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.
LOSCHWITZ, _September 15, 1894_.
Leopold is with me, the brother two years older than I. They just made
him a Major--a twelve-month later than his patent calls for.
Like myself, he is almost permanently in disgrace with the head of the
family, even as I am with the King and Prince George. We had no sooner
embraced and kissed, than I asked him for the latest gossip concerning
the Crown Princess of Saxony.
"You are a tough one," he said, shaking his finger with amused mockery.
According to Vienna court gossip, "I threw Prince George out of doors,"
when he "raised his hand against me," Frederick Augustus and myself
haven't been on speaking terms for six months; and the Saxe family was
actually considering the advisability of divorce.
Of course I told Leopold how things really are.
"Then there will be no divorce?" he asked.
"If the King and Prince George leave me alone,--no."
"Too bad," he said with a laugh, "that knocks me out of the pleasure of
maintaining my _thesis_ that the founder of the Christian religion
didn't believe in indissoluble marriage, but, on the contrary, in
divorce if such couldn't be avoided."
"Who told you that?"
"Professor Wahrmund is preparing a paper on the subject," said Leopold,
who, as remarked, is a very well-read chap and a student. He named five
or six emperors and kings, Catholics, some of them members of the
Austrian Imperial family, who obtained divorces, or married divorced
women. I jotted down the list.
Lothair II divorced his wife Theutberga and married his love, Waldrade.
Emperor Frederick I divorced the Empress Anna on the plea that she was
sterile. She married a Count, with whom she had a dozen children.
Margaret, a daughter of Leopold VI of Austria, was divorced by King
Ottokar of Bohemia.
John Henry, Prince of Bohemia, divorced his wife Margareta, who
afterwards married an ancestor of the Kaiser, Ludwig of Brandenburg.
King Ladislaus of Sicily divorced Queen Constance and forced his vassal,
Andrea di Capua, to marry her against his will. Ten years later
Ladislaus married Maria de Lusignan.
* * * * *
But a little knowledge is a terrible thing, if it happens to be acquired
by a prince. Princes are supposed to know nothing but the art and the
_finesses_ of destruction--war. Upbuilding is not in their line.
"I hear you are exercising a bad influence on Louise," roared our uncle,
the Emperor, at Leopold when the latter took leave from him. "You
furnished to her those infernal books, sowing the seed of guilty
knowledge?"
Leopold so far forgot himself as to address a question to the
"All-Highest": "What infernal books?"
"Books full of indecencies and obscenities, in short pornographic
literature," shouted the head of the family, turned his horse and rode
away in high dudgeon. Royal arguments are nothing if not one-sided!
Then Leopold told of himself. His garrison: a filthy mud-hole in Poland.
One-story houses and everybody peeping into everybody else's windows.
The few notables of the town and neighborhood tickled to death because
they have an Imperial Highness with them, and the fool of an Imperial
Highness goes and "besots himself with a mere country lass." He showed
me her photograph. I like her looks. A pretty face, blonde hair and soft
eyes. He was her first lover. On his account she left her family. She
dotes on him as a dog dotes on his master.
Leopold is eccentric enough to jeopardize his career for this poor
thing. He rented a small house for her and spends much of his time there
when not on the drill-grounds.
Hence intense indignation among the "respectable ladies." An Imperial
Highness within reach and he "doesn't come to our dances, he doesn't
visit and sends his regrets when invited!"
Poor Marja suffers especially from the venom of the officers'
wives,--cattle I detest. No royal or imperial prince is safe from them
except in his mother's womb.
"From morn till night and half the night they do nothing but gossip
about me and my girl," said Leopold,--"If the cats were only satisfied
with that! But every little while I get an anonymous letter from one of
them, denouncing her; Marja is favored in a similar way; so is my
general and our uncle, the Emperor."
And needless to say Leopold can't get along on his salary and appanage.
Father can't give him much. The Emperor won't, because the clergy
intrigues against him as a free-thinker and non-church-goer.
We thought long and deep whether it wouldn't be possible to improve our
position and we decided on this:
We will keep up each other's spirits by clandestine correspondence,
carried on with the aid of a mutual friend. At the same time we will,
apparently, fall in with the ideas of "our masters" and endure a few
pin-pricks rather than waste our strength in useless opposition.
Let no one chide us for hypocrites, because our gentleness will be a
mask, our submission a snare, our obedience a lie. It's all on the
outside. Inwardly Leopold and Louise will remain true to themselves.