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Secret Memoirs
THE COURT OF ROYAL SAXONY
1891-1902
This edition, printed on Japanese vellum paper, is limited to two
hundred and fifty copies.
No. ________
[Illustration: LOUISE, EX-CROWN-PRINCESS OF SAXONY
Photo taken shortly before her flight from Dresden]
Secret Memoirs
THE COURT OF ROYAL SAXONY 1891-1902
THE STORY OF LOUISE CROWN PRINCESS
FROM THE PAGES OF HER DIARY, LOST AT THE TIME OF HER ELOPEMENT FROM
DRESDEN WITH M. ANDRE ("RICHARD") GIRON
BY HENRY W. FISCHER
Author of "Private Lives of William II and His Consort," "Secret History
of the Court of Berlin," etc., etc.
Illustrated from Photographs
BENSONHURST, NEW YORK FISCHER'S FOREIGN LETTERS, INC. PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1912
BY HENRY W. FISCHER
Copyright, 1912, applied for by Henry W. Fischer in Great Britain
Copyright, 1912, by Henry W. Fischer, in Germany, France, Austria,
Switzerland, and all foreign countries having international copyright
arrangements with the United States
[_All rights reserved, including those of translation_]
EDITOR'S CARD
This is to certify that the Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, now called
Countess Montiguoso, Madame Toselli by her married name, is in no way,
either directly or indirectly, interested in this publication.
There has been no communication of whatever nature, directly or through
a third party, between this lady and the editor or publishers. In fact,
the publication will be as much a surprise to her as to the general
public.
The Royal Court of Saxony, therefore, has no right to claim, on the
ground of this publication, that Princess Louise violated her agreement
with that court as set forth in the chapter on the _Kith and Kin of the
ex-Crown Princess of Saxony_, under the heads of "_Louise's Alimony and
Conditions_" and "_Allowance Raised and a Further Threat_."
HENRY W. FISCHER, _Editor_.
Fischer's Foreign Letters, Publishers
THIS BOOK AND ITS PURPOSE
By Henry W. Fischer
Of Memoirs that are truly faithful records of royal lives, we have a
few; the late Queen Victoria led the small number of crowned
autobiographists only to discourage the reading of self-satisfied royal
ego-portrayals forever, but in the Story of Louise of Saxony we have the
main life epoch of a Cyprian Royal, who had no inducement to say
anything false and is not afraid to say anything true.
For the Saxon Louise wrote not to guide the hand of future official
historiographers, or to make virtue distasteful to some sixty odd
grand-children, bored to death by the recital of the late "Mrs. John
Brown's" sublime goodness:--Louise wrote for her own amusement, even as
Pepys did when he diarized the peccadilloes of the Second Charles'
English and French "hures" (which is the estimate these ladies put upon
themselves).[1]
The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony suffered much in her youth by a
narrow-minded, bigoted mother, a Sadist like the monstrous Torquemada;
marriage, she imagined, spelled a rich husband, more lover than master;
freedom from tyranny, paltry surroundings, interference. To her
untutored mind, life at the Saxon Court meant right royal splendor,
liberty to do as one pleases, the companionship of agreeable, amusing
and ready-to-serve friends.
_The Sad Saxon Court_
Her experience? Instead of the Imperial mother who took delight in
cutting her children's faces with diamonds and exposing her daughters to
the foul machinations of worthless teachers--she acquired a
father-in-law (Prince, afterwards King George) whose pretended affection
was but a share of his all-encompassing hatred, whose breath was a
serpent's, whose veins were flowing with gall; the supposed
chevaleresque husband turned out a walking dictionary of petty
indecencies and gross vulgarities when in a favorable mood, a brawler at
other times, a coward always.
As to money--Louise wished for nothing better "than to be an American
multi-millionaire's daughter for a week"! Amusements were few and
frowned upon.
Liberty? None outside of a general permit to eat, drink and couple like
animals in pasture, was recognized or tolerated. Nor could the royal
young woman make friends. Her relatives-by-marriage were mostly freaks,
and all were unbearable; her entourage a collection of spies and
flunkeys.
If charity-bazaars, pious palaver, and orphaned babies' diapers had not
been the sole topic of conversation at court; if there had been
intellectual enjoyment of any kind, Louise might never have taken up
her pen. As it was: "This Diary is intended to contain my innermost
thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future, _Myself_. * * *
These pages are my Father-Confessor. I confess to myself. * * * And as I
start in writing letters to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self
may be corresponding with my better self, or vice-versa."
At any rate she thinks "this Diary business will be quite amusing."
_Louise's Amusing Writings_
It is. The world always laughs at the--husband of a woman whose history
isn't one long yawn.
Nor is Louise content with a bust picture.[2] She gives full length
portraits of herself, family, friends, enemies, and lovers, which latter
she picks hap-hazard among commoners and the nobility. Only one of them
was a prince of the blood, and he promptly proved the most false and
dishonorable of the lot.
When Louise's pen-pictures do not deal with her _amororos_, they focus
invariably emperors and princes, kings and queens,--contemporary
personages whose acquaintance, by way of the newspapers and magazines,
we all enjoy to the full, as "stern rulers," "sacrificers to the public
weal," "martyrs of duty," "indefatigable workers," "examples of
abstinence," and "high-mindedness"--everything calculated to make life a
burden to the ordinary mortal.
_Kings in Fiction and in Reality_
But kings and emperors, we are told by these _distant_ observers, are
built that way; they would not be happy unless they made themselves
unhappy for their people's sake. And as to queens and empresses,--they
simply couldn't live if they didn't inspect their linen closets daily,
stand over a broiling cook-stove, or knit socks for the offspring of
inebriated bricklayers "and sich."
Witness Louise, Imperial and Royal Highness, Archduchess of Austria,
Princess of Hungary and Tuscany, Crown Princess of Saxony, etc., etc.,
smash these paper records of infallible royal rectitude, and superhuman,
almost inhuman, royal probity!
Had she castigated her own kind _after_ royalty unkenneled her, neck and
crop, her story might admit of doubt, but she wrote these things while
in the full enjoyment of her rank and station, before her title as
future queen was ever questioned or menaced.
Her Diary finishes with her last night in the Dresden palace. We do not
hear so much as the clatter of the carriage wheels that carried her and
"Richard" to her unfrocking as princess of the blood,--in short, our
narrator is not prejudiced, on the defensive, or soured by
disfranchisement. She had no axes to grind while writing; for her all
kings dropped out of the clouds; the lustre that surrounds a king never
dimmed while her Diary was in progress, and before she ceases talking to
us she never "ate of the fish that hath fed of that worm that hath eat
of a king."
Yet this large folio edition of _obscenites royale_, chock full, at the
same time, of intensely human and interesting facts, notable and amusing
things, as enthralling as a novel by Balzac,--Louise's life record in
sum and substance, since her carryings-on _after_ she doffed her royal
robes for the motley of the free woman are of no historical, and but
scant human interest.
The prodigality of the mass of indictments Louise launches against
royalty as every-day occurrences, reminds one of the great Catharine
Sforza, Duchess of Milan's clever _mot_. When the enemy captured her
children she merely said, "I retain the oven for more."
_Royal Scandals_
Such scandalmongering! Only Her Imperial Highness doesn't see the
obloquy,--sarcasm, cynicism and disparagement being royalty's every-day
diet.
Such gossiping! But what else was there to do at a court whose
literature is tracts and whose theatre of action the drill grounds.
But for all that, Louise's Diary is history, because its minute things
loom big in connection with social and political results, even as its
horrors and abnormalities help paint court life and the lives of kings
and princes as they _are_, not as royalties' sycophants and apologizers
would have us view them.
There is a perfect downpour of books eulogizing monarchs and monarchy;
royal governments spend millions of the people's money to uphold and
aggrandize exalted kingship and seedy princeship alike; three-fourths of
the press of Europe is swayed by king-worship, or subsidized to sing the
praises of "God's Anointed," while in our own country the aping of
monarchical institutions, the admiration for court life, the
idealization of kings, their sayings, doings and pretended superiority,
as carried on by the multi-rich, are undermining love for the Republic
and the institutions our fathers fought and bled for.
_Un-American Folly_
It's the purpose of the present volume to show the guilty folly of such
un-American, un-republican, wholly unjustifiable, reprehensible and
altogether ridiculous King-worship, not by argument, or a more or less
fanciful story, but by the unbiased testimony of an "insider."
Let it be considered, above all, that a member of the proudest Imperial
family in the wide, wide world demonstrates, by inference, the absurdity
of King-worship!
Of course, whether or not you'll obey the impassioned appeal of the
corner sermonizer, who, espying a number of very decolletee ladies
passing by in a carriage, cried out: "_Quand vous voyez ces tetons
rebondies, qui se montrent avec tant d'impudence, bandez! bandez!
bandez! vous--les yeux!_" is a matter for you to decide.
* * * * *
Seek not for descriptions of ceremonials and festivities in these pages;
only imbeciles among kings are interested in such wearying spectacles,
intended to dazzle the multitude. The Czar Paul, who became insane and
had his head knocked off by his own officers, appeared upon the scene
vacated by his brilliant mother, Catharine the Great, with a valise full
of petty regulations, ready drawn up, by which, every day, every hour,
every minute, he announced some foolish change, punishment or favor, but
I often saw Kaiser Wilhelm and other kings look intensely bored and
disgusted when obliged to attend dull and superfluous court or
government functions.
_Royalty's Loose Talk_
But for genuine expressions of the royal self consult Louise. Those who
think that royalty shapes its language in accordance with the plural of
the personal pronoun, sometimes used in state papers, will be shocked at
the "neglige talk" of one royal highness and the "rag-time" expressions
of others. Louise, herself, assures us over and over again that she
"_feels like a dog_," a statement no self-respecting publisher's reader
would allow to pass, yet I was told by a friend of King Frederick of
Denmark that he loved to compare his "all-highest person" to a "_mut_,"
and I remember a letter from Victor Emanuel II to his great Minister,
Count Cavour, solemnly protesting that he (the King) was "_no ass_."
When the same Danish ruler, the seventh of his name, was asked why, in
thunder, he married a common street walker (the Rasmussen, afterwards
created Countess Danner), he cried out with every indication of gusto:
"You don't know how deliciously common that girl is."
Frederick's words explain the hostler marriages of several royal women
mentioned by Louise, as well as her own and loving family's
_broulleries_ of the fish-wife order, repeatedly described in the Diary.
_Royalty Threatens a Royal Woman_
It is safe to say that few $15 flats in all the United States witnessed
more outrageous family jars than were fought out in the gilded halls of
the Dresden palace between Louise and father-in-law and Louise and
husband. Threats of violence are frequent; Prince George promises his
daughter-in-law a sound beating at the hands of the Crown Prince and the
Crown Princess confesses that she would rather go to bed with a drunken
husband, booted and spurred, than risk a sword thrust.
At the coronation of the present Czar, at Moscow, I mistook the Duke of
Edinburgh, brother of the late King Edward, for a policeman attached to
the British Ambassador, so exceedingly commonplace a person in
appearance, speech and manner he seemed; Louise has a telling chapter on
the mean looks of royalty, but fails to see the connection between that
and royalty's coarseness.
Perhaps it wasn't the "commonness" of Lady Emma Hamilton, child of the
slums, impersonator of _risque_ stage pictures, and mistress of the
greatest naval hero of all times, that appealed primarily to Louise's
grand-aunt, Queen Caroline of Naples, but the abandon of the beautiful
Englishwoman, her reckless exposure of person, her freedom of speech,
certainly sealed the friendship between the adventuress and the despotic
ruler who deserved the epithet of "bloody" no less than Mary of England.
_Covetous Royalty_
Royal covetousness is another subject dwelt on by Louise. We learn that
in money matters the kings and princes of her acquaintance--and her
acquaintance embraces all the monarchs of Europe--are "dirty," that
royal girls are given in marriage to the highest bidder, and that poor
princes have no more chance to marry a rich princess than a drayman an
American multi-millionaire's daughter.
Louise gives us a curious insight into the Pappenheim-Wheeler marriage
embroglio, and refers to some noble families that made their money in
infamous trades; that the Kaiser adopted the title of one of these
unspeakables ("Count of Henneberg") she doesn't seem to know.
We hear of imperial and royal highnesses, living at public expense and
for whom honors and lucrative employment are exacted from the people,
who at home figure as poor relations, obliged to submit to treatment
that a self-respecting "boots" or "omnibus" would resent.
Here we have a royal prince of twenty-four or twenty-five subjected to
kicks and cuffs by his uncle, who happens to be king--no indignity
either to the slugged or the slugger in that--but when a pretty princess
gets a few "_Hochs_" more than an ugly, mouse-colored majesty, she is
all but flayed for "playing to the gallery."
"High-minded" royalty robs widows and despoils orphans; re-introduces
into the family obsolete punishments forbidden by law; maintains in the
household a despicable spy system! Its respect for womanhood is on a par
with a Bushman's; of authors, "lickspittles" only count; literature,
unless it kowtows to the "all-highest" person, is the "trade of Jew
scribblers."
_Right Royal Manners_
As to manners, what do you think of kings and princes and grand-dukes
who, at ceremonial dinners, pound the table to "show that they are
boss"?
Louise tells of an emperor at a foreign court ignoring one of his
hostesses absolutely, even refusing to acknowledge her salute by a nod.
We hear of expectant royal heirs who engage in wild fandangoes of
merriment while their father, brother or cousin lies dying.
"Personal matter," you say? "A typical case," I retort.
"Ask the _Duc du_ Maine to wait till I am dead before he indulges in the
full extent of his joy," said the dying Louis XIV, when the _De
Profundis_ in the death chamber was suddenly interrupted by the sound of
violent laughter from the adjoining gallery. And the fact that almost
every new king sets aside the testament of his predecessor,--is this not
evidence of the general callowness of feeling prevailing in royal
circles?
_The Irish Famine and Royalty_
In famine times, the kings and princes of old drove the starving out of
town to die of hunger in the fields, and as late as 1772 one hundred and
fifty thousand Saxons died of hunger under the "glorious reign" of
Louise's grandfather-by-marriage, Frederick Augustus III. And the "Life
of Queen Victoria," approved by the Court of St. James, unblushingly
informs us that in 1847 "Her Most Gracious Majesty" was chiefly
concerned about investing to good profit the revenues of the Prince of
Wales, her infant son (about four hundred thousand dollars per annum).
Yet, while Victoria pinched the boy's tenants to extort an extra penny
for him, and "succeeded in saving all but four thousand pounds sterling"
of his imperial allowance, the population of Ireland was reduced two
millions by the most dreadful famine the world remembers!
Before the famine Ireland had a population of 8,196,597, against a
population of 15,914,148 in England and Wales, while Scotland's
population was 2,620,184.
Six years after the famine Ireland's population was 6,574,278,
Scotland's 2,888,742, England and Wales' 17,927,609. Today Ireland's
population is less than Scotland's, the exact figures being: Scotland
4,759,445, Ireland 4,381,951, England and Wales 36,075,269.
_Royalty Utterly Heartless_
However, as the waste of two million human lives, the loss of four
millions in population, subsequently enabled the Prince of Wales to tie
the price of a dukedom[3] in diamonds around a French dancer's neck and
to support a hundred silly harlots in all parts of Europe, who cares?
According to Louise and--others, royalty is the meanest, the most
heartless, the most faithless and the most unjust of the species--that
in addition she herself disgraced its womanhood, after the famous Louise
of Prussia rehabilitated queenship, is regrettable, but to call it
altogether unexpected would be rank euphemism.
_Louise's Character_
If Louise had lived at the time of Phryne, the philosophers would have
characterized her as "an animal with long hair"; if he had known her,
the great Mirabeau might have coined his pet phrase, "a human that
dresses, undresses and--talks" (or writes) for Louise; as a matter of
fact, she is one of those "_Jansenists_" of love who believe in the
utter helplessness of natural woman to turn down a good looking man.
Her great grand-uncle, Emperor Francis, recorded on a pane of glass
overlooking the courtyard of the Vienna _Hofburg_ his opinion of women
in the brief observation: "_Chaque femme varie_" (Women always change).
This is true of Louise and also untrue of her. While occupying her high
position at the Saxon court she was fixed in the determination to make a
cuckold of her husband, though Frederick Augustus, while a pumpkin,
wasn't fricasseed in snow by any means.
The process gave her palpitations, but, like Ninon, she was "_so_ happy
when she had palpitations."
_Changed Lovers Frequently_
As to lovers, she changed them as often as she had to, never hesitating
to pepper her _steady_ romances by playing "everybody's wife," chance
permitting, as she intimates naively towards the close of the Diary.
Qualms of conscience she knows not, but of pride of ancestry, of
insistence on royal prerogatives, she has plenty and to spare.
"My great grand-aunt, Marie Antoinette, did this"; "my good cousins
d'Orleans" (three of them) "allowed themselves to be seduced"; "_ma
cousine de_ Saxe-Coburg laughs at conventionalities,"--there you have
the foundation of the iniquitous philosophy of the royal Lais. And for
the rest--when she is queen, all will be well.
_Her Court--A Seraglio_
Louise's fixed idea was that, as Queen of Saxony, she had but to say the
word to establish a court _a la_ Catharine II; time and again she refers
to the great Empress's male seraglio, and to the enormous sums she
squandered on her favorites. If the Diarist had known that Her Majesty
of Russia, when in the flesh, never suffered to be longer than
twenty-four hours without a lover, Louise, no doubt, would have made the
most elaborate plans to prevent, in her own case, a possible
_interregnum_ of five minutes even.
She thought she held the whip hand because a king cannot produce princes
without his wife, while the wife can produce princes without the king;
besides Frederick Augustus was no paragon, and he who plants horns, must
not grudge to wear them.
A wanton's calculations, it will be argued,--but Louise's records show
that her husband, the king-to-be, fell in with her main idea,--that he
forgave the unfaithful wife, the disgraced princess, because, as Queen,
her popularity would be "a great asset."
And Americans, our women of whom we are so proud, are asked to bow down
to such sorry majesties!
_Sired and "Cousined" by Lunatics_
And is there no excuse for so much baseness in high places? Our royal
Diarist offers none, but her family history is a telling apology.
Be it remembered that Louise is not so much an Austrian as a
Wittelsbacher of the royal house of Bavaria that gave to the world two
mad kings, Louis II and Otho, the present incumbent of the throne,
besides a number of eccentrics, among others Louise's aunts, the Empress
Elizabeth and the Duchess d'Alencon, both dead; Crown Prince Rudolph of
Austria, her cousin, was also undoubtedly insane, the result of breeding
in and in, Austrian, Bourbon and Wittelsbach stock, all practically of
the same parentage, in a mad mix-up, the insane Wittelsbachers
predominating.
To cap the climax, Louise has eighteen or nineteen insane cousins on her
mother's side!
* * * * *
Once upon a time Louise's prosaic and stupid great-uncle, as a young
husband, felt dreadfully scandalized when his Queen, Marie Antoinette,
bombarded him with spit-balls.
"What can I do with her?" he asked "Minister Sans-culotte" Dumouriez.
"I would spike the cannon, Sire," replied the courtier.
"_Enclouer le canon_," if performed in time, might have saved Louise,
but I doubt it.
HENRY W. FISCHER.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: "Be civil, good people, I am the English hure," said Nell
Gwyn, addressing a London mob that threatened to storm her carriage,
assuming that its occupant was the hated Frenchwoman.]
[Footnote 2: "Your biography give a faithful portrait of self," said
Fontenelle, the famous French Academician, to an 18th Century Marquise,
"but I miss the record of your gallantries."
"_Ah, Monsieur, c'est que je ne me suis peinte qu'en buste!_" replied
her ladyship.]
[Footnote 3: The Prince of Wales' revenue is derived from the Duchy of
Cornwall, amounting to about half a million dollars per year.]
KITH AND KIN OF THE EX-CROWN PRINCESS OF SAXONY
_Louise's Own Family_
The royal woman whose life's history is recorded in this volume was born
Louise Antoinette, Daughter of the late Grand Duke Ferdinand IV of
Tuscany (died January 17, 1908) and the Dowager Grand Duchess Alice,
_nee_ Princess Bourbon of Parma.
* * * * *
Louise has four brothers, among them the present head of the Tuscany
family, Joseph Ferdinand, who dropped the obsolete title of Grand Duke
and is officially known as Archduke of Austria-Hungary.
He is a brigadier general, commanding the Fifth Austrian Infantry, and
unmarried.
Better known is Louise's older brother, the former Archduke Leopold, who
dropped his title and dignities, and, as a Swiss citizen, adopted the
name of Leopold Wulfling. This Leopold is generally regarded as a black
sheep.
Louise more often refers to him in the present volume than to any other
member of her family.
He is now a commoner by his own, more or less enforced, abdication, as
Louise is a commoner by decree of her chief-of-family, the Austrian
Emperor, Francis Joseph, dated Vienna, January 27, 1903.
A month before above date the Saxon court had conferred on Louise the
title of Countess Montiguoso, while, on her own part, she adopted the
fanciful cognomen of Louise of Tuscany.
Of Louise's two remaining brothers, one, Archduke Peter, serves in the
Austrian army as Colonel of the Thirty-second Infantry, while Archduke
Henry is Master of Horse in the Sixth Bavarian Dragoons.
Only one of Louise's four sisters is married, the oldest, Anna, now
Princess Johannes of Hohenlohe-Bartenstein.
The unmarried sisters are Archduchesses Margareta (31 years old),
Germana (28 years old), Agnes (22 years old).
* * * * *
_Mother Comes of Mentally Tainted Stock_
Louise's mother, _nee_ Princess Alice of Parma, is the only surviving
sister of the late Duke Robert, who left twenty children, all living,
and of whom eighteen or nineteen are either imbeciles or raving
lunatics, the present head of the house, Duke Henry, belonging to the
first category of mentally unsound.
Louise's first cousin, Prince Elias of Parma, the seventh son, is
accounted sound, but Elias's sister, Zita (the twelfth child), developed
maniacal tendencies since her marriage to Archduke Karl Francis Joseph,
heir-presumptive to the crown of Austria-Hungary.
* * * * *
_Francis Joseph's Autocratic Rule_
_Louise Formerly in Line of Austrian Succession_
Louise was in the line of the Austrian succession until, upon her
marriage to the Crown Prince of Saxony (1891), she officially renounced
her birthrights.
Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary is Louise's grand-uncle as
well as chief of the imperial family of Austria, the royal family of
Hungary, the Grand-ducal family of Tuscany (now extinct as far as the
title goes), and of the Estes, which is the Ducal Line of Modena,
extinct in the male line. Finally he is recognized as chief by the ducal
family of Parma, descendants of the Spanish Hapsburgs.
Emperor Francis Joseph rules all the Hapsburgers, Austrian, Hungarian,
and those of Tuscany, of Este, of Modena and Parma, autocratically, his
word being law in the family. Even titles conferred by birth can be
taken away by him, as exemplified in the case of Louise and her brother
Leopold.
* * * * *
_Royal Saxons_
As a member of the Austrian imperial family, the Hapsburgers, founded in
883, Louise ranked higher than her husband, the Crown Prince of the
petty Kingdom of Saxony, whose claim to the royal title dates from
1806,--a gift of the Emperor Napoleon.
She married Frederick Augustus November 21, 1891, while the latter's
uncle reigned as King Albert of Saxony (1873 to 1902).
Louise's father-in-law, up to then known as Prince George, succeeded his
brother June 19, 1902. He was then a widower and his family consisted
of:
Princess Mathilde, unmarried,
The Crown Prince Frederick Augustus, husband of Louise,
Princess Marie-Josepha, wife of Archduke Otho of Austria,
Prince Johann George, at that time married to Isabelle of Wuerttemberg,
and
Prince Max. The latter subsequently shelved his title and entered the
Church July 26, 1896. He is a professor of canonical law and slated for
a German bishopric.
At the time of Prince George's ascension, there was also living the late
King Albert's widow, Queen Caroline, _nee_ Princess of Wasa, since
dead.
The Marchesa Rapallo, _nee_ Princess Elizabeth of Saxony, is a sister of
the late King George.
_Louise and Her Father-in-Law_
During King George's short reign, Louise ran away from the Saxon court,
end of November, 1902.
On February 11, 1903, divorce was pronounced against her by a special
court assembled by King George.
Louise was adjudged the guilty party and deprived of the name and style
of Crown Princess of Saxony. As previously (January 27) the Austrian
Emperor had forbidden her to use the name and title of Austrian
Archduchess and Imperial and royal Princess, Louise would have been
nameless but for the rank and title of Countess Montiguoso, conferred
upon her by King George.
* * * * *
_Louise's Alimony Conditional_
At the same time Louise accepted from the court of Saxony a considerable
monthly allowance on condition that "she undertake nothing liable to
compromise the reigning family, either by criticism or story, either by
word, deed or in writing."
* * * * *
_Frederick Augustus, King_
Upon his father's death, Frederick Augustus succeeded King George
October 15, 1904. He is now forty-seven years old, while Louise is
forty-two.
The King of Saxony has six children by Louise, three boys and three
girls, five born in wedlock, the youngest born without wedlock. The
children born in wedlock are:
The present Crown Prince, born 1893.
Frederick Christian, likewise born in 1893.
Ernest, born 1896.
Margaret, born 1900.
And Marie Alix, born 1901.
The youngest Princess of Saxony, so called, Anna Monica, was born by
Louise more than six months after she left her husband and nearly three
months after her divorce.
Louise desired to retain Anna Monica in her own custody, but though the
child's fathership is in doubt, to say the least, Frederick Augustus
insisted upon the little one's transference to his care.
* * * * *
_Allowance Raised and a Further Threat_
King Frederick Augustus raised Louise's allowance to $12,000 per year,
"which alimony ceases if the said Countess Montiguoso shall commit,
either personally, directly or indirectly, any act in writing or
otherwise liable to injure the reputation of King Frederick Augustus or
members of the royal family of Saxony, or if the said Countess
Montiguoso contributes to any such libellous publication in any manner
or form."
* * * * *
_The Divorce of Royal Couple Illegal_
After divorce was pronounced against her, Louise declined to accept the
decree of the court, pronouncing the proceedings illegal on the ground
that both she and husband are Catholics and that the Roman Catholic
Church, under no circumstances, recognizes divorce. Her protest gained
importance from the fact that her marriage to Frederick Augustus was
solemnized by the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The Saxon court,
on the other hand, justified its own decision by basing same on a
certain civil ceremony entered into by Louise and Frederick Augustus
previous to the church marriage.
* * * * *
_Louise Marries a Second Time_
When Louise realized in the course of years that Frederick Augustus
would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of
her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian
composer and pianist of small reputation.
This marriage was performed civilly. They have one child, a boy, about
whose custody the now legally separated parents have instituted several
actions in law. The boy has now been allotted to the care of Toselli's
mother.
_King Did Not Marry Again_
King Frederick Augustus, though by the laws of Saxony and Germany
allowed to contract a second marriage, has not availed himself of the
license, probably in deference to the wishes of the Vatican. At the same
time he spurned all of Louise's attempts at reconciliation, the most
dramatic of which was her _coup de tete_ of December, 1904, when she
went to Dresden "to see her children," was arrested at the palace gate
and conducted out of the kingdom by high police officials.
* * * * *
_Other Royalties Mentioned in This Volume_
Louise refers, in her Diary, to the Kaiser as "cousin." If there be any
relationship between her and William, it is that imposed by the Saxon
marriage, Saxon princes and princesses having frequently intermarried
with the royal and princely Hohenzollerns, despite the differences of
religion. There are four courts of Saxony despite that of Dresden:
Weimar, Meiningen, Altenburg and Coburg and Gotha.
The latter duchy's ruler, Karl Eduard, is of English descent, a son of
the late Duke of Albany. Hence, Louise's cousinship with Victoria
Melita, sometime Grand Duchess of Hesse, now Grand Duchess Kyril of
Russia.
Of course, Louise is closely related to all the Orleans and Bourbons.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who died on the scaffold at Paris,
October 16, 1793, she calls her great-grand-aunt and namesake, claiming,
at the same time, most of the Kings and princes of France of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as relatives.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
MOTHERHOOD
PAGE
A sterile Royal Family once fruitful--Diary true record of
self--Long legs of Countess Solms--A child only because
he can't help it--Wet nurse to Socialist brat--Royal
permit for nursing--Royal negligee talk--A Saxon
failing 1
CHAPTER II
THE SWEET FAMILY
Husband loving, but family nasty--Money considerations--Brutal
caresses in public--Pests in the family--Awful
serenity--Meddle with angels' or devils' affairs--Father-in-law's
gritty kiss 7
CHAPTER III
WEEPING WILLOW--EMBLEM ROYAL
A pious fraud--Theresa Mayer--Character of the Queen--Mopishness
rampant 11
CHAPTER IV
MY UNPLEASANT YOUTH
Father hard to get along with--Royal imaginations--Kings
cursing other kings--Poverty and pretense--Piety that
makes children suffer--Up at five to pray on cold
stones--Chilblains and prayer 15
CHAPTER V
A FIERCE DISCIPLINARIAN
Diamonds used to punish children--Face object of attacks--
Grunting and snorting at the royal table--Blood flowing
at dinner--My brother jumps out of a window 19
CHAPTER VI
LEOPOLD DEFENDS MY HONOR AT HIS PERIL
Punished for objecting to familiarities--Awful names I was
called--Locked in the room with wicked teacher--Defend
myself with burning lamp--My brother nearly kills
my would-be assailant 23
CHAPTER VII
PRINCES AND PRINCESSES DANCE TO THE TUNE OF THE WHIP
The result shows in the character of rulers--Why English
kings and princes are superior to the Continental kind--Leopold's
awful revenge--Mother acts the tigress--Her
mailed fist--"I forbid Your Imperial Highness to see
that dog" 27
CHAPTER VIII
PLANNING TO GET A HUSBAND FOR ME
Dissecting possible wooers at Vienna--Royalty after money,
not character--"He is a Cohen, not a Coburg"--Prince
who looked like a Jew counter-jumper in his Sunday
best--Balkan princes tabooed by Francis Joseph--A
good time for the girls--Army men commanded to attend
us 35
CHAPTER IX
LOVE-MAKING
The fascinating Baron--The man's audacity--Putting the
question boldly--Real love-making--_Risque_ stories for
royalty 41
CHAPTER X
MY POPULARITY RENDERS GEORGE DYSPEPTIC
The Cudgel-Majesty--Prince George's intrigues--No four-horse
coach for Princess--Popular demonstration in my
favor--"All-highest" displeasure 45
CHAPTER XI
SCOLDED FOR BEING POPULAR
Entourage spied upon by George's minions--My husband
proves a weakling--I disavow the personal compliment--No
more intelligent than a king should be 53
CHAPTER XII
ROYAL DISGRACE--LIGHTNING AND SHADOWS
Ordered around by the Queen--Give thanks to a bully--Jealous
of the "mob's" applause--"The old monkey after
'_Hochs_'"--Criticizing the "old man"--Royalty's plea for
popularity--Proposed punishments for people refusing
to love royalty 57
CHAPTER XIII
UNSPEAKABLE LITTLENESSES OF PETTY COURTS
Another quarrel with my husband--Personal attendant to a
corpse--Killing by pin pricks--The mythical three "_How
art thou's?_"--Unwanted sympathy from my inferiors--Pride
of the decapitated Queen of France is in me--Lovers
not impossible--Court to blame for them--My
husband acts cowardly--Brutalizes my household--I
lock myself in 63
CHAPTER XIV
IMPERIAL RUSSIAN ETHICS TRANSFERRED TO DRESDEN
My husband's reported escapade--Did he give diamonds to a
dancing girl?--His foolish excuses--"I am your pal"--A
restaurant scene in St. Petersburg--The birthday
suit 71
CHAPTER XV
ROYALTY NOT PRETTY, AND WHY
Fecundity royal women's greatest charm--How to have
beautiful children 77
CHAPTER XVI
MORE JEALOUSIES OF THE GREAT
Men and women caress me with their eyes--Some disrespectful
sayings and doings of mine--First decided quarrel
with Frederick Augustus--I go to the theatre in spite
of him 81
CHAPTER XVII
THE ROYAL PRINCE, WHO BEHAVES LIKE A DRUNKEN BRICKLAYER
I face the music, but my husband runs away--Prince George
can't look me in the eye--He roars and bellows--Advocates
wife-beating--I defy him--German classics--"Jew
literature" _Auto da fe_ ordered 85
CHAPTER XVIII
I DEFY THEM
Laughter and pleasant faces for me--Frederick Augustus refuses
to back me, but I don't care--We quarrel about
my reading--He professes to gross ignorance 91
CHAPTER XIX
ATTEMPTED VIOLENCE DEFEATED BY FIRMNESS
Frederick Augustus seeks to carry out his father's brutal
threats--Orders and threats before servants--I positively
refuse to be ordered about--Frederick Augustus
plays Mrs. Lot--Enjoying myself at the theatre 95
CHAPTER XX
TITLED SERVANTS LOW AND CUNNING
George tries to rob me of my confidante--Enter the King's
spy, Baroness Tisch in her true character--Punishment
of one royal spy 99
CHAPTER XXI
BANISHMENT
I am ordered to repair to a country house with the hated spy
as my Grand Mistress--My first impulse to go home,
but afraid parents won't have me 103
CHAPTER XXII
"POOR RELATIONS" IN ROYAL HOUSES
Myself and Frederick Augustus quarrel and pound table--The
Countess Cosel's golden vessel--Off to Brighton--Threat
of a beating--I provoke shadows of divorce--King
threatens force--More defiance on my part--I
humble the King and am allowed to invite my brother
Leopold 105
CHAPTER XXIII
A SERVANT-TYRANT
My correspondence is not safe from the malicious woman
appointed Grand Mistress--Lovers at a distance and by
correspondence--Fell in love with a leg 115
CHAPTER XXIV
MORE TYRANNY OF A TITLED SERVANT
My daily papers seized, and only milk-and-water clippings
are submitted--"King's orders"--Grand Mistress's veracity
doubted--My threats of suspension cow her 119
CHAPTER XXV
THE TWO BLACK SHEEP OF THE FAMILY UNITED
Leopold upon my troubles and his own--Imperial Hapsburgs
that, though Catholics, got divorces or married
divorced women--Books that are full of guilty knowledge,
according to royalty--A mud-hole lodging for one
Imperial Highness--Leopold's girl--What I think of
army officers' wives--Their anonymous letters--Leopold's
money troubles--We will fool our enemies by
feigning obedience 123
CHAPTER XXVI
FREDERICK AUGUSTUS CONTINUES VERY RAW
Manners _a la_ barracks natural to royal princes--Names I
am called--My ladies scandalized--Leopold turned over
a new leaf, according to agreement, and is well treated--The
King grateful to me for having "influenced Leopold
to be good" 129
CHAPTER XXVII
PRINCE MAX MAKES LOVE TO ME
Wants me to consult him on all spiritual matters--Warns me
against the Kaiser, the heretic bishop--Princes as ill-mannered
as Russian-Jew up-starts 133
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SHAH OF PERSIA FALLS IN LOVE WITH ME
The "animal" and his show of diamonds and rubies--Overcome
by love he treats me like a lady of the harem--On
the defensive--The King of kings an ill-behaved
brute--Eats like a pig and affronts Queen--Wiped off
greasy hands on my state robe--When ten thousand
gouged-out eyes carpeted his throne--Offers of jewels--"Does
he take me for a ballet girl?"--The Shah almost
compromises me--King, alarmed, abruptly ends
dinner--I receive presents from him 135
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SHAH COMPROMISES ME IN PUBLIC
Has only eyes for me at the grand manoeuvres, and I can't
drive him from my carriage--Ignores the King and the
military spectacle--Calls me his adored one--Court in
despair--Shah ruins priceless carpets to make himself
a lamb stew 139
CHAPTER XXX
MY LIFE AT COURT BECOMES UNBEARABLE
Laughter a crime--Disappointed Queen lays down the law
for my behavior--Frederick Augustus sometimes fighting
drunk--Draws sword on me--Prince George would have
me beaten--To bed with his boots on 143
CHAPTER XXXI
PRISON FOR PRINCES THAT OPPOSE THE KING
Duke of Saxony banished--Cut off from good literature
even--Anecdote concerning the Grand Dauphin and his
"kettledrums"--A royal prince's garrison life--His association
with lewd women 147
CHAPTER XXXII
PRINCE GEORGE SHOWN THE DOOR BY GRAND-DUCHESS MELITA
A royal lady who walks her garden attired in a single diaphanous
garment--Won't stand for any meddling--Called
impertinent--My virtuous indignation assumed--A
flirtation at a distance--An audacious lover--The
Grand Mistress hoodwinked--Matrimonial horns for
Kaiser--The banished Duke dies--Princes scolded like
school-boys 151
CHAPTER XXXIII
MELITA'S LOVE AFFAIRS AND MINE
The Grand Duchess tells me how she cudgeled George--Living
dictaphone employed--Shows him who is mistress
of the house--Snaps fingers in Prince George's
face--Debate about titles--"A sexless thing of a husband"--Conference
between lover and husband--Grand
Duke doesn't object to his wife's lover, but lover objects
to "his paramour being married" 157
CHAPTER XXXIV
MORE ABOUT THE SWEET ROYAL FAMILY LIFE
"Closed season" for petty meannesses--A prince who enjoys
himself like a pig--Why princes learn trades--A family
dinner to the accompaniment of threats and smashing of
table--The Duke's widow and children robbed of their
inheritance by royal family--King confiscates testament 163
CHAPTER XXXV
FLIRTATION DEVELOPS INTO LOVE
At the theatre--My adorer must have felt my presence--Forgot
his diplomacy--The mute salute--His good looks--His
mouth a promise of a thousand sweet kisses--Our
love won't be any painted business 169
CHAPTER XXXVI
COUNT BIELSK MAKES LOVE TO THE CROWN PRINCESS
Fearless to indiscretion--He "thou's" me--Puts all his
chances on one card--Proposes a rendezvous--Shall I
go or shall I not go?--Peril if I go and peril if I don't 171
CHAPTER XXXVII
RAPID LOVE MAKING IN THE BOIS
A discreet maid--"Remove thy glove"--Kisses of passion,
pure kisses, powerful kisses--I see my lover daily--Countess
Barnello offers "doves' nest"--Driving to
rendezvous in state--"Naughty Louise," who makes fun
of George 177
CHAPTER XXXVIII
"IN LOVE THERE ARE NO PRINCESSES, ONLY WOMEN"
A diplomatic trick--Jealous of Romano's past--The pact for
life and the talisman--If there were a theatre fire the
talisman would discover our love to the King--Some
ill-natured reflections--Bernhardt's escapades cover up
my tracks--The "black sheep" jumps his horse over a
coffin--King gives him a beating--Bernhardt's mess-room
lingo--Anecdotes of royal voluptuaries--Forces
animals to devour each other--Naked ballet-girls as
horses--Abnormals rule the world 183
CHAPTER XXXIX
MY PUNISHMENT
I lose my lover--Quarrels with me because I did my duty
as a mother--Royalty extols me for the same reason---My
pride of kingship aroused by Socialist scribblers--Change
my opinion as to Duke's widow--Parents arrive--Father
and his alleged astrolatry--His finances disarranged
by alimony payments--My uncle, the Emperor,
rebukes mother harshly for complaining of _roue_
father 193
CHAPTER XL
A PLEBEIAN LOVER
In need of a friend--My physician offers his friendship--I
discover that he loves me, but he will never confess--I
give him encouragement--We manage to persuade
the King to further our intrigue--Not a bit repentant of
my peccadilloes--Very submissive--Introduced to my
lover's wife 199
CHAPTER XLI
AN ATROCIOUS ROYAL SCANDAL
A royal couple that shall be nameless--The voluptuous
Duchess--Her husband the worst of degenerates--"What
monsters these royalties be"--Nameless outrages--A
Duchess forced to have lovers--Ferdinand and I
live like married folk--Duchess feared for her life--Her
husband murdered her--I scold and humiliate my overbearing
Grand Mistress--The medical report too horrible
to contemplate 205
CHAPTER XLII
I LOSE ANOTHER OF MY LOVERS
Happily no scandal--Rewarded for bearing children--$1250--for
becoming a mother--Royal poverty--Bernhardt,
the black sheep, in hot water again--The King rebukes
me for taking his part 213
CHAPTER XLIII
THE CROWN PRINCESS QUELLS A RIOT
Asked to play the coward, and I refuse--A hostler who
would die for a look from me--Hostler marriages in
royal houses--Anecdotes and unknown facts concerning
royal ladies and their offspring--Refuse police escort
and rioters acclaim me--Whole royal family proud
of my feat 219
CHAPTER XLIV
THE NEW LOVER, AND "I PLAY THE HUSSY FOR FAIR"
Who is that most exquisite _Vortaenzer?_--A lovely boy--"Blush,
good white paper"--I long for Henry--My eyes
reflect love--"I must see you tonight. Arrange with
Lucretia"--Sorry I ever loved a man before Henry--Poetry
even--I try to get him an office at court--Afraid
women will steal him 227
CHAPTER XLV
LOVE AND THE HAPPINESS IT CONVEYS
My Grand Mistress suspects because I am so amiable--Pangs
of jealousy--Every good-looking man pursued by women--A
good story of my cousin, the Duchess Berri--We
all go cycling together--The Vitzthums--Love making
on the street--A mud bath 233
CHAPTER XLVI
FEARS FOR MY LOVE
Some reflections on queens of old who punished recreant
lovers--Henry was in debt and I gave him money--Indignities
by which some of that money was earned--Husband
accompanies me to Loschwitz--Reflections on
Frederick Augustus's character 239
CHAPTER XLVII
LOVE'S INTERMEZZO
Bernhardt takes advantage of my day-dreams--My husband's
indolent _gaucherie_--Violent love-making--Ninon who
loved families, not men--Does Bernhardt really love me? 245
CHAPTER XLVIII
GRAND MISTRESS TELLS HUSBAND I KEEP A DIARY
He wants to see it, but seems unsuspecting--Grand Mistress
denies that she meant mischief, but I upbraid her
unmercifully--Threaten to dismiss her like a thieving
lackey 251
CHAPTER XLIX
ARISTOCRATIC VISITORS
I hear disquieting news about my lover's character--The
aristocracy a dirty lot--Love-making made easy by titled
friends--Anecdotes of Richelieu and the Duke of Orleans--The
German nobleman who married Miss Wheeler and
had to resign his birthright--The disreputable business
the Pappenheims and other nobles used to be in--I am
afraid to question my lover as to charges 255
CHAPTER L
TO LIVE UNDER KING'S AND PRINCE GEORGE'S EYE
Abruptly ordered to the royal summer residence--The Vitzthums
and Henry take flight--Enmeshed by Prince
George's intrigues--Those waiting for a crown have no
friends--What I will do when Queen--No wonder Kings
of old married only relatives--Interesting facts about
relative marriages furnished by scientist 261
CHAPTER LI
COLD RECEPTION--ENEMIES ALL AROUND
Frederick Augustus gives his views on adultery--Doesn't
care personally, but "the King knows"--"Thank God,
the King is ill"--I am deprived of my children--Have
I got the moral strength to defy my enemies? 265
CHAPTER LII
PRINCE GEORGE REVEALS TO ME THE DEPTH OF HIS HATRED
A terrible interview--"The devil will come to claim you"--Uncertain
how much the King and Prince George know--I
break into the nursery and stay with my children all
day--Prince George insults me in my own rooms and
threatens prison if I disobey him 269
CHAPTER LIII
REVOLVER IN HAND, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION
An insolent Grand Mistress, but of wonderful courage--Imprisonment,
threats to kill have no effect on her--Disregards
my titles--My lover's souvenir and endearing
words--How she caused Henry to leave me--My paroxysms
of rage--Henry's complete betrayal of me 273
CHAPTER LIV
FORCED TO DO PENANCE LIKE A TRAPPIST-MONK
"By the King's orders"--I submit for the sake of my children--Must
fast as well as pray--In delicate health, I insist
upon returning to Dresden--Bernhardt, to avoid
being maltreated by King, threatens him with his sword--The
King's awful wrath--Bernhardt prisoner in Nossen--I
escape, temporarily, protracted _ennui_ 279
CHAPTER LV
FRANCIS JOSEPH JOINS MY SAXON ENEMIES
Cuts me dead before whole family--Everybody talks over
my head at dinner--I refuse to attend more court festivities--Husband
protests because I won't stand for insult
from Emperor--I give rein to my contempt for his
family--Hypocrites, despoilers, gamblers, religious maniacs,
brutes--Benign lords to the people, tyrants at home--I
cry for my children like a she-dog whose young
were drowned 285
CHAPTER LVI
I AM DETERMINED TO DO AS I PLEASE
I reject mother's tearful reproaches--I beard Prince George
in his lair despite whining chamberlains--I tell him what
I think of him, and he becomes frightened--Threatens
madhouse--"I dare you to steal my children"--I win my
point--and the children--"Her Imperial Highness regrets"--Lots
of forbidden literature--Precautions against
intriguing Grand Mistress--The affair with Henry--was
it a flower-covered pit to entrap me?--Castle Stolpen
and some of its awful history 291
CHAPTER LVII
I CONFESS TO PAPA
King Albert dies and King George a very sick man--Papa's
good advice--"You will be Queen soon"--A lovely old
man, very much troubled 301
CHAPTER LVIII
MONSIEUR GIRON--RICHARD, THE ARTIST
The King asks me to superintend lessons by M. Giron--A
most fascinating man--His Grecian eyes--He is a painter
as well as a teacher--In love--Careless whether I am
caught in my lover's arms--"Richard" talks anarchy to
me--Why I don't believe in woman suffrage--Characters
and doings of women in power 305
CHAPTER LIX
THE PEOPLE THINK ME A WANTON
Credit me with innumerable lovers, but don't disapprove--Glad
the King feels scandalized--Picture of the "she-monster"--Everybody
eager for love--I delight in Richard's
jealousy--Husband's indelicate announcement at
table--I rush from the royal opera to see my lover--A
threatening dream--Richard not mercenary like my noble
lovers 309
CHAPTER LX
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT LOOMS UP
My Grand Mistress shows her colors--Richard advises flight--I
hesitate on account of my children--My Grand Mistress
steals a letter from Richard to me--I opine that an
adulteress's word is as good as a thief's--I humble my
Grand Mistress, but it won't do me much good--Pleasant
hours at his studio 317
CHAPTER LXI
A MAD HOUSE FOR LOUISE--PROBABLY
My confidential maid, Lucretia, is banished--The new King
has got the incriminating letter, but Frederick Augustus
says nothing--On the eve of judgment the King falls ill 321
CHAPTER LXII
KING'S ILLNESS A BOON TO LOVERS
Prayers mixed with joy--Espionage disorganized, and I can
do as I please--Love-making in the school-room--Buying
a ring for Richard--"Wishing it on"--"Our marriage"--King's
life despaired of--My tormentors obsequious--Smile
at my peccadilloes--Husband proud of
me--My popularity a great asset--Frederick Augustus
delighted when he hears that King can't last long--The
joyous luncheon at Richard's studio--Making fun of
majesties--I expect to be Queen presently 325
CHAPTER LXIII
WHAT I WILL DO WHEN I AM QUEEN
A foretaste: titled servants put me _en route_ for lover--The
bargain I will propose to Frederick Augustus--Frederick
Augustus will be a complaisant King--To revive
_Petit Trianon_--I am addressed as Queen 331
CHAPTER LXIV
THE KING IS ALIVE AND PUNISHMENT NEAR
My queenship postponed--King George publicly acclaimed--Cuts
me dead in church--Frederick Augustus's disappointment--Terrible
power of a king over his family,
and no appeal--I am like the nude witch of old 335
CHAPTER LXV
FISTICUFFS DON'T SAVE MY CROWN
The attempted theft of my Diary--Grand Mistress discovered
after breaking open my desk--Reading Diary like
mad--Personal encounter between me and Grand Mistress--I
am the stronger, and carry off the manuscript,
but have to leave all my love letters, which go to the
King--I discover that they had stolen the key to my
Diary from my neck 339
CHAPTER LXVI
ABANDONED
My titled servants withdraw from me--An old footman my
sole support--Queen takes the children--Old Andrew
plays spy for me 343
CHAPTER LXVII
FAMILY COUNCIL AT CASTLE
Rendezvous at studio--State takes my children from me--Madhouse
or flight--I brought fifty-two trunks to the
palace--Depart with small satchel--If I attempt to see
my children I'll be seized as "mad woman"--Varying
emotions of the last ten minutes--Threatening shadows
thrown on a curtain decide me--Ready for flight--Diary
the last thing to go into the satchel 345
[Illustration: FROM LOUISE'S DIARY]
THE STORY OF LOUISE, CROWN PRINCESS OF SAXONY
CHAPTER I
MOTHERHOOD
A sterile Royal Family once fruitful--Diary true record of
self--Long legs of Countess Solms--A child only because he can't
help it--Wet nurse to Socialist brat--Royal permit for
nursing--Royal negligee talk--A Saxon failing.
CASTLE WACHWITZ, _February 17, 1893_.
I did my duty towards the Saxons. I gave them a Prince. The Royal House
ought to be grateful to me:--I am helping to perpetuate it. Who would,
if I didn't? My sister-in-law, Princess Mathilde, is an old maid. The
other, Maria Josepha, as sterile as Sarah was before she reached the
nineties. This applies also to Isabelle, the wife of brother-in-law,
John-George. And Prince Max, tired of ballet girls, is about to take the
soutane.
There is just one more royal Saxon princess, Elizabeth, and she
succeeded in having children neither with her husband _de jure_, the
late Duke of Genoa, nor with her husband-lover, Marquis Rapallo.
Louise, then, is the sole living hope of the royal Saxons that, only 160
years ago, boasted of a sovereign having three hundred and fifty-two
children to his credit, among them not a few subsequently accounted
geniuses. Augustus, the Physical Strong (1670 to 1733), was the happy
father, the _Mareshal de_ Saxe one of his numerous gifted offspring.
Alas, since then the House of Wettin has declined not in numbers only.
Poor baby is burdened with ten names in honor of so many ancestors. Why,
in addition, they want to call him "Maria" I cannot for the life of me
understand, for there never was a Saxon princess or queen that amounted
to a row of pins.
I wonder whether they will say the same of me after the crown of the
Wettiners descended upon my brow. Those so inclined should consult these
papers ere they begin throwing stones, for my Diary is intended to
contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future,
_Myself_, and let no one judge me by what I say other than what is
recorded here.
These pages are my Father Confessor. I confess to myself,--what a woman
in my position says to members of her family or official and
semi-official persons--her servants, so to speak--doesn't signify, to
borrow a phrase from my good cousin, the Kaiser Wilhelm.
Father-in-law George tells me to trust no one but him, my husband, and
Frederick Augustus's sisters, cousins and aunts, and to rely on prayer
only, yet, stubborn as nature made me, I prefer respectable white paper
to my sweet relatives.
Up to now my most ambitious literary attempts were intimate letters to
my brother Leopold, the "Black Sheep." As I now start in writing letters
to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self may be corresponding with
my better self, or vice versa. If I was only a poet like Countess Solms,
but, dear, no. All real bluestockings are ugly and emaciated. Solms is
both, and her legs are as long and as thin as those of Diana, my English
hunter.
I think this Diary business will be quite amusing,--at any rate, it will
be more so than the conversation of my ladies. Ah, those ladies of the
court of Saxony! If they would only talk of anything else but orphans,
sisters of charity and ballet girls. The latter always have one foot in
Hades, while you can see the wings grow on the backs of the others.
When the von Schoenberg struts in, peacock fashion, and announces "his
royal Highness did himself the honor to soil his bib," I sometimes stare
at her, not comprehending at the moment, and the fact that she is
talking of my baby only gradually comes to mind. Isn't it ridiculous
that a little squalling bit of humanity, whom the accident of birth
planted in a palace, is royalty first and all the time, and a child only
because he can't help it?
As for me, I am a woman and mother first, and my child is an animated
lump of flesh and blood--_my_ flesh and blood--first and all the time.
Of course, when baby came I wanted to nurse it. You should have seen
Frederick Augustus's face. If I had proposed to become a wet-nurse to
some "socialist brat" he couldn't have been more astonished. Yet my
great ancestress, the Empress Maria Theresa, nursed her babies "before a
parquet of proletarians," at the theatre and at reviews, and thought
nothing of giving the breast to a poor foundling left in the park of
Schoenbrunn.
Frederick Augustus recovered his speech after a while--though he never
says anything that would seem to require reflection, he always acts the
deep thinker. "Louise," he mumbled reproachfully,--"what will his
Majesty say?"
"I thought you were the father of the child," I remarked innocently.
"No levity where the King is concerned," he corrected poor me. "You know
very well that for an act of this kind a royal permit must be previously
obtained."
Followed a long pause to give his mental apparatus time to think some
more. Then: "And, besides, it will hurt your figure."
"Augusta Victoria" (the German Empress) "nursed half a dozen children,
and her _decollete_ is still much admired," I insisted.
Frederick Augustus paid no attention to this argument. "Anyhow, I don't
want the doctors to examine your breast daily," he said with an air of
mixed sentimentality and brusqueness.
These were not his own words, though. My husband, not content with
calling a spade a spade, invariably uses the nastiest terms in the
dictionary of debauchery. When he tells me of his love adventures before
marriage it's always "I bagged that girl," or "I made something tender
out of her," just as a hunter talks of game or a leg of venison.
He doesn't want to be rude; he is so without knowing it. His indelicacy
would be astounding in a man born on the steps of the throne, if the
Princes of this royal house were not all inclined that way.
Two weeks after my accouchement George and Isabelle called. Though
brother and sister-in-law, we are not at all on terms of intimacy.
Frederick Augustus made some remarks of a personal nature that sent all
the blood to my head; Isabelle seemed to enjoy my discomfort, but George
had the decency to go to the window and comment on the dirty boots of a
guard lieutenant just entering the courtyard. Frederick Augustus
thought he had made a hit with Isabelle and applauded his own effort
with a loud guffaw, while pounding his thighs, which seems to give him
particular satisfaction.