"His Majesty will be pleased to see your Imperial Highness in a quarter of an hour," he said sweetly.
Frederick Augustus was a painted sepulchre when I coolly replied: "Pray inform His Majesty that I am not well and about to retire for the night."
At this Baumann looked like a whipped dog. He probably thought it impossible for anyone to refuse to answer the summons of His Majesty.
With the most downcast mien in the world, he seemed singularly anxious to render himself ridiculous. "Maybe the Crown Prince will do in my stead," I suggested maliciously.
Baumann grabbed at the straw and withdrew. A little while later a lackey came, summoning Frederick Augustus to Prince George. When he came back, he was all undone.
"Father treated me very well," he said. "He says the King regrets that your uncontrollable temper causes so many misunderstandings, and both His Majesty and father have no objection to your staying in Dresden if you like. Loschwitz was suggested because you and the children seem to need country air.
"As to your proposed visit to England, the King begs you to consider that such a journey at this time is liable to provoke a scandal which would reflect not only on you, on us, but on your poor parents."
The old story of the penurious relations, I thought bitterly, but on the whole I was well pleased. I had beaten and out-generaled them all.
"If Loschwitz isn"t meant for punishment, I accept with pleasure," I said. "It"s a very pretty place." Poor Frederick Augustus" face lit up.
"But there must be an end to the talk about I being in disgrace. If the King is as friendly to me as he makes out, let him come and see me and the babies. As to summonses by Baumann or others, I won"t accept them."
"Very well," said Frederick Augustus, and I saw that I had risen mile-high in his estimation, "when will it be your pleasure to leave for Loschwitz?"
"Tonight, if I have permission to invite Leopold for a week or so."
"Are you stark, staring mad?" shouted my husband,--"Impose conditions after the King moderated?"
"Go and tell Baumann I"ll have Leopold or all is off," I said.
Next morning: Ceremonial visit from the Queen. The tip of her nose was redder than ever and she seemed prepared to weep at the flicking of an eye-lash. She gave me a list of her troubles, mental, physical, political, matrimonial and otherwise, since the day she was born, but said: "Obedience to my father, the King, and obedience to my husband, the King, has enabled me to weather all storms. You, too, must learn obedience, Louise. It"s women"s only salvation and especially a princess"s."
I answered that I fully recognized my obligations to the King. "I only object to being buffeted around like a piece of furniture."
"I know, I know," said the Queen, "and hope all is arranged satisfactorily. The King will be glad if you invite your parents to Loschwitz."
"I asked permission to invite Leopold."
"But, no doubt, your parents would take more interest in the children than your brother."
"I don"t dispute that, Your Majesty. But if my parents joined me at the present time, people might think they came to condole with me or else to scold me. I want Leopold."
The Queen said she wouldn"t dare mention Leopold to His Majesty.
"Well, then," I concluded, "I shall stay in Dresden, regarding Baumann"s fine promises as mere talk."
The Queen went away with the air of a martyr, but three days later Baumann came and said His Imperial Highness was welcome.
A triumph all along the line. I left Dresden without seeing the King.
Frederick Augustus is at the manoeuvres.
The Baroness is acting as my Grand Mistress.
I expect Leopold in a fortnight.
CHAPTER XXIII
A SERVANT-TYRANT
My correspondence is not safe from the malicious woman appointed Grand Mistress--Lovers at a distance and by correspondence--Fell in love with a leg.
LOSCHWITZ, _September 8, 1894_.
Baroness Tisch, now that she attained the height of her ambition, is beginning to show her claws. She is an infernal cat. Her skinniness makes her repulsive to me and her face gives everyone the impression that she just sucked an enormous lemon. She lisps and that makes me nervous. I feel like aping her when she isn"t around.
She"s after me like the devil chasing a poor soul and as I never address her except to command or reprimand, she tries to find out any secret doings, or thinkings, I may be guilty of by way of letters I write or receive.
According to the laws of most countries private correspondence is sacred, legally and morally. The late Field-Marshal, Count Blumenthal, wrote to his wife of the Crown Prince, afterwards Emperor Frederick, that he was a "d----fool," but "as communications between husband and wife are privileged," no official cognizance was taken.
Otherwise in this petty kingdom and, as already told, in Austria, whose monarch, in family matters at least, holds to the "_L"Etat c"est moi_"
maxim.
The King"s spy, the Tisch, const.i.tuted herself post-office of Villa Loschwitz--a duty appertaining to her rank--and I wager she works the "_Black Cabinet_" to perfection. Of course, I am now careful in all I write and advise my friends to be, but I sometimes get letters from Unknowns, people that sympathize with me or have fallen in love with me.
All women in high station have lovers among the lowly. I recall the Cardinal Dubois" yarn about Salvatico, envoy of the Prince of Modena, my kinsman of yore. The Italian was sent to Paris to conduct home his master"s lovely intended, _Mademoiselle_ de Valois, daughter of the Regent. It happened that the emissary was introduced to _Mademoiselle"s_ room an hour before the time set, when she was lying on a lounge "with one leg, almost naked, hanging down." Salvatico fell in love with the leg and exhausted himself in so many "Ah, ah"s" of admiration and other love-sick stunts that the Duke of Richelieu, having older rights, said to him: "Rogue, if you had your deserts I would cut off your two ears!"
No man, except my husband, has seen my legs, which is a pity, perhaps, but the extreme _decollete_ demanded at certain court functions, especially in Berlin, gained me many epistolary lovers, whose homage I accept gracefully, but in silence, of course.
Still, a malicious thing like the Tisch, if one gives her enough rope, might arrange, on paper at least, to get me with child by a Lothario a hundred miles off, even as the children of Madame de Montespan and Louis XIV were credited to the Marquis, her husband, residing a hundred leagues away, at Guienne. Let me find her red-handed and she will fare even worse than Schoenstein.
CHAPTER XXIV
MORE TYRANNY OF A t.i.tLED SERVANT
My daily papers seized, and only milk-and-water clippings are submitted--"King"s orders"--Grand Mistress"s veracity doubted--My threats of suspension cow her.
LOSCHWITZ, _September 10, 1894_.
This morning there were no newspapers at the usual hour. Instead, the Tisch furnished a heap of clippings carefully pasted up--the veriest milk-and-water slush "ever." Instanter I sent for my tormentor.
"What"s this?" I demanded.
"Today"s papers, Your Imperial Highness."
"You made these clippings?"