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.
DRESDEN, _Christmas, 1898_.
God punished me for my sins. My children, one after the other, were ill
with scarlet fever, and the youngest is only now out of danger. Of
course, I abandoned all my frivolities. I can say without boasting that
the mother atoned for the short-comings of the wife and princess.
Hence I thought justified to arrange for a right royal Christmas
present: Romano.
Lucretia went to see him. He received her coldly, hardly vouchsafed a
word. From a secret drawer of his desk he took a letter, ready written,
dated and gave it to Lucretia. "It explains," he said curtly, as he
opened the door for her.
He has abandoned me. Because I loved my children better than him,
because I am a mother first, Lais second, he throws away his Imperial
_fille de joie_ like a lemon sucked dry and prates of tendernesses and
heavenly fancies that he alone feels, that are outside the pale of my
understanding.
He even refuses to thank me, this proud wooer of the royal bed. He "has
given me the best that is in man to give to a woman," etc., etc.
Be it so! God desired to punish me and, because I loved much, he meted
out to me mild chastisement.
He stole my lover, but I have my children.
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _January 15, 1899_.
The King, Prince George, my brothers-in-law, my cousins and aunts are
trying to make a hero of me. Because I followed the inclinations of my
heart and helped to save my children, there's no end of their praise and
admiration. Did they take me for a raven? I am disgusted with so much
unctuousness.
Nevertheless I changed my mind about the Duke's widow. When I felt
friendly towards her and quarrelled with Johann George for taking her
money and with the King for embezzling the testament and offering
accommodation at the poor-house for his kin's children, I thought it a
family affair, but now that the Socialist papers meddle with the case,
which concerns the royal house and the royal house alone, it's time for
the Crown Princess to stand by her colors.
Those Jews have actually the audacity to reprimand the King and the
royal princes, to impute ignoble motives to us all! They talk of us as
if we were _Messieurs_ and _Mesdames_ Jones or Browns, trying to enrich
ourselves at the expense of a corpse!
They call us "inheritance-chasers," "purloiners of pupillary funds,"
"starvers of innocent children."
The Duke's kept-woman is "a lady of the highest character" and we are
not; her children are of the blood royal--only better for the dash of
plebeian.
It makes me boil to read such things; to see the reverence due the
throne set aside, the royal banner dragged into the mire, and of course
it's the kept-woman to whom we are indebted for this pretty kettle of
fish. It is she who set the press against us, and it's me, Louise, who
protests with all her might that her demands and petitions be denied.
Let her starve with her brats. If she was sent to the poor-house she
might make anarchists out of loyal paupers.
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _April 1, 1899_.
My parents came to see the children and make merry because I am basking
in the sun of royal grace. Mother has a new maid of honor, as ugly as
the Tisch, and when we are _entre nous_ every second word is: "when
Louise is Queen." They know to a penny what our inheritance from the
King, the Queen and Prince George will amount to and are forever making
plans and specifications how to spend the money for the glory of Saxony
and of our own family.[6]
Mother's scare-crow of a maid of honor had at least sense enough to tell
Lucretia of a few scandals that happened at home, which mother never
intended for my ears.
It seems that papa, some few months ago, suddenly became possessed of
the ambition to become an astronomer. Nothing would do, but he must buy
a heap of instruments and set them up in a distant tower of Salzburg
Castle. And there he spent all his evenings--star-gazing, he gave out.
He seldom reached the nuptial couch before one or two in the
morning,--utterly exhausted by the night's work.
Well, mamma thought he labored too hard, and one forenoon when he had
gone hunting, climbed up many stairs to investigate. Imagine her
surprise when she found, in the astrolatry, a young lady in the act of
getting out of bed, a girl, by the way, whom I used to know.
Mamma had the _mauvais genre_ to report the case to Emperor Francis
Joseph, while papa sought another climate, remaining away until mother
begged him on her bended knees, so to speak, to come home. Nor did she
get satisfaction from Vienna. That great moral teacher, the Emperor,
told her not to make a scare-crow of herself, but on the contrary make
herself pretty and agreeable for, and to, her lord and master. I
understand now why mamma says: "All men stick together like gypsies."
As a matter of fact father's limited resources are considerably affected
by the various alimonies he has to pay to his own mistresses and those
of my brothers. The third born of our boys, only a week ago, made too
free with the _fiancee_ of the pastry-cook, who threatened to kill him.
It cost father several thousand florins to appease the ruffian and
Heinrich Ferdinand renewed acquaintance with mother's boxing
proclivities.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: The fortune of the present King of Saxony (Louise's
ex-husband) amounts to 25 million marks ($6,225,000)--no more than many
an American parent paid for his daughter's seedy coronet. It will be
remembered that Gladys Vanderbilt and Anna Gould brought to their
husbands fifteen million dollars each, and the Castellanes and Szechenys
are only nobles of the second class, their ancestors never having
possessed ever so small a territory as sovereign lords. The bigger half
of the Saxon King's fortune comes from the Brunswick inheritance already
mentioned.]