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.
DRESDEN, _July 1, 1902_.
King George is determined I shall stay in Dresden to end the newspaper
talk about trouble in the bosom of the royal family.
He engaged a new head-tutor for my little brood. Monsieur Giron, a
Belgian of good family.
"I would be pleased if you attended the children's lessons and reported
to me on the method of the new man," he said. "You are so intellectual,
Louise, you will find out quickly if M. Giron is not what he is
represented to be."
I promised, for, after all, I owed so much to the King and my children.
Alas, it was fate!
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _July 1, After Midnight_.
He is tall, well made, and his wild, Grecian eyes fascinate me. He is
conscious of self, but modest. His voice is sweet and sonorous, his eyes
are bright with intellect. Speaking eyes!
I asked him to visit my apartments at the conclusion of school hours. He
told me he was a painter as well as a teacher of languages.
"Would you like to paint me?"
"I am dying for a chance to reproduce your loveliness as far as my poor
art permits."
He told me he had a studio in town, where he is known under his artist's
_pseudonyme_, Richard.
"How romantic! I'd like to see it," I said impulsively.
"Several ladies and gentlemen of society sat for portraits at my studio
here and at home."
In short we arranged that he paint my picture and that I should go to
his studio, where the light is excellent.
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _July 15, 1902_.
I am happy once more. Those hours at Richard's studio are the sweetest
of my life.
Lucretia acts the protecting angel as usual. Richard calls her Justice
because she is "blind." When she is along, I drive boldly up to the
door in one of the court carriages. Sometimes, when I can sneak out of
the palace for a little while unobserved, I go alone in a cab.
How long this sort of thing can go on without discovery, I know not. As
to what will happen afterwards, I care not.
If I was told that tomorrow I would be caught in my lover's arms and
banished to a lone island for life, I would go to his studio just the
same.
* * * * *
DRESDEN, _August 1, 1902_.
Richard is moulding my character. I, once so proud of rank and station,
I, who upheld the Wettiners' robbery of a poor, defenseless woman, the
Duke's wife, because Socialistic papers spoke in her favor,--Louise now
allows anarchistic tendencies to be poured in her ears. She almost
applauds them.
This easy change from one extreme to the other at a lover's behest is
one of the things that make woman's rule--or co-rule--as the male's
political equal--impossible. It's a sort of _Phallus_ worship that
always was and always will be.
"Though women have not unfrequently been the holders of temporary and
precarious power, there are not many instances where they have held
secure and absolute dominion," says Dr. William W. Ireland in his
famous "Blot upon the Brain."
Because they were swayed by the male of the species, of course!
Though the characters of the world's female sovereigns differed as to
blood, race, education, environment and personal traits, neither showed
any inclination to resist the allurements of irregular _amours_.
Think of Semiramis, of Mary of Scots, of Elizabeth, Catherine I, of the
Tsaritzas Elizabeth and the second Catherine--under the temptations of
Power, they recruited paramours for themselves in all ranks of society.
Agrippina was more licentious than Caligula; Messalina's infamy
surpassed Nero's, and the furthest reaching, the one irresistible Power
swaying them all was MAN.
Augustus of the three hundred and fifty-four emphasized this in the
negative and, in his own uncouth way, by "postering" the Countess
Cosel's chief charm on penny coins.
"She cost Saxony twenty millions in gold--behold the penny's worth she
gave in return."
When the beauty who had brought the richest German kingdom to the verge
of state bankruptcy died February 2, 1765, four hundred of Augustus's
infamous medals were found hidden in her favorite armchair. She paid
three or four times their weight in gold for each.