, but in England, at Windsor Castle, and that they should
make their home elsewhere than in Germany. This, however, did not meet
the views of Prince Alexander, who thus saw all his ambition for a
military career in the German army frustrated instead of promoted by
the union. So at the very last moment, within a few days of the date
appointed for the wedding at Windsor, and after all the trousseau had
been purchased and the wedding presents bought, he deliberately
jilted his royal fiancee, and married at Nice, an actress named Mlle.
Lösinger, an offspring of the valet and the cook of the old Austrian
General Faviani.
The prince, it may be remembered, subsequently abandoned the title
and status of a Prince Battenberg, secured the title of Count Hartenau
from his father's old friend and comrade, the Emperor of Austria, as
well as a colonelcy in the Austrian army, and died as major-general in
command of a brigade at Gratz.
It was more than a year after this, that Princess Victoria found a
husband in the insignificant-looking and inoffensive Prince Adolph of
Schaumburg-Lippe, son of Prince George of that ilk, the prince at that
time serving as Captain of Hussars at Bonn. Soon afterwards, Emperor
William learning that Prince Waldemar of Lippe was dying, took
advantage of the fact that he was rather weak-minded to induce him to
sign a species of will bequeathing the regency of the principality at
his death to Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe, the next heir to the
throne of Lippe; his brother Alexander of Lippe being an incurable
lunatic. On the strength of this document, which was of a purely
personal character, and which was neither ratified by the legislature
of the principality of Lippe, nor recognized by the federal council of
the German empire, Prince Adolph, with the assistance of a couple
of Prussian regiments, coolly took possession of the principality of
Lippe, proclaimed himself regent, and assumed the reins of government.
According to the laws of Germany governing the succession of its
sovereign houses, the regency in such a case as that presented by the
principality of Lippe, should have fallen to the lot of the nearest
living agnate. The latter happened to be Count Ernest of Lippe, chief
of the Beisterfeld branch of the Lippe family. Prince Adolph, however,
and his brother-in-law, Emperor William, took the ground that Count
Ernest was debarred from the regency, and from succession to the
throne on the death of the crazy Prince Alexander, by the fact
that sometime in the early part of the last century one of his male
ancestors had contracted a mésalliance, and thus brought a plebeian
strain into the family. This contention was accepted neither by the
people of Lippe, nor by the count; they appealed to the tribunals
of the empire, and to every reigning family of Germany in turn, the
entire non-Prussian press, as well as many newspapers in Prussia
itself, espousing their cause.
Finally, the emperor and his brother-in-law were forced by
popular clamor to consent to bring the matter before a tribunal of
arbitration, composed of the principal judges of the Supreme Federal
Court at Leipzig, presided over for the occasion by the dean and
veteran of German sovereigns, King Albert of Saxony. The tribunal,
after due deliberation, rendered a decision against the emperor and
Prince Adolph; directing the latter to at once surrender the regency
and the Lippe estates, which are immensely valuable, yielding an
income of eight hundred thousand dollars, to Count Ernest of Lippe,
on the ground that if a mésalliance such as the one contracted by the
count's eighteenth-century ancestor were to be considered sufficient
to invalidate his rights to the regency and to the succession to the
throne, as the nearest living male relative of the crazy reigning
prince, half the thrones of Germany would have to be vacated by their
present occupants.
It was pointed out by the arbitrators that if the contention of Prince
Adolph and the kaiser were admitted, the Grand Duke of Baden would
have to abandon his throne; the branch of the Baden family to which
he belonged being descended from a prince of Baden who contracted a
mésalliance at the close of the last century; that all the children of
the emperor himself would be barred from succession to the throne of
Germany, since the great-grandfather of the present Empress of Germany
was the offspring of a terrible mésalliance; while last, but not
least, Prince Adolph himself was descended from a prince of Lippe who
towards the close of the last century, fell in love with and married
the daughter of a mere writ-server, whose blood flows in the veins of
the emperor's brother-in-law.
Emperor William and Prince Adolph bitterly resented the setback to
which they were subjected by this decree of the King of Saxony; and
although they were forced to yield in the present instance, they
threatened to reopen the entire question should anything untoward
happen to the present regent, Count Lippe, for they insist that under
no circumstances can any of his sons be permitted to inherit either
his rights or his honors, owing to the fact that his wife, the
Countess of Lippe, is also the issue of a mésalliance, her mother
having been an American girl, a native of Philadelphia, who married
Count Leopold Wartensleben. On the strength of this, Prussian
authorities, military as well as civilian, while directed to accord
to the Count of Lippe the honors due to the regent of a German
sovereignty, are forbidden to recognize in any way either the count's
consort or his children, on the ground that these can only be regarded
as morganatic, and as such debarred from the tokens of respect due to
full-fledged members of a sovereign house.
Naturally, all this has served to render Prince Adolph and his wife
extremely unpopular throughout the length and breadth of Germany; and
when a short time ago there was a question of appointing the prince
as regent of the Duchy of Brunswick in succession to Prince Albert
of Prussia, who is tired of the post, or as a stadtholder of
Alsace-Lorraine in the place of Prince Herman Hohenlohe, the press
throughout Germany, and even in Prussia, raised its voice in protest
against the emperor's forcing his brother-in-law into places for which
he was in no sense of the word fitted, either by his talents, his
administrative skill, his tact, or his intellectual abilities.