Frederick Augustus drinks. He says I drive him to drink by my att.i.tude towards his beloved family. What the beloved family does to me doesn"t count, of course.
Drinking was one of the vices of his youth. Love for me cured him of the dreadful habit. As this love wanes, the itch for alcohol increases.
I can"t do anything with him when he is drunk, and at such times I am afraid of him. He both nauseates me and frightens me. Sometimes he comes home "fighting drunk." The fumes of wine, beer and _Schnapps_, mixed with tobacco, upset my stomach and I try to avoid his coa.r.s.e embrace as any decent woman would.
What does this royal drill-ground bully do? He unsheathes his sword and threatens to cut my liver out, unless I instantly doff my clothes and go to bed with him.
Prince George"s evil counsel wasn"t powerful enough to procure me beatings, but my husband"s military education, his love of discipline, backed by alcohol, thrusts a sword into his hand, and, if I refuse to comply with his atrocious demands, I am liable to be treated like so many "mere" civilians that are sabred in the public streets for refusing to do some spurred and epauletted blackguard"s bidding, or entertain his insults.
If the Socialists, who are forever railing against these self-same army poltroons, only knew it! An Imperial Highness threatened like a small "cit" with a four-foot sword in the hand of a drunken Royal Highness and dragged to a couch with no more ceremony than a street-walker pa.s.sing a Cossack barracks!
The howl that would go up in the Diet, or the _Reichstag_, the fulminant denials by prince and king and government! And if I really did get hurt in one of these fracases, Frederick Augustus would be sure of a "severe reprimand" by father and uncle, and perhaps by the Kaiser, too, but would that heal my wounds, would it save me from death? Would it even prevent Prince George from saying that I myself was to blame?
No, no, I like a whole skin and prefer an embrace to a sword-thrust any day, like my ancestress, the Queen of Naples, who consummated the marriage forced upon her on the spot and in sight of the army rather than have her head cut off. Too bad she was hanged in the end despite her complacency.[5]
Indeed, if Frederick Augustus shows the mailed fist, I don"t stand on ceremony, but I do wish he would take his boots off.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: Joanna I, Queen of Naples, a pupil of Petrarca and in many respects an enlightened ruler. She issued the first laws and regulations regarding prost.i.tutes. Hanged by order of King Louis of Hungary, after her defeat in battle, July, 1381.]
CHAPTER x.x.xI
PRISON FOR PRINCES THAT OPPOSE THE KING
Duke of Saxony banished--Cut off from good literature even--Anecdote concerning the Grand Dauphin and his "kettledrums"--A royal prince"s garrison life--His a.s.sociation with lewd women.
DRESDEN, _September 1, 1895_.
I have once more come to the conclusion that the agreement I made with Leopold, to dissimulate my real feelings, was the sanest decision I ever formed, for, while _lettres de cachet_ are a dead measure as far as ordinary mortals go, kings still wield that awful and mysterious abuse of power in the family circle.
There is a distant connection of our "sublime master," the King, lingering, without process of law, in a state prison. Duke of Saxony is his t.i.tle, and he is quite rich in his own right. Some six or eight years ago he raised his hand against the King after the latter struck him.
It was suggested that he had better make away with himself, and a revolver and poison were conspicuously displayed in the room where he was held captive.
The Duke said "nay." He thought he could "bra.s.s" it out. But the a.s.sembled family council taught him that, while the world at large was _fin-de-siecle_, royalty still lived in the traditions of the eighteenth century. It empowered the King to banish his kinsman to a lonely country house, styled castle by courtesy, and he is confined there even today, with the proviso, though, that he may use the surrounding hunting-grounds. Otherwise he lives in complete seclusion, separated not only from all his friends, but from the very cla.s.ses of society to which he belongs by birth and education. And he is still a young man.
I believe they are trying to drive him mad, once as a punishment, and again to secure his fortune the quicker. To the latter end, he is denied all books that give him pleasure and are liable to improve his mind.
Bibles, Christian Heralds, the Lives of the Martyrs, or the Popes, galore, but never a Carlyle, Shakespeare or Taine, which he demands regularly.
The Duke is dying of _ennui_, they say, and to kill time engages in all sorts of manual labor. When he gets tired of that he blows the trombone.
"Of course he would prefer a pair of kettledrums," said my cousin Bernhardt of Weimar, to whom I am indebted for the above.
"Kettledrums?" I asked.
"I mean those the Grand Dauphin, called "Son of a king, father of a king, never a king," was so fond of, and which he finally married in secret."
I looked bewildered.
"You are a very ignorant girl," said Bernhardt. "Never heard of the prodigious bosoms of _Mademoiselle_ Chouin?"
"They won"t let the Duke marry?" I queried.
"Not even temporarily," said Bernhardt. "And they are trying the same game on me. My garrison--a dung-heap. The people there, males and females, entirely unacquainted with soap and water. Nothing in the world to do but drink and gamble."
"That reminds me. What are you doing in Dresden?"
"With Your Imperial Highness"s permission, I came to see my girl."
"Who is the lady?"
"No lady at all. Just an ordinary servant-wench, but prettier and more devilish than a hundred of them."
"Bernhardt!"
"What would you have me do, Louise? I haven"t money enough to keep a mistress, and King and Queen certainly won"t keep one for me. I wish I had lived a hundred and fifty years ago, when every lady of the court was expected to entertain the royal princes, the Palace footing the bill."
CHAPTER x.x.xII
PRINCE GEORGE SHOWN THE DOOR BY GRAND-d.u.c.h.eSS MELITA
A royal lady who walks her garden attired in a single diaphanous garment--Won"t stand for any meddling--Called impertinent--My virtuous indignation a.s.sumed--A flirtation at a distance--An audacious lover--The Grand Mistress hoodwinked--Matrimonial horns for Kaiser--The banished Duke dies--Princes scolded like school-boys.
DRESDEN, _February 5, 1896_.
At last Prince George got his deserts, and got "em good and heavy. There had been rumors for some time that Grand-duke Ernest Ludwig and his bride, Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg, the English branch, didn"t get along together. Ernest Ludwig is a serious-minded, modest and intelligent man, but a good deal of a sissy. Victoria Melita is a spit-fire, very good-looking and anxious to let people know about it.
She rides horseback and fences to show off her figure, and someone called her a Centaur.
"Be in the palace gardens tomorrow at eleven," answered Melita, "and you will be convinced that I am not half-horse, even if my husband is a ninny."
She kept the _rendezvous_, attired in a single garment of diaphanous texture.
When Prince George heard that she had a lover, he went to Darmstadt to "correct her," as he expressed himself with much self-satisfaction.
But Victoria Melita proved to him that English princesses are made of sterner stuff than the German variety.
"I will have none of your meddling," said the bride of two years.
"I came here to make peace between you people."