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