All royal and imperial people are more or less superstitious,
and neither Emperor William nor his brother monarch at Vienna are
exceptions to the rule. Striking evidence thereof is furnished by the
presence of a large horseshoe cemented into the wall just outside
the fourth window of the first story of Empress Frederick's palace
at Berlin. One day, some time before his accession to the throne, and
before his father was seized with that terrible malady to which he
eventually succumbed, William was invited to dine with his parents.
Finding that he was very late, and knowing the strictness of his
father and mother on the score of punctuality, William directed his
coachman to drive as fast as he could, and the carriage positively
raced up the incline to the portal.
Suddenly one of the big Mecklenburg horses lost his shoe, which in
some extraordinary manner, flew up into the air, dashed through the
first-story window and fell upon the dinner table, right in front
of Frederick and the then crown princess, who, declining to wait
any longer, had just sat down to table. The shoe is reported to have
grazed the nose of the late emperor. At any rate, the fact that it
should have failed to seriously injure anyone is a miracle. It was so
regarded by Frederick, his wife and his children, who deemed the queer
advent of the shoe, and the escape of everybody from injury, as an
indication of good luck. At the suggestion of the present kaiser, it
was thereupon cemented into the wall just outside the window through
which it had come, and was fastened upside down, in order to prevent
the luck from dropping out.
It is not altogether astonishing that royal personages should be prone
to superstition, for in almost every case they are compelled to make
their homes in palaces and castles that have been stained with the
blood of one or more of their ancestors. Ordinary people experience an
uncanny feeling when forced by circumstances to live in houses which
have been the scene of suicide or murder, even when the victims of
the tragedy, or the perpetrators thereof are in no way, even the
most remotely, connected with them. What wonder, then, that royal and
imperial personages should entertain the same kind of superstition and
sentiments with regard to their palaces, when it is borne in mind that
the participants in the drama have been members of their own families!
For months prior to the assassination of Empress Elizabeth,
forebodings of an impending catastrophe were prevalent at the Court
of Vienna, and so imbued was Emperor Francis-Joseph with ominous
presentiments, that he repeatedly exclaimed in the hearing of his
entourage: "Oh, if only this year were at an end!"
These apprehensions on the part of the monarch and his court were due
to an incident which took place on the night of April 24, 1898, and
which was of sufficient importance to be comprised in the regular
report made on the following morning to his military superiors by the
officer of the guard at the Hofburg. It seems that the sentinel posted
in the corridor or hall leading to the chapel was startled almost out
of his senses by seeing the form of a white-clad woman approaching
him, soon after one o'clock in the morning. He at once challenged her,
whereupon the figure turned round, and passed back into the chapel,
where the soldier then observed a light. Hastily summoning assistance,
a strict search was instituted, but the chapel was explored without
any result.
The sentinel in question was a stolid, rather dull-minded Styrian
peasant, who was possessed of but little power of imagination or of
education, and who was entirely ignorant, therefore, of the tradition
according to which a woman in white makes her appearance by night
in the Hofburg at Vienna, either in the chapel or in the adjoining
corridors and halls, whenever any misfortune is about to overtake the
imperial house of Hapsburg.
On each occasion, this spectral appearance to the sentinel on duty
has been described in the report of the officer of the guard on the
following morning, and is absolutely a matter of official record. The
previous visitations of the "white lady" had taken place on the eve
of the shocking tragedy of Mayerling; a few weeks previous to the
shooting of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; and prior to the burning to
death of the daughter of old Archduke Albert, at Schoenbrunn; while
the very fact that there should have been no supernatural appearance
of this kind at the time when Archduke John vanished from human ken,
leads the imperial family and the Court of Austria to still doubt the
story, according to which he perished at sea while on his way round
Cape Horn, from La Plata to Valparaiso.
I do not know the origin of the "white lady" tradition at Vienna,
nor have I ever been able to ascertain anything definite about her
history, but there is plenty of documentary evidence, as well as
a wonderful array of records concerning "the white lady of the
Hohenzollerns," who makes her appearance in the old palace at Berlin
whenever death is about to overtake a member of the reigning house of
Prussia. The late Emperor Frederick--the most matter-of-fact and least
imaginative prince of his line--was particularly interested in the
matter, and collected all the evidence that he could upon the subject,
for the purpose of depositing it in the archives of his family.
Perhaps the most important testimony in this connection are the sworn
statements signed by Prince Frederick of Prussia, and a number of his
fellow officers, to all of whom the "White Lady" is declared to have
appeared as they sat together on the eve of the prince's death at the
battle of Saalfeld in 1806.
Moreover, Thomas Carlyle went to no little trouble to procure evidence
when writing the history of Frederick the Great, that the "White Lady"
had appeared to that famous monarch on the eve of his death. The king,
it is asserted, was on the high road to recovery from his illness,
when suddenly one morning he declared that he had seen the white-clad
spectre during the night, that his hour had come, and that it was
useless to ward off death any longer. So he refused to take any
further medicine or nourishment, turned his face to the wall, and
died.
The "White Lady" is considered sufficiently real by the hard-headed
matter-of-fact commanders of the Prussian army, to lead to their
adopting special measures whenever her appearance is reported. The
moment she is seen, the sentinels within and around the royal palace
are at once doubled. The object of this is not so much to protect the
royal family from harm, as to prevent the sentinels themselves from
following the example of the two who shot themselves while on guard
at the palace in the year 1888, one, shortly before the death of old
Emperor William, the other, a few days before the demise of Emperor
Frederick, the men in each case declaring before they expired that
they had seen the "White Lady," their story being in a measure
borne out by the fact that their faces even after death seemed to be
distorted with terror.
The appearances of the "White Lady" are kept as quiet as possible,
the matter is never mentioned at court, save in whispers, and nothing
concerning her is ever permitted to appear in print in the Berlin
papers.
This dread apparition that forebodes evil to the reigning house of
Prussia, is supposed to be the spectre of Countess Agnes Orlamunde,
who murdered her first husband, as well as her two children, who
constituted an obstacle to her marriage with, one of the ancestors of
the kaiser.
The palace in which the spectre of this historic murderess appears
is a huge and massive structure of grey stone, the walls of which
are pierced by over one thousand windows, and which contains over six
hundred rooms. Commenced four hundred and fifty years ago by one of
the earliest electors of Brandenburg, it has been added to by
each sovereign in turn, until it has attained its present enormous
dimensions.
There is probably no structure of the kind in the world the building
of which has cost so many lives. Indeed the very mortar used in its
construction may be said to have been mixed with blood. The people of
Berlin, who from time immemorial have been noted for their democracy
and their spirit of independence, have opposed from the very outset
the erection of this building in their midst as calculated to endanger
their liberty, and many were the attempts that they made to arrest
the undertaking, and to destroy the work already accomplished. Bloody
fights took place between the mob and the troops appointed to protect
the workmen, and on two occasions the populace even went so far as to
cut the dams, and destroy the flood gates, deluging the foundations
with the waters of the River Spree, and drowning each time many
hundreds of workmen.
Even at the present moment Emperor William is engaged in an angry
fight with, the people of Berlin in connection with this palace.
He wishes to surround it with a terrace and a garden, which will
naturally add to its beauty. At present the windows look onto the
public streets, a fact which, in these days of bombs and dynamite
outrages, renders it difficult to protect with any degree of
efficiency. The municipality and people of Berlin, however, absolutely
decline to consent to the expropriations necessary in order to enable
the destruction and removal of the existing houses and buildings which
interfere with the execution of his majesty's project.
Like his uncle, the Prince of Wales, the kaiser is very superstitious
on the subject of the number thirteen in the case of any
entertainment, and more than once has a mere subaltern who happened to
be on duty at the palace as an officer of the guard, been commanded at
a moment's notice to join the imperial party in order to avoid there
being thirteen at the table.
This superstition is perhaps partly due to the fact that the emperor
is aware of the old Scandinavian custom, from which it originates, and
which still subsists among the peasantry of the west coast of France.
In the Pagan days of Scandinavia, the hardy Norsemen were accustomed
at all their banquets to invite the spirit of the last of their male
relatives or friends to participate in the feast, and the food that he
would have eaten and the mead that he would have drunk was cast into
the fire, the supposed resting-place of the soul. When the Norsemen
embraced Christianity, on ceremonious occasions they sat down to
the banquet in parties of twelve, doing this in honor of the twelve
Apostles; but unable entirely to disassociate themselves from their
old heathen custom of inviting the spirit of a dead relative or
friend, they constituted him,--the spectre,--the thirteenth guest at
table, and his health was always drunk in solemn silence. In course
of time people came to forget the traditional custom of considering
a spectre to be the thirteenth guest. He was, however, associated in
their minds with the notion of death, and thus the belief has grown
that though a thirteenth person at table is no longer a corpse, one of
the party is destined, at any rate, to speedily become one.
Throughout Brittany on the eve of the day sacred to the memory of the
dead "La Toussaint," the family all sit down to a festive repast, and
there is invariably a place laid at table, the plate filled with the
choicest viands, and the glass filled with the finest wine or cider,
for the one or more members of the family who have died during the
previous twelve months. The peasantry are convinced that the spirits
of their dear ones take part in this repast at one time or another
during the course of the night. It is for this reason that they
consider it their duty to sit up till daybreak, the women chiefly
praying, the men talking in undertones about the qualities and the
characteristics of the mourned ones. Wearied with watching, imbued
with the most fervent and devout faith, blended with a belief in
old-time legends, what wonder is it that towards dawn both the men
and the women, especially the latter, should imagine that they see
the spirits of their dead glide into the room, take their place at the
family board, and then, after a brief sojourn in their midst, vanish
with the light of the breaking day. It is a pretty and a touching
idea, which is not combated by the clergy, and of which, indeed, no
one possessed of any heart would seek to disabuse the minds of the
poor, simple-minded peasant folks.
Of course Emperor Francis-Joseph and Emperor William are imbued with
all the old superstitions peculiar to Nimrods. As an instance, they
will give up an entire day's shooting, no matter how elaborate the
arrangements made for it, if a hare is seen to cross their path, for
this is always looked upon as being a very bad omen.
Both emperors also attach much importance to dreams, and claim to have
been furnished by them with premonitions of each misfortune that has
overtaken them, and regard Friday as the most unlucky day of the week.
There is no colder, more unemotional and level-headed woman in
the-world than the young Empress of Russia, who is a German princess
by birth, and a first cousin of Emperor William, yet she too believes
in dreams, since the following incident, which enjoys the fullest
degree of credence on the part of the emperors of Germany and Austria.
It seems that during the coronation festivities she was resting one
afternoon, and had dropped off into a doze, when she suddenly found
herself awakened by one of her ladies who had been frightened by the
manner in which she moaned and even wailed in her sleep. The empress
then related that her slumbers had been disturbed by a bad dream.
An old gray-haired Moujik, or peasant, all covered with blood, had
appeared to her, and had exclaimed:
"I have come all the way from Siberia, czaritza, to see your day of
honor, and now your Cossacks have killed me."
The vision had been so real that the empress hastened to her husband
to inquire if any misfortune had happened. Nicholas laughed at his
wife's fears, but to soothe her, telephoned to the minister of the
imperial household, asking whether anything untoward had occurred,
and only then learnt of the terrible disaster that had taken place in
connection with the open-air banquet, where over two thousand lives
were lost, through a panic that had seized upon the vast concourse of
people, the terrible catastrophe being aggravated by the unfortunate
attempts of large bodies of mounted Cossacks to restore order by
riding into the crowd and using their whips and even their swords
against the terrified masses of penned-up Moujiks.
It must be borne in mind that the entire monarchial system of the old
world is largely based on legend and superstition, and that a belief
in the supernatural, therefore, is to be expected in such personages
as the anointed of the Lord, who are firmly convinced that there is a
considerable amount of the supernatural in their authority and in the
origin of their power.
Another manner in which Emperor William displays his superstition, is
his absolute refusal to permit any steps to be taken to clear up the
mystery which has existed throughout this entire century in connection
with the hunting château of Grünewald, which, like the great palace
at Berlin, is popularly believed to be haunted. Indeed, it is regarded
with considerable misgiving by the peasantry of the surrounding
district. It is an old castle, built almost two centuries ago, by the
father of the first King of Prussia, and has been the scene of several
tragedies.
The one which is supposed to have led to the haunting of the palace
is the murder by one of the princes of the house of Hohenzollern, in a
fit of passion, of a Prussian nobleman who was his guest at the time.
The prince is reported to have run the nobleman through the back with
his sword while following him down one of the staircases from the
upper story to the ground floor.
Endeavors have repeatedly been made to obtain permission from the
sovereign to tear down the brick wall so as to give access to this
staircase, not only for the sake of convenience, but also with the
object of setting at rest forever the popular superstitions and rumors
on the subject. Neither King Frederick-William IV., nor the late
Emperor William would ever hear of such a thing, and the late Emperor
Frederick, who was the least superstitious and most matter-of-fact
of men, grew grave and silent, when it was suggested to him that he
should give the desired permission. As for the present emperor, he
has sternly forbidden that the matter should even be mentioned in his
presence. This extraordinary reluctance displayed by both the kaiser
and his predecessors to discover what there is behind that brick wall
leads to the conviction that the mouldering remains of the victim
of the treacherous hospitality of a prince of Prussia lie concealed
there.