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.
DRESDEN, _November 2, 1901_.
Great family concourse to look my new baby over, dear Marie Alix, born
at Wachwitz, September 27.
Emperor Francis Joseph was first to arrive, the Majesty who is forever
posing as the family's good genius, as upholder of peace and amity among
his countless cousins and nieces, and the many uncles and aunts and
other relatives of his grand-children.
Behold how he lived up to this reputation!
I had been commanded to attend the reception in the Queen's _salon_, and
made my bow to him. He bowed all around, looking at each present, but
managed to overlook me.
Then he commenced a long and weary conversation with the Queen, at
whose elbow I sat, and when his stock of platitudes was exhausted,
turned to fat Mathilde, congratulating her on the possession of the
_Stern Kreuz_ decoration, an Austrian order which I likewise wore at my
corsage. It was none other than the late Empress Elizabeth who pinned it
on me.
Presently dinner was announced. The Emperor took in Her Majesty, the
King, _nolens, volens_, had to conduct me, but gave me neither word nor
look. Nor did the others. I couldn't have been more isolated on a desert
island, than at this royal board.
They talked and cracked their silly jokes, and paid compliments to each
other and were careful not to let their tongues run away with their
intriguing minds, but all went above my head. No one spoke to me but the
lackeys: "If it please Your Imperial Highness----"
Frederick Augustus tore into my bedroom some little time after I had
retired. Picture of the offended gentleman, if you please. I got no more
than I deserve, but it "reflected on him, h-i-m, HIM." Though it was a
"family dinner," he, the Crown Prince of Saxony, was "publicly"
disgraced. The Emperor had treated the Crown Princess as air. He had not
deigned to address a single word to her. The Crown Princess was a
trollop in the Imperial eyes--it was enough to drive the Crown Prince to
drink.
"Drink yourself to death then," I shrieked.
During the night I speculated what to do: ask a private audience of the
Emperor, state my side of the case and beg his forgiveness and
protection, beg, especially, for better treatment at his hands?
And if he refused?
Francis Joseph is a good deal of a Jesuit. When he hates, he never lets
it come to a break; when he loves, he never attaches himself.
If I stooped to humiliate myself, he might choose to debase me still
more. It was entirely probable that he would betray my confidences to
the King and Prince George.
I will defy him and--all of them!
"Her Imperial Highness regrets----" my Court Marshal wrote in answer to
all invitations or rather "commands" for the next three days. When I
refused to participate in the "grand leave-taking," Frederick Augustus
came post-haste to expostulate with me.
"You must. It would be an affront without precedent."
"Take leave of a man who didn't say good-day to me on his arrival, and
who probably intends to slight me in similar fashion on going away----"
In lieu of argument the Prince Royal abused me like a pick-pocket; I had
waited for it and now I let loose.
"You are like the rest of your family," I shouted: "ignorant,
thoughtless, brutal _en venerie_, sanctimonious in dotage. I know few
people for whom I have so great a detestation as for the Royal Saxons.
Look at your father, there is no more jesuitical a Jesuit, the inward
man as hideous as the outward. He would be an insolent lackey, if he
didn't happen to be a prince.
"And Johann George--a shameless inheritance-chaser, despoiler of
pupillary funds, gambler at the _bourse_, who whines like a whipped dog
when he loses.
"The royal Bernhardt, companion of street-walkers!
"Prince Max, who talks theology, but keeps his eye on Therese.
"Your Queen, a victim of religious madness, your King and his
system--organized selfishness. Chicanery for those dependent upon him,
ruin for all more gifted than the average Wettiner.
"While living here I have learned to look upon my father's discrowning
as a stroke of good luck for, since kings can no longer indulge their
brutalities against their subjects, they turned tyrants at home.
"If your father did to the humblest of his subjects what he did to me,
he would be chased from home and country. The people, the parliament,
his own creatures would rise against him and blot his name from the
royal roster.
"In the palace, in boudoirs, in the nurseries, he plays the
prince--extortioner--executioner. To the public he is the benign lord,
whining for paltry huzzas."
Frederick Augustus was so dumfounded, he could only grind his teeth.
I continued: "You prate of respect due the Majesty. There's nothing to
induce feelings of that sort. Round me there is naught but weakness,
hypocrisy, pettiness. I see shame and thievery stalking side by side in
these gilded halls--gilded for show, but pregnant with woe.
"Fie on you, Prince Royal, who allows his wife to be dogged by spies.
Thieves, paid by your father, steal my souvenirs; a burglar's kit hidden
in their clothes, they besiege my writing table. Jailers stand between
me and my children.
"My children!
"Like a she-dog,[7] whose young were drowned, I cry for my babies--I,
the Crown Princess of Saxony, who saved your family from dying out, a
degenerate, depraved, demoralized, decadent race."
When I had said this and more I fell down and was seized by crying
convulsions.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: Queens seem to like this unseemly comparison:
"Am I a kennel-dog in the estimation of the Bastard of England?" cried
Mary of Scots, when Queen Elizabeth refused her safe-conduct through
England upon her departure from France (Summer 1561).]