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My Own Affairs

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Title: My Own Affairs

Author: Princess of Belgium Louise

Translator: Maude M. C. Ffoulkes


        
Release date: July 3, 2013 [eBook #43086]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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MY OWN AFFAIRS


  [Illustration]


MY OWN AFFAIRS

by

THE PRINCESS LOUISE OF BELGIUM

With Photogravure Frontispiece and Eight Plates

Translated by Maude M. C. ffoulkes







Cassell and Company, Limited
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1921




  I DEDICATE
  THIS BOOK TO
  the Great Man, to the Great King, who was
  MY FATHER




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                      PAGE

   1. Why I Write this Book                                       1

   2. My Beloved Belgium; my Family and Myself;
        Myself--as I Know Myself                                  7

   3. The Queen                                                  17

   4. The King                                                   27

   5. My Country and Days of my Youth                            36

   6. My Marriage and the Austrian Court--the Day
        after my Marriage                                        54

   7. Married                                                    63

   8. My Hosts at the Hofburg--the Emperor Francis
        Joseph and the Empress Elizabeth                         82

   9. My Sister Stéphanie Marries the Archduke
        Rudolph, who Died at Meyerling                          100

  10. Ferdinand of Coburg and the Court of Sofia                116

  11. William II and the Court of Berlin--the
        Emperor of Illusion                                     132

  12. The Holsteins                                             142

  13. The Courts of Munich and Old Germany                      154

  14. Queen Victoria                                            165

  15. The Drama of my Captivity, and my Life as a
        Prisoner--the Commencement of Torture                   171

  16. Lindenhof                                                 189

  17. How I Regained my Liberty and at the Same
        Time was Declared Sane                                  197

  18. The Death of the King--Intrigues and Legal
        Proceedings                                             211

  19. My Sufferings during the War                              231

  20. In the Hope of Rest                                       245

      Index                                                     253




LIST OF PLATES


  The Princess Louise of Belgium    (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_

                                                        FACING PAGE

  Queen Marie Henriette of Belgium                               22

  King Leopold II of Belgium                                     32

  The Countess Lonyay (Princess Stéphanie of Belgium)            48

  Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg                                   70

  Princess Victor Napoleon (Princess Clémentine of Belgium)      86

  The Archduke Rudolph                                          102

  Duke Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein                            150

  The Duchess Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein                     234




My Own Affairs




CHAPTER I

Why I Write this Book


As the eldest daughter of a great man and a great King, whose
magnificent intelligence has enriched his people, I owe nothing but
misfortune to my royal origin. Ever since I was born I have suffered and
been deceived. I have idealized Life too much.

In the evening of my days I do not wish to remain under the cloud of the
false impression which is now prevalent concerning me.

Without desiring to allude too much to the past, and to retrace the
road of my Calvary, I should like at least to borrow a few pages from
my memories and reflections, inspired by events which have destroyed
thrones in whose proximity I once lived. The Emperor of Austria, the
German Emperor, the Tsar of Bulgaria were all familiar figures to me.

Driven to Munich by the War, then to Budapest, taken prisoner for a
brief space by Hungarian Bolshevists, I have survived the European
tempest, and I have seen all those who disowned and crushed me, beaten
and punished.

And I trembled every day for my poor Belgium, so strong in her courage
and her travail, but so unjust to me--oh no, not the _people_--the good
people are naturally heroic and indefatigable. I refer to certain of
their leaders, who have been misled on my account, and who are also,
perhaps, too fond of money. Unjust themselves, they all equally violated
justice by illicit interests which had the appearance of legality, as
well as by the false attitude which appeared merely to be forgetfulness,
but which was actually ingratitude.

My father has not yet had a monument erected to him in the country which
he esteemed so highly; his Government has remembered the follies of
his old age rather than its privileges, and his memory has suffered
accordingly.

But what is past is past. My memory remains faithfully and
affectionately attached to my native land; my sole thought is to love
and honour her.

It is of Belgium that I wish to speak before passing on to the Courts
of Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Sofia, and to the many doings which
these names recall, certain of which deserve better knowledge and
consideration.

I have never entertained any feelings for Belgium other than those of
imperishable affection. The most painful of my reflections during the
horrible war was that she was more to be pitied than I was.

On the day when I was being searched by Hungarian Bolshevists at
Budapest I heard one of them say to another--having proved for himself
the simplicity to which I was reduced: "Here is a king's daughter who
is poorer than I am." I have thought of the unhappy women of Ypres, of
Dixmude, of France, Poland, Servia, and elsewhere--unfortunate creatures
without fire or bread through the crime of war, and I have wept for them
and not for myself.

More than one of them, perhaps, envied my position before 1914; little
did they realize that I should have preferred theirs!

Married at seventeen, I expected to find in marriage the joys that a
husband and children can give. I have had bitter proof to the contrary.

Rupture was inevitable where my own intimate feelings were concerned and
those who surrounded me. I was too independent to make use of what was
offensive to me.

Honours are often without honour, however high they may seem to be. Save
for rare exceptions, fortune and power only develop in us the appetite
for pleasure and urge us to depravity. Those whom La Bruyère calls "the
Great" easily lose the knowledge of human conditions. Life is to them
no longer the mysterious proof of the existence of a soul which will be
eventually rewarded or punished according to its deserts. Religion seems
to them only a mask or an instrument.

Led to judge their fellow-creatures through the flatteries,
calculations, ambitions and treacheries by which they are surrounded,
they arrive, through mistrust of human nature, at a state of
indifference to God, and they accommodate His laws to their needs in the
assurance of adjusting themselves with the Creator as they adjust their
doings with their ministers.

When I review the past, and when I am reminded of the various phases of
my unhappy existence, I never despair of ultimately finding a justice
which I have not yet come across in this world; I have always believed
that it exists _somewhere_. If it were not so, things would be
inconceivable.

I owe this spirit of confidence to the lessons I learnt in my infancy,
chiefly from those taught me by the Queen, my mother. "Always endeavour
to be a Christian," she used to say. I could not understand the import
of these words when I was a child, but the misfortunes of my life have
helped to explain them.

Stirred into revolt by humanity in so many ways, I have now submitted
myself to a Superior Will, and I know the happiness of not hating my
enemies. Pardon has always followed my rebellion.

I have never doubted that those who wronged me would be punished
sooner or later on earth or elsewhere, and I have been sorry for my
persecutors.

I have pitied them for their dislike of my frankness, because I am an
enemy of all family and Court hypocrisy--I have pitied them for having
censured my fidelity to one affection, and, above all, I have pitied
their exaggeration of my disregard for that ancient idol--money!

Convinced as I was, and not without foundation, that immense wealth was
to come, not only to myself but to my sisters, I maintained that
our duty was to make full use of our resources. Was it not better to
circulate money and assist trade? This opinion, however, was not shared
either by a husband who was inclined to hoard or by a family who
were afraid of any fresh ideas or customs, and who only saw in the
aspirations of the masses an inevitable and horrible catastrophe against
which they ought to protect themselves by saving as much as possible.

At the same time, when I have been engaged in a struggle I have never
met with anything save cruel treatment on the part of my enemies (first
and foremost by the slanders intended to ruin me in the eyes of the
world), but I have hurled myself at the onset against all the obstacles
which violence and enmity have conceived against me.

Being unable to live and act normally, and compelled by force and
privations to treat what I held as despicable with obedience and
respect, I lacked the means of existence to which I was entitled. The
trouble I took in order to assure myself of my liberty on my native
soil, in the order and dignity for which I had hoped, was nullified by
those who were themselves morally responsible for it. I was compelled
to become a prisoner or a fugitive, taken away and kept away from my
rightful position by difficulties of every description. By these methods
my enemies imagined that I should be more easily deprived of all to
which I had clung.

What would have become of me had I not found a man who devoted himself
to saving me from all kinds of snares and dangers, and who found devoted
beings to second him--many of whom have sprung from the humbler ranks of
life--I am unable to conjecture.

If I have known the wickedness of an aristocracy devoid of nobility,
I have also benefited by the most chivalrous delicacy which has been
extended to me by the populace, and my recognition of this is chiefly
what I wish to write about to-day.

But deep in my heart I have the impelling desire not to allow the legend
which has been created around me and my name to exist any longer.




CHAPTER II

My Beloved Belgium; my Family and Myself; Myself--as I Know Myself


If in an official procession the principal personage comes last, then
Belgium should come last in my pages, for it is about myself that I must
begin.

I decide to do so not without apprehension, for I remember
the descriptions of themselves which celebrated writers of
autobiography--Saint Simon, for instance--have given at the commencement
of their memoirs.

Far be it from me to wish to paint myself in glowing colours. That would
be a pretension from which the great writers who possessed the talent
necessary to describe themselves preserve me. I only hope, if possible,
to describe myself as I believe myself to be.

I often examine my heart. The older I grow the stronger this tendency
to self-analysis becomes. Formerly I used to like to know my
fellow-creatures; now I have discovered that one should always know
oneself before attempting to decipher other human enigmas.

The ancient precept of Delphes, which the King my father used to
quote, comes back to my memory, but I will not give it here. I do not
understand modern Greek, unlike Queen Sophie, that charming woman,
who was so misguided as to learn it; she lost her throne, so they say,
through trying to outwit the subtlety of Ulysses!

My predominant quality is a horror of all that is insincere, inaccurate,
formal and commonplace. My taste for simplicity in thought and actions
branded me long ago as a revolutionary in the eyes of my family. This
was when I rebelled in Vienna against the routine and what they called
the _esprit_ of the Court.

My passion for sincerity has brought me unity of thought. I am a woman
faithful to one vow which my heart admits freely.

I have known and loved few individuals well enough to allow myself to
approach them and know them thoroughly, but when once my confidence and
liking have been given and found to be justified, I have become deeply
attached to those on whom they were bestowed.

Many people would have liked to have seen me deprived of happiness, but
I possess at least this one jewel--faithfulness, and I have known the
sweetness thereof; not only the banal and material fidelity--always more
or less a passing phase as one generally understands it--but the pure
and noble fidelity which accompanies a vigilant and chivalrous mind; the
ideal of noble hearts, which is revolted by injustice and attracted
by misfortune. Diverse fidelities, although sisters, are marvellous
treasures in which one must be rich oneself to be enabled further to
enrich the future with precious gifts.

Firm in upholding my rights, and true to my convictions when I believe
them to be in accordance with honour and truth--which spring from a
divine essence--and are not inspired by hypocritical conventions, I am
afraid of nothing, and nothing can convince me against my will.

I have inherited these traits from my father and my mother; from my
mother I get the spiritual side, and from my father I get the material
side of my character. It is useless, therefore, to believe that I should
ever act against the dictates of my conscience.

If I am compelled to give way for a moment, I do so as one would yield
at the point of the bayonet.

Wickedness and compulsion do not create equity, they only create its
reservations, and redress to justice is from God alone and not from man.

This strength of resistance against evil and contempt of etiquette are,
so to speak, the salient characteristics of my life.

But in spite of my decided opinions I show marked nervousness in the
presence of strangers. When they are introduced to me I can hardly speak
to them, even though their personality appeals to me.

My beloved compatriots in Brussels, the friends who are always present
in my thoughts, used to say, "Princess Louise is proud!" What a mistake!
On the contrary, I should have much liked to respond to the affection
they offered me, and to have entered those Belgian homes that I knew
to be so hospitable. Ah! what happiness not to have been born a king's
daughter! One could then speak freely to fellow-creatures who merited
sympathy; but a princess cannot do as she pleases.

With my entourage I am sometimes as open and expansive as I am
silent and reserved with strangers. I mistrust fresh faces, and in
no circumstances do I ever indulge in gossip. I much prefer the
conversation of men who know something, to that of women who know
nothing.

I detest all that is unnatural in conversation; affectation is
insupportable to me. Idle remarks which annoy me easily suggest some
repartee or sarcastic comment such as the King knew so well how to use,
which always touched to the quick the person to whom it was addressed.
But the influence of the Queen's memory sometimes restrains me and keeps
me silent out of Christian charity.

Immovable in the convictions of my conscience and outwardly reserved, I
am, nevertheless, a woman of contradictions. When I am forced to act I
invariably rush to extremes. Soul extremes always result from contrasts,
just as the thunder of heaven results from the meeting of two storm
clouds. In me the storm is suppressed. I surprise people more than
anything else by my customary attitude of not being able to foresee the
decision which carries me away.

I do not regard existence from the ordinary standpoint; I regard it from
a much higher one. This is not due to any feeling of pride. I am carried
away by something within me past certain barriers and certain frontiers;
I live in a world of my own in which I can take refuge.

Many, many times during the implacable persecution which I have endured
for so long, I have stood in front of a mirror and tried to read the
soul within my eyes. I was a prisoner; I was "mad" for reasons of State.
I asked myself in cold blood, was I not really becoming mad--was I still
mistress of my reason?

"Yes," replied an inner voice, "you are mistress of your reason so long
as you are mistress of yourself, and you are mistress of yourself so
long as you remain faithful to your ideal of honour."

I will speak of this ideal later. Honest women will understand. But my
nature did not find in the conjugal abode the good, the pure and the
true, which it had dreamed of, hoped for, and desired. As the years
passed the atmosphere of my home changed, the growing children became
less of a safeguard. Help came in a day of chaos under an aspect which
the world condemns. Nothing stopped me then, and, henceforth, nothing
shall separate me from my ideal. I have done away with the gilded
splendour which to me is shameful. I live now with that which speaks to
me in a language I can understand, something which is morally beautiful.
This act of my inner self is now realized. I have not repented. I never
shall.

Dramas, plots, intrigues, treason follow each other--I struggle against
them without triumphing. It is the work of my outward self. I may appear
to fail, but my inner self turns away disgusted from the mud.

I was not made to conquer in the fray of human conflicts in a sphere
which is, perhaps, that of creatures predestined to show that the real
condition of man is not here below. The society that he extols, the
civilization that he admires, are but the poor and fragile conceptions
of his illusion of earthly sovereignty, and they will only bring
misfortune to him if he lives for them alone.

God was always present in my thoughts even when I believed myself
forgotten by man.

I have had, like every creature who has been crushed by false witness,
my hours of doubt and despair. The grievance against me at the Coburg
Palace and in Vienna was that I would not conform to the outward
practice of religion after I had seen all its double-facedness and mock
devotion. I often refused to go to the chapel and accept as fitting the
outward piety which to me was sacrilege. I went to seek God and the Holy
Virgin in some solitary and humble church far from the Hofburg and my
palace.

I have also known the time when at the bidding of my rebellious soul
I turned from heaven. Suffering, experience and meditation have led me
back to the Divine Master whose love was taught me by my beloved mother.
I believe I shall reach His presence by a road which resembles Calvary.
It is an uphill road, but He raises me; and so rugged is it, that at
every turning I forget the world a little more and I stretch out my arms
towards the love and justice of God.

       *       *       *       *       *

They have said that I was beautiful. I inherit from my father my upright
figure, and I have also something of his features and his expression.

I inherit from my mother a certain capacity for dreaming, which enables
me to take refuge in myself, and when a conversation does not interest
me, or if anyone or anything troubles me, I instantly seek sanctuary in
the secret chamber of my soul.

But my eyes betray me, and the effort I make to return to everyday life
gives me the expression of a fugitive--this is a great peculiarity of
mine.

The colour of my eyes is a clear brown, which reflects those of the
Queen and the King, but more particularly those of the King. Like him,
I am able to change my voice from softness to a certain hard brilliance.
The golden ears of corn are not more golden than was once my golden
hair; to-day it is silver.

I speak like the King, but somewhat slower than he did, in the two
languages I chiefly employ--which are equally familiar to me--French and
German.

Like him I think in French or German, but when I write, I prefer to do
so in French.

So enamoured am I of simplicity and truth in relation to every condition
of life, that I think a woman, wherever she may be, should always keep
her position as a woman. Of course there must be degrees in everything,
and the differences among men are the outcome of their education and the
rules of social life.

Although I am utterly indifferent to false courtesy and hollow praise,
and the methods of the crafty and the claims of intriguers, I respect
merit, and when it is recognized and rewarded I esteem the honour which
is accorded to it.

Let us not look for outside honours but let us respect our own personal
honour. I do not forget, I have never forgotten, even in my worst hours
of misfortune, what I owe to my birth, to my dear departed ones and to
the ideas which were born in me.

I love Art, and, like the Queen, I have a preference for music. I also
inherit her love of horses. Sport seems to me a secondary thing in
comparison with the interest of horsemanship in all its varieties.

In Paris I was always to be seen in the Bois; in Vienna I was an
_habituée_ of the Prater. I still take great pleasure in picking out
carriages that are carriages and horsemen who are horsemen; they are
both rarer than one thinks.

I am a great reader and I make notes of my impressions. I read with
pleasure all the newspapers worth reading, and all the reviews that make
me think.

Politics never bore me, but to-day they astonish me and rend my heart;
the frightful upheaval in Europe, the universal trouble, fill me with
concern for the future.

Hostile to any excess of monarchical power which incites its favourites
to depravity, I think, nevertheless, that democrats will find it
difficult to conduct matters and govern to the betterment of general
interests. The etiquette of Power, the name of President, Consul,
Emperor or King signifies but one thing, and besides this the principle
of authority is always regulated by the influence of Woman.

This influence, supreme in the history of the world, is only paramount
in democracies when it exercises itself in secret, and it is generally
unlucky. In monarchies it is beneficial to the development of
aristocracy, except in the classic case of a drunken or perverse
favourite who by taking sensual possession of the prince also takes
possession of his authority.

In some instances it is not wise to lead men to good fortune. Those
of our epoch seem to be very far from attaining it through hatred,
ignorance and confusion, which the ruin of ancient Europe can only
aggravate.

With regard to books, I re-read more than I read. But I am attracted by
anything new which I hear spoken about--in which, by the way, I am so
often disappointed. I have read books on the war; I commiserate with the
men who cut each others throats--but I wish they would cease writing on
this barbarous subject.

Goethe is my favourite author; he is the friend and companion whom I
love at all times. I am familiar with the great French authors, but none
of them, in my opinion, attains the mental serenity of Goethe or gives
me so much repose of mind.

I have a penchant for the works of Chateaubriand which dates from my
youth. The character of René will always appeal to the hearts of women.

With regard to modern books.... But in speaking of literary men and
artists it is always necessary to exclude those who are living, so
I will say nothing about modern authors. I will only say that of all
theatrical plays (Shakespeare, like God in Heaven, alone excepted)
the French repertory, in my opinion, is the most varied and the most
interesting, and through the facilities which I have had of hearing
plays in the principal European languages, I think I am able to judge.
I am speaking now of the dramatic theatre. The works and the
representations of the lyric theatre appear generally more remarkable,
and the companies are more conscientious in Germany and Austria and even
in Italy, than in France.

Outside Paris and Monte Carlo it is difficult to find, even in the
most charming countries, what all unimportant German towns possess--a
comfortable theatre, good music, good singers.

How strange are different temperaments: this one is more musical, that
one is more learned, this one is more philosophical, that one is more
imaginative; it seems as though Providence, in creating diversities
in races and characters, had wished to instil into men's hearts the
necessity of amalgamating their different talents, in order to be happy
in this world. But Providence, whilst endowing men with genius, has
neglected to make them less foolish and less wicked.




CHAPTER III

The Queen


The Queen was the daughter of Joseph Antoine Jean, Prince Royal of
Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria (the last Palatin, greatly
venerated by the Hungarians), and his third wife, Marie Dorothée
Guillemine Caroline, Princess of Wurtemburg.

Affianced to Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, heir to the throne of
Belgium, Marie Henriette of Austria married him by proxy at Schönbrunn
on August 10, 1853, and in person, according to the _Almanach de Gotha_,
in Brussels on the 22nd of the same month.

By this marriage the Royal House of Belgium, already connected with
those of France, Spain, England and Prussia, became allied to the
reigning families of Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, etc.

The young queen was the daughter of a good and simple mother, herself
a model of virtue. Her brothers were the Archduke Joseph, a gallant
soldier who had three horses killed under him at Sadowa, and the
Archduke Stephen, the idol of my childhood, who was banished from the
Court of Vienna because he was too popular. He ended his days in exile
at the Château of Schaumbourg in Germany.

King Leopold the First, my grandfather, having died on November 10,
1865, King Leopold II and Queen Henrietta ascended the throne.

I can still see the Queen as I saw her when I lay in her arms as a
child, so long has my adoration for her survived, so long has my belief
in another world remained sacred to her memory.

The Queen was of medium height and of slender build. Her beauty and
grace were unrivalled. The purity of her lines and her shoulders merited
the expression "royal." Her supple carriage was that of a sportswoman.
Her voice was of such pure timbre that it awakened echoes in one's soul.
Her eyes, a darker brown than those of the King, were not so keenly
luminous, but they were far more tender; they almost spoke.

But how much less her physical perfections counted in comparison with
her moral qualities. A true Christian, her idea of religion was to
follow it rigorously in every detail, without being in the least
narrow-minded. She had a philosophical and an assured conception of God,
and the mysteries of the Infinite. This faith enlightened her doctrine
and strengthened her piety.

People who cannot, or who will not, study the problem of religion,
easily persuade themselves that it is absurd to subject themselves to
the laws of confession and to its signs and ceremonies. The sincere
Christian is the woman who is _par excellence_ a wife and a mother, but
to some bigots she is merely an inferior being, who has fallen into the
hands of priests--but they would doubtless be very pleased all the same
to have her as the guardian angel of their own home.

Religion did not in the least deter the Queen from her obligations to
the State, or from her taste for Art, or from indulging in her favourite
pursuit of sport.

She received her guests, she presided over her circle, she attended
fêtes with a natural charm peculiar to her, which I passionately admired
from the moment when I was old enough to follow in her wake.

The Queen dressed with an inborn art which was always in harmony with
her surroundings. A woman in her position has to set out to please and
win the hearts of people, and she is therefore obliged more than
anyone else to study her toilette. The Queen excelled in this to such
perfection that she was always held up as an example by the arbiters of
Parisian fashion.

At any time fashion is peculiar, or at least it seems to be; if it were
not so there would be no fashion; but _la mode_ is not so varied as one
thinks. Considered as novelties, her innovations are nothing more or
less than little discoveries and arrangements with which the serpent, if
not Eve, was already familiar in the Garden of Eden.

The Queen followed _la mode_ without innovating fashions--that is the
affair of other queens--queens of fashion, for which they have reasons,
not dictated by Reason. But the Queen adopted and perfected fashions.
It was miraculous to see how she wore the fairy-like lace which is the
glory and charm of Belgium. I have always remembered one of her gowns,
a certain cerise-coloured silk, the corsage draped with a fichu of
Chantilly--one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.

The Queen would often adorn the gowns worn by her at her receptions with
garlands of fresh flowers. She knew how to wear them, and what a
delight it was to my sisters and myself when we were told to go into
the conservatories and prepare the garlands of roses, dahlias, or asters
which our beloved sovereign was going to wear.

A perfect musician, the Queen was equally brilliant in her execution
of a _Czarda_, an Italian melody or an air from an Opera, which
she interpreted in a soprano voice, the possession of which many a
professional singer would have envied her.

One of her great pleasures was to sing duets with Faure, the illustrious
baritone, a well-bred artist who never presumed on his position. The
Queen and Faure were wonderful in the famous duets from _Hamlet_ and
_Rigoletto_.... I think of her singing even now with emotion. But all
this belongs to the past; it is far away.

The Queen received the best artistic society on the same footing as the
best Belgian society at her private receptions. She closely followed
all the doings at the Théâtre de la Monnaie and the Théâtre du Parc.
She interested herself in deserving talent. She was not ignorant of the
anxieties and difficulties of a career of which four hours, so to speak,
are lived in the realms of illusion, and the remaining twenty face to
face with reality. She frequently showed her solicitude for artists in
the most delicate and opportune manner. The memory of her kindness lives
in many hearts. In the theatrical world gratitude is less rare than
elsewhere. One can never speak too highly of the good that exists in
the souls of these people, who appear so frivolous and easy-going on the
surface. Corneille always had a good word for them.

The Queen loved horses with the appreciation of a born horsewoman; she
liked to drive high-spirited animals, and I have inherited her taste.
She knew how to control the wild Hungarian horses which were only safe
with her. Refreshed with champagne, or bread dipped in red wine, they
flew like the wind; one might have said that she guided them by a
thread, but in reality she made them obedient to the sound of her voice.

She groomed her horses herself and taught them wonderful circus tricks.
I have seen one of them ascend the grand staircase of Laeken, enter the
Queen's room and come down again as though nothing had happened. What
amused her most was to drive two or four different animals at once who
had never been harnessed, and who were so high-spirited that no one
dared to drive them. By dint of patience and the magnetic charm of her
voice the most restive animal eventually became docile.

Her life was so ordered that she found time for everything--maternal
cares were first and foremost with her; she looked upon these as sweet
duties, of which I was her first burden.

I was a year old when my brother Leopold was born, who, alas! only lived
a few years. I was six years old when my sister Stéphanie was born, and
when Clémentine came into the world I was already twelve years old. I
was therefore the eldest bird in the Queen's nest--the big sister who
was taught to assist her mother equally well on the steps of the throne
as in a cottage. It was I who was expected to set a good example to the
brothers and sisters who might come after me; it was I who was expected
to benefit the most from maternal teachings. I certainly had the
priority, but I was not the favourite, though owing to my age I was, in
some ways, the most privileged.

Our mother brought us up after the English fashion; our rooms were more
like those in a convent than the rooms of the princesses one reads about
in the novels of M. Bourget.

When I was no longer under the daily and nightly supervision of a
governess or nurse, I was expected to look after myself, and when I
got out of bed in the morning I had to fetch the jug of cold water from
outside the door which was intended (in all seasons) for my ablutions,
for neither in the Palace at Brussels nor at the Château of Laeken had
the "last word" in comfort attained perfection.

The Queen taught me from my earliest youth how to manage servants; I
learned from her very early in life that it was possible to be on a
throne one day and the next to find one's self in the streets. How many
of my relations or friends can contradict this to-day? But at that
time my mother's cold reasoning would have disgusted the Courts and the
chancellors.

  [Illustration: QUEEN MARIE HENRIETTE OF BELGIUM]

My mother made me think deeply. Thought was my first revelation of a
real existence. I began to look further than the throne and a title for
the means of moral and intellectual superiority, I became a definite
personality; I wished to form my own ideas so that in after life I could
always be myself.

The Queen helped to mould my character by abundant reading, chiefly in
French and English--principally memoirs. I was never, or very rarely,
allowed to read a novel. The Queen read deliciously, giving the smallest
phrase its full value; the manner in which she read aloud was not
only that of a woman who knew _how_ to read, but it also displayed
a penetrating intelligence--in fact, it was more like speaking than
reading, and it seemed to come from a heart which understood everything.

The Queen was gay and entrancingly charming with her intimate friends.
She was always like this, in her excursions in the country, at croquet
parties, at her own receptions, and in her box at the theatre. Her good
humour was in accordance with the promptings of a generous and expansive
nature.

On my birthday, August 25, 1894, which I celebrated with her at Spa,
she wished to mark the auspicious occasion by improvising a small dance
after _déjeuner_, which she had specially ordered to be served, not
in her villa, but in a room reserved for her in an hotel, thus making
_déjeuner_ a more agreeable and homely affair. There were present myself
and my sisters, Stéphanie's daughter, and my own, and all of us wore our
smartest gowns.

The Queen insisted on Clémentine, who was an accomplished musician,
playing the piano, and having sent for Gerard, her _maître d'hôtel_,
who had accompanied us to supervise the service (he was one of those
servants who believed in their duty towards their employers, and who
knew the meaning of the name of servant), the Queen said to him:

"Gerard, in honour of the princess's birthday you are going to waltz
with us."

"Oh, your Majesty!"

"Yes, yes, you are going to waltz once with me, and once with the
princess."

"Oh, your Majesty!"

"What? Do you not know how to waltz?"

"Yes, your Majesty, a little."

"_Eh bien_, Gerard, waltz! Now, Clémentine, play a waltz."

The faithful Gerard could but obey, blushing, and shy and hardly daring
to glance at his royal partner. The Queen then said laughingly:

"Don't be afraid, Gerard, I am not a sylphide."

Gerard then waltzed with my mother and also with me, and he waltzed
well!

The next day he was once more the model servant--such as are loved and
esteemed by their masters, whom they love and esteem in return, if those
they serve only know how to merit their devotion.

The Queen took no part in politics except to discharge her duties as
a sovereign. On a man like the King, feminine influence could not be
exercised by a wife and mother.

It was impossible for the Queen to find in her husband the perfect union
of thought, the intimacy of action and the entire confidence which,
in no matter what household, are the only possible conditions for
happiness, and the first deception which she experienced was followed by
others which became more and more cruel.

The trial which caused the Queen to be inconsolable and which had such
painful consequences, was the death of her son Leopold.

My mother could never be comforted for the loss of the heir to the
Throne, this child of so much promise, who had been given and retaken by
Heaven. This was the sorrow of her life. She even alluded to it in her
admirable will.

From the day of his death, her health, always so robust, gradually
changed little by little. Her soul began to break away from earthly
things and lose itself more and more in prayer and contemplation. She
lived only in the ardent hope of meeting her son in heaven.

The Queen was always a saint--and she soon became a martyr. She suffered
immensely through the aloof greatness of the King, who existed solely
for his Royal duties, although he would occasionally suddenly indulge
in some unbridled pleasure after his arduous work. His was a nature
of extremes which a tender soul could not understand, and hence arose
misunderstandings and their tragic consequences. Against such a fate,
which could only become more and more unhappy, there was nothing to be
done. Earthly life is doomed to know implacable disillusions.

But however much the Queen suffered she never diminished her
Heaven-inspired kindness. She would sometimes give way to her sorrow and
allow the cries of her wounded soul to be heard! She would even attempt
to defend herself by some action of which the public was cognizant but
which it failed to understand. But she always returned to the feet of
Christ the Consoler.

It is there that I shall find her, and there I shall offer my veneration
and love to this sublime mother who instilled in me the passion to
fulfil my duties, as I define them.

My idea of duty, face to face with myself, is, firstly, a rightful and
complete liberty of action; that is to say, freedom of body and soul;
from this comes the seeking after God here below and the ascension to
Him through human errors and human weaknesses.

Oh! well-beloved mother, I have passed through life without at all
understanding the mysteries which surround us, but, following your
simple faith, I have believed, _I now_ believe, in the presence of a
Creator.




CHAPTER IV

The King


My father was not only a great king--he was a great man.

A king may achieve greatness through possessing the art of surrounding
himself with the right entourage, and thus taking advantage of the
importance which it is then so easy for him to gain. He must be
superior, at least at heart, to have a taste for superiority.

When he came into power Leopold II did not aim at gathering round him
those wonderful intellects who would have inspired him to greatness. He
had not the same chances as Louis XIV, neither had he those men whom his
own example later developed. Belgium was still an adolescent State, the
government of which required very careful and exclusive handling.
She had sprung into being from twin countries, widely different in
character, but united by the same laws. Her national policy is like
a web whose mission it is to hold them together, but such a form of
Constitution is not without its inconveniences.

For a long time the King's secret conviction was, that in order to be
able to endure and strengthen herself, Belgium had urgent need of some
great scheme which would produce in her an amalgamation of effort and
intelligence, and allow her to take one of the highest places among the
nations of the world.

He had carefully studied the map of the world, and his observations
resulted in the unheard-of project of endowing his little kingdom with
immense colonial possessions. He had at the time neither the money nor
the army; he only had the idea, but the idea obsessed him and he lived
for it alone.

The man whom I recall to my mind in thinking of the King is one whose
silence always frightened me when I was a child. Here is an instance of
his taciturn character.

The Queen is seated, holding in her hand a book which she is no longer
reading. She is folding me close to her heart, whilst her eyes follow
the King. The doors of the drawing-room leading to the other rooms are
open, and the Sovereign paces backwards and forwards, his hands behind
his back, almost like an automaton, without glancing at us and without
breaking his interminable train of thought. Silence lies over the
palace; nobody dares enter, for the King has forbidden access to the
Royal apartments. The Queen and I are involuntary prisoners of this
prisoner of his own thoughts.

The King was a fine and strong figure. His imposing personality and his
characteristic physiognomy are familiar even to the new generation, who
have only seen the popular pictures of him; but photographs never did
justice to his expression of sceptical shrewdness. His eyes, as I have
already said, were light brown; at the least opposition they assumed a
fixed expression, and when it rested on my sisters and myself when we
were in fault, the King's glance terrified us more than any reproaches
or punishment.

The King's voice was deep and somewhat muffled in _timbre_, sometimes
it grew nasal; when he was angry it became, like his eyes, as hard as a
stone, but if he wished to please it became soft and emotional. People
still speak of the manner in which he delivered his speech from the
Throne after the death of Leopold I, and his touching opening words:
"Gentlemen, Belgium, like myself, has lost a father."

When he was in a happy mood he became animated, although his humour,
when he was pleased to show it, was always bitter and satirical--and
he possessed it in abundance. I have never forgotten certain of his
opinions touching his Ministers and contemporaries. Some of those who
are still living would be very flattered to know them. Others would not!

The King paid little attention to me or my sisters; his fatherly
caresses were rare and brief. We were always awed in his presence; he
was ever to us more the King than the father.

With regard to his attitude towards the Queen, as far back as I can
remember I always see him as the same self-centred and taciturn man in
his relations with her.

He was constantly away from home, so we little ones were rarely with
both our parents. I alone, on account of my age and the advantage which
it gave me over my sisters, enjoyed a little family life with my father
and my mother before the differences between them arose. But I cannot
recall a single act of kindness or tenderness on his part towards my
mother that I especially noticed in my youth.

I only know that at a certain epoch, when I was about eleven years old,
the King, who like my mother adored flowers, never missed bringing her
some every week which he had gathered himself in the Royal gardens. He
would arrive in my mother's apartment laden with his fragrant harvest
and would say to her abruptly, "Here you are, my good wife."

Stéphanie and I would at once begin to refill the vases--I especially,
for I had been taught by the Queen to love and arrange flowers, those
discreet companions of our thoughts, which bring into the home perfume,
colour, caresses and rest, and which are verily the quintessence of
earth and heaven!

One day at Laeken my father offered me a gardenia. I was simply
stupefied. I was then about thirteen. I hoped for a long time for a
repetition of this paternal graciousness, but in vain!

This prince of genius, whose political conceptions and manner of
conducting negotiations useful to Belgium won the admiration, if not of
those to whom they were advantageous, of at least the high intelligences
of other countries, was singularly thorough in small things. He clung to
his ideas and his personal concerns in a most obstinate manner. I have
seen him look into the management of the gardens at Laeken with the
greatest attention to every detail.

Large, juicy peaches grew on the walls of the gardens, and the King was
very proud of them. I had a passion for peaches, and one day I dared eat
one which was hidden away among the leaves. And that year peaches were
plentiful. But the following day the King discovered the theft--what
a dramatic moment! At once suspected, I confessed my crime and I was
promptly punished. I did not realize that the King counted his peaches!

This great realist had a realistic mind, and materialism carried him on
to idealism. I will not allow myself for a moment to suppose that he did
not believe in God, but certainly he had a different conception of
the Creator from that of the Queen. She suffered greatly through this
attitude of her husband, but he persisted in his way of thinking.

On Sundays he used to attend Mass; he considered it was an example which
he owed to the Court and the people. Sometimes he escorted the Queen
to Divine Service, taking with him "Squib," a tiny terrier of which the
Queen was very fond and which the King always spoke of as one refers to
a person. He called it "The Squib."

It was a sight to see the big man holding the tiny dog under his
arm--the little animal too terrified to move. Thus, one supporting the
other, they both heard Mass seated beside the Queen, who assuredly did
not think this a very religious procedure. When Mass was over, the King,
still carrying Squib, would cross the reception rooms until he reached
the dining-room, when he would gravely deposit the little dog on the
Queen's knee.

With regard to the King's policy, I only knew and understood that
related to the Congo. I knew the alternate hopes and fears which passed
through the mind of the author of this gigantic enterprise. It was the
one topic of conversation around me, and it was always mentioned with
bated breath; but the things which are spoken of in this way are, I
think, those one hears of most.

I know that the Royal fortune and that of my aunt the Empress Charlotte,
which was administered by the King, were employed at one time,
not without some risk, in the acquisition and organization of the
possessions that the Great Powers afterwards disputed with Belgium.
Those were anxious days for the King. He manoeuvred cleverly between
the Powers. History knows the value of his work; she realizes what a
profound politician he was. Official Belgium does not remember, but the
people have never forgotten. I have confidence in the soul of Belgium,
the Belgium who has shown her greatness in the years 1914-1918. King
Leopold II will one day receive the recognition he merits in the country
which he enriched, and which he always wished to fortify against the
dangers of war.

The private failings of the man only harmed himself and his family; his
people never suffered by reason of them. They have even benefited by
the immense wealth which it pleased the King to assign to his country,
regardless of the justice of reserving that portion which belonged
to his daughters, who were excluded by him from the Belgian
family.

  [Illustration: _Photo: Numa Blanc_
  KING LEOPOLD II OF BELGIUM]

Here we touch on a side of the King's character which is looked upon by
psychologists as unnatural, and is similar to the legislation of which
the Belgian Government availed itself in similar circumstances, a
legislation contrary to the moral laws of justice and equity.

Belgium's excuse--if there can be an excuse for this illegality--was
that the King himself had exceeded his rights.

I have read, over the signature of a journalist, that even before his
marriage the King declared that he would never accept any benefit
from the Royal purse, and that his income, from whatever source it was
derived, should not accrue for the benefit of his descendants.

This is an astounding story and is a pure invention. A king is a man
like other men; the value of his position rests upon his qualifications.
The King could have either ruined or enriched himself. He was a
genius, and for this reason his daughters were able to be--and indeed
were--deprived of a fortune which was partly theirs by right, and which
was used for the development of a commercial enterprise by the colossal
audacity of their father!

But why should the King have wished to disinherit his daughters and
deprive them of his immense accumulation of wealth? The reason must be
definitely stated.

The King had long wished that our fortunes (those of my sisters
and myself) should be reduced to the minimum of what he considered
convenient to assign to us, that is to say, much less than our needs
required, because, after the death of our brother Leopold, he only saw
in us impediments to his own ambition and he was tortured by the fact
that he had no male descendant.

I alone noticed, during the years that followed the death of his son,
that the King on various occasions behaved in a different manner towards
the Queen; he was more amiable and was more frequently in her company.
Having now become a woman I can understand the real reason for this!

Clémentine came into the world; her birth was preceded by many vain
hopes, but when the longed-for child arrived it was once more a girl!

The King was furious and thenceforth refused to have anything to do
with his admirable wife to whom God had refused a son. What a mystery of
human tribulation!

As for the daughters born of the Royal union, they were merely accepted
and tolerated, but the King's heart never softened towards them. At
the same time we were not altogether excluded from his thoughts. The
feelings of our father, so far as we were concerned, varied according
to circumstances, and, notably in my own case, according to the various
calumnies and intrigues. My sister Stéphanie also suffered in this way.

Both of us were married at an early age and, living as we did at a
distance, we were deprived of the opportunity of constantly seeing
the King, so naturally we could not pretend to be the subject of his
constant remembrance. We therefore ran the risk of being easily maligned
by the unscrupulous courtesans who had influence with the King and were
in the pay of our enemies.

Clémentine was in a far better position. She received all the tenderness
the King was inclined to bestow on the only one of his children who
remained with him, one who showered on him a daughter's affection and
who also upheld the traditions of the Royal House, a duty which, in the
absence of the Queen, the daughter of such a mother was alone able to
fulfil.




CHAPTER V

My Country and the Days of my Youth


It is more than forty-five years that, since my marriage, Fate has
exiled me from my native country. I have never revisited Belgium, except
in passing through it, and then often under very painful circumstances.

Well! I will close my eyes and return in imagination to the Château of
Laeken, and to a certain pathway in the park; I will go, in like manner,
to one particular footpath in the forest of Soignies; there are trees,
stones and roofs there, which seem to me to be those which I once knew.

An oak tree was planted at Laeken to commemorate the birth of my brother
and the birth of each of my sisters and myself. I had not seen these
trees thus dedicated to us for a long time, until I happened to be in
Belgium for a few days after the King's death. Accompanied by that old
friend of my childhood, my brother's tutor, General Donny, I made
an excursion to Laeken, and I saw once more, with what bitter-sweet
memories, the little garden formerly tended by my brother and myself,
which had been piously preserved in its original state. Was this a
mute evidence of the King's remembrance, or the fidelity of some old
servants? In my grief I did not question to whom the little garden owed
its preservation. My tears alone spoke.

When I stood before our "birthday" oak trees I only saw three!

I was told that by some extraordinary coincidence the one which marked
the birth of my brother had died, like him, when it was quite young.
Of the others, mine was strong and vigorous; Stéphanie's had had the
misfortune to grow a little crooked, but the one belonging to Clémentine
was quite normal. I venture to say that the three oak trees are emblems
of our destiny so far as our inner lives are concerned, which have been
ignored and misunderstood by men, but which like Nature remain confident
in God. These three oak trees, and the fourth which is now dead, have
always troubled me since the day when I beheld them again.

Whatever they may be now I envy them! They have grown, they have lived,
they still flourish on the soil sacred to my lost ones, except one,
whose absence is so expressive. I should love to see them again and to
live, if not near them, at least under the shadow of other oak trees
growing in my beloved country.

Would that I could end my days there, and once more find my adored
mother and my vivid youth in the forests, the countryside, or the
villages through which we passed so often together. She it was who
taught me the secrets of Nature, and it was thus that the life of Nature
and the life of Belgium, the wonders of the universe, and the life of
society were revealed to me. The Queen loved and taught me to love our
heroic country, whose defence of her liberty in past ages constitutes
one of the most touching episodes in history.

And I have inherited an ardent wish that my country should never become
enslaved.

I know that the good people of Belgium have reproached me, as if it had
been my fault, for deserting our country. Those who knew me in my youth
have believed that I was transplanted to a strange and brilliant world
where I forgot my native land. Then the dramas and scandals into which I
was dragged on the hurdle of misunderstanding and calumny, have for some
transformed me into a sinner, for whom it was not enough punishment to
forbid her to see her dying mother by keeping her as a sane prisoner in
a madhouse. Such a woman deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth!

Ah, poor miserable humanity, so full of evil yourself that you see
nothing but evil in others, what was my crime?

I would not, I could not live under the conjugal roof. I endured my
life, sacrificed myself, as long as I could, because I knew that I owed
a duty towards my children, but after they grew up the horror of my life
increased every day. My crime has consisted in listening to a unique
man, the ideal knight who kept me from committing errors which I
resolved to forget, and to do as many others have done.

In my palace, or elsewhere, I could have been the heroine of discreet
and multiple adventures. This behaviour would have conformed to the code
of high propriety, and God knows that opportunities abounded. But I
was not a hypocrite and very soon I found myself up against
hypocrites--innumerable legions of them. I was also the recipient of
their irritating and deceitful confidences.

Thus slander did its detestable work. An implacable persecution, masking
itself behind the simulated indignation of a false morality, began to
assail me.

To me one of the most cruel acts was the violent attack made by my
detractors on the King and Queen, and on public opinion in Belgium.

Could such a thing be possible? I found myself an exile from my country,
imprisoned and branded as mad, for everyone was determined that I should
become so.

It is to you, my mother, martyr and saint, and to some sublime moral
strength that I owe my resistance. You armed me for the struggle by
never letting me forget the essential duties of life which you had
taught me. I have remained faithful to them. But I have suffered
horribly since the day when even you could not understand my rebellion.
I was suppressed by the world. Cleverly exploited, all appearances were
against me. My enemies told you: "She is lost; she is mad; the doctors
have said so."

What doctors, _mon Dieu_? The truth about these doctors came out
afterwards.

Ah! some people envy princesses. They should rather pity them. I know
of one for whom there has been no justice in this world. Ordinary rights
were denied her. The law of the world was not a law for her, except when
it could be used against her.

Yes, a victim of an abominable plot of such surpassing cruelty that
reason can scarcely conceive possible; I was not allowed to return to my
beloved Belgium at the moment when I learnt, in spite of my persecutors,
that my mother was dying at Spa; I could not receive her last blessing,
I was not even allowed to follow her coffin ... to the tomb!

If I did not become mad in my asylum it was because I was not meant to
do so; I could not become mad. But I still tremble when I think of it.

Later, when the King was dying, I recovered my liberty, and my freedom
was brought about by my friend--a friend without equal, who, having on
one occasion saved me from myself, now saved me from prison and madness,
after having nearly succumbed himself beneath the blows of hate and
persecution.

But my freedom constituted a new crime; my fidelity to an incarnate
ideal in a whole-hearted devotion constituted an additional sin.

When I attended my father's funeral I was kept under constant
observation. I was restricted to a certain area of my native country.
The eldest daughter of the great King whom Belgium had just lost was
received with polite formality by a police official in Court attire!

Ah, no! I incriminate no one--not even the servants whose civility I
had once known. I am aware how tempting and profitable it is to mislead
princes, and what power exists in wicked advice when it is given with an
air of devotion. I am only explaining how it came about that I did not
remain in my much-loved country.

At last the frightful war broke out, following the debates regarding the
King's inheritance, and I was at once even more definitely suppressed
by the Belgian nation because, to my other abominations, I had added the
unpardonable sin of believing that justice existed in Belgium.

I was a prisoner in Munich, where I could do nothing. I was surprised in
Bavaria by hostilities and treated like a Belgian princess--that is to
say, very badly, as will be seen later.

In Brussels I became an enemy princess, and from the date of the
Armistice I was proclaimed a foreigner in my native country in the
interests of which I had been sacrificed at the age of seventeen, and I
also saw myself deprived of the inheritance which would have become mine
at the death of my aunt, the Empress Charlotte of Mexico.

But it is a matter of history that my marriage with the Prince of Coburg
was annulled in 1907 by the decision of the special tribunal of Gotha,
judging according to the "Rights of Princes," and that this annulment
was transmitted to the Court of Vienna. The divorce was ratified by
all the minute forms of the law of Courts and the ancient statutes
of Austria. The King officially gave me back my title of Princess of
Belgium.

That meant nothing; in Brussels no notice was taken of it.

It is a fact that the law of Hungary does not recognize the "Rights of
Princes" and the procedure of Gotha; in consequence of the possessions
of the Coburg family in Hungary I am still a Princess of Coburg.

I lose myself in this web in which I have been entangled, but common
sense tells me that the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy,
and the separation of Austria from Hungary has put an end to the "mixed
state" and the position of "mixed subject" which was that of the Prince
of Coburg.

Through his ancestors, this "Austrian" Prince, Duke Philip of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is of Franco-German and not of Hungarian origin.
The princely union cancelled, the civil union dissolved, I feel I have
been delivered, and that I have regained my Belgian nationality, thanks
to the good will of the King himself.

They have wished to ignore this at Brussels. They have branded me as a
Hungarian because the Prince of Coburg has entailed estates in Hungary.
Could they not just as well have proclaimed me a Turk or a Chinese had
he possessed estates in Turkey or China?

I question this; I make no reproaches whatever, especially against the
principle of superior authority, for the good reason that this happened
in a state whose king and queen had retreated before the invader
in order to defend their country (one knows with what courage and
self-denial) from the extreme frontier left them by a conquering enemy.
They returned in triumph flushed with the joy of victory. They had only
time to deal with general and momentous questions. I should like to
think that the attitude adopted towards myself has been merely the
outcome of a destiny which wills that I should become a stranger in my
own country.

I wept over this country, so dear to my heart, in 1914. I believe that
her errors towards me have added to her misfortunes. I know that the
judgment of Brussels in denying me my share of my father's property
aroused bitter indignation in Berlin. My son-in-law, the Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein, brother-in-law of the Emperor William II, relied on
succeeding to the inheritance of his wife's grandfather. I can only say
that the anger of the German Sovereign against the resistance of
Belgium was increased by the remembrance of the deception of one of his
relations, on whom he was rather severe, and this may have decided
him to crush the little nation which dared oppose the violation of its
neutrality.

But this did not help to recall the irritable William II back to reason
and humanity, because this miserable man, whom I have known since my
childhood, was absolutely convinced of his rôle as the appointed scourge
of God and the invincible redresser of Justice on the field of battle.

       *       *       *       *       *

Let us for a moment forget these miseries and sufferings and talk of
the time when I was happy in my happy country--the days when I went for
excursions with the Queen and "discovered" my parents' kingdom.

What joy when I could drive like my mother! I was then barely fourteen
and I was her pupil. We frequently went for excursions through our dear
Belgium from early morning till late in the evening. Two or three of the
Royal carriages followed. The first was driven by the Queen, the second
by myself, and the third by an officer, one of the ladies-in-waiting,
or, later, by my sister Clémentine. Doctor Wiemmer, a compatriot and a
devoted friend of the Queen who accompanied her to the Belgian Court,
often went with us, also good General Donny and General Van den Smissin,
and certain maids-of-honour and other trusted members of our entourage.
We halted as fancy dictated. The forest of Soignies, the environs of
Spa, and the Ardennes have many a time witnessed the sight of the Queen
sitting on the grass in some delightful glade, munching one of the
famous _pistolets_ for which Brussels is famous, and which came out of
the Royal bakeries (what delicious cakes were made there! I can taste
them even yet). How beautiful Belgium was then, and what pure air
refreshed us. How eagerly I awaited the future.

On these long excursions the Queen carried a map and made out the
itinerary herself with the skill of a staff officer; she also taught me
and my sisters how to take our bearings.

At this time the automobile had not yet ravaged the world. I have come
across this stupefying remark of a Frenchman, "Speed is the aristocracy
of movement." One might as well say, "Thoughtlessness is the aristocracy
of thought." The automobile is doubtless of occasional individual
benefit, but I look upon it as a general scourge. Side by side with the
satisfaction which it procures, it upsets existence by precipitating it.

At the time when horse-drawn vehicles were in constant use, we had
different impressions of a day's excursion than those which we have
after the end of three weeks' feverish motoring--when we halt at various
palaces, drive between interminable rows of poplars, interspersed with
fleeting visions of fields, houses and poultry-yards, and when we are
tortured by the dread of being made untidy by the wind and splashed by
the mud.

It is nearly half a century since the horse was the ornament and comfort
of the best European society. The example of the Queen of Belgium then
counted for something.

In France, the Orleans family--which is related to ours--and the Duc and
Duchesse de Chartres led the fashion not only in Cannes, but in Normandy
and in the delicious region of Chantilly. The duchess always rode in
an admirable riding habit. I well remember her black eyes, her pure
features and her dazzling personality which were a mixture of natural
charm and inborn distinction.

The Prince de Joinville, so artistic, so witty, was endowed with the
most exquisite and gallant spirit. He paid me marked attention, as did
his brother the Duc de Montpensier. We were a very gay trio, and the
graver members of the family were wont to cast severe glances in our
direction.

The mention of the Orleans family recalls to me the most indulgent, the
greatest nobleman of all--the Duc d'Aumale, a faithful friend of Belgium
and often our host. Oh! what a loyal and noble character the French
Republic refused to recognize in him. His revenge was to overwhelm his
ungrateful country with kindness. I have lived under his roof and I
think of him with the greatest tenderness. I still see myself in a
room on the ground floor overlooking the moat at Chantilly, where
this princely host surrounded himself with everything that counted for
anything in France, and where he held wonderful receptions, frequently
numbering among his guests the magnificent-looking Prince de Condé, whom
he honoured and had almost brought back to life.

The Queen and the Duc d'Aumale were greatly attached to one another.
When the bitterness of a difficult situation rendered her life first
difficult, and then impossible, owing to the King's forgetfulness of
what was due from the man to the prince, the Duc d'Aumale was one of
those invaluable friends whose delicate understanding and faithful
thoughts consoled her helplessness.

Although devoted to the Duc d'Aumale, I also knew the Comtesse de Paris
intimately, with whom I have stayed at the Château d'Eu. She was an
eccentric woman, rather odd-looking in appearance, but she possessed a
joyous and lively disposition.

Another lady of the Orleans family who became familiar to me in early
life was the Princess Clémentine of respected memory, a daughter of King
Louis Philippe, and the wife of Prince Auguste of Coburg. I became her
daughter-in-law by my marriage with her eldest son, and my ardent hope
was that she would be a second mother to me. It did not occur to either
of us that her age and my youth could not agree.

Gratitude also recalls to my mind my near relations the Comte and
Comtesse de Flandre, and their many kindnesses which I have not
forgotten. Their noble lives have known the awful sadness of the
destruction of a tenderly nurtured future. But God has granted them
reserves of hope and affection.

I was nearly forgetting one of the chief recollections of my earliest
childhood--Queen Marie Amélie, the widow of King Louis Philippe.

This Royal lady, who bore her loss and her exile with so much dignity,
was my great-grandmother and my godmother. She lived in retirement at
Claremont, near Esher.

When the Queen received the news of my birth her first question was:
"Has she small ears?" She expressed the wish for me to be named Louise
Marie, in memory of her daughter, my venerated grandmother, the first
Queen of the Belgians.

I can still picture my sweet old relation, with her white curls showing
underneath a wide-brimmed lace cap. I can again see the early breakfast
placed at the side of the deep arm-chair, and I remember the "pain à la
Grecque" which she gave me when I had been good.

Then the pony was brought round, and my cousin Blanche de Nemours and
myself were installed in the double panniers, and taken for our daily
ride in the shady avenues of the great park.

The Queen had as reader Miss Müser, a German, who was the faithful
friend and constant companion of her old age. I was very young at this
time, certainly not more than four, but I have religiously treasured
in my remembrance the face, the voice, and the tenderness of my
great-grandmother, Marie Amélie, Queen of France.

As everyone knows, my two sisters, whom I always remember in those
happy times when we still ignored what is called life, are both married.
Stéphanie, like myself, married very early, and Clémentine much later in
life.

Stéphanie as a child, a young girl and a young woman was the more
beautiful. Clémentine, who was also beautiful, possessed the most charm.
Destiny has smiled upon her. Her life with the King gave her the insight
and guidance which we never enjoyed. Every life has its favours and its
chances in the human lottery.

Clémentine married Prince Victor Napoleon and the widely varied
possibilities attached to such a name.

Stéphanie's marriage seemed brilliant, not with eventualities but with
certainties. I refer to her first husband, for she married twice. The
first time she had the good luck to marry an intelligent, handsome and
chivalrous man, who was perhaps the most remarkable personality of his
time. He shared with her the crown of Charles-Quint and the thrones
of Austria-Hungary ... crown and thrones have disappeared, as though
banished by the wand of some infernal magician, and my sister remains
known to history as the widow of the Archduke Rudolph. She was only
twenty-five years of age when he died.

  [Illustration: THE COUNTESS LONYAY
  (Princess Stéphanie of Belgium)
  (Her first husband was the Archduke Rudolph of Austria)]

I have said nothing about the _mise en scène_ in the midst of which the
various personages moved who appealed to my intelligence and to my heart
at an age when my heart and mind were alike expanding. There is nothing
to tell but what is already well known.

The most interesting place of all others to me in my childhood was
the Château of Laeken. I have no agreeable memories of the Palace at
Brussels, although I have not forgotten the gallery and the reception
rooms, where the many beautiful pictures always interested me, above
all that of Charles I, by Van Dyck, dressed in black, in whose pale and
noble face I seemed to read the melancholy fate which overshadows some
doomed monarchs.

I have seen many princely and many royal abodes. They all resemble
museums, and they are equally fatiguing. Better to have a cottage and a
small Teniers than own ten _salons_ and five hundred linen tablecloths
which belong to everybody.

I was happy at Laeken because work became less absorbing. We had more
liberty, more space. I never hesitated to run or jump in the gardens and
the park from the earliest age, and I always took the lead instead of
my brother, who seemed to be the girl. I was strong, lively and full of
devilment.

I was eager and willing to learn. My habit of asking questions gave
me the name of "Madame Pourquoi." I always loved truth and logic. My
instinctive passion for truth made me attack my governess tooth and nail
one day because she wished to punish me undeservedly. I was in such a
state of mind that Dr. Wiemmer, who was called in, decided to get to the
bottom of the cause of my fury. He concluded that I was right in fact,
if not in action, and he saw that my character was one that could only
be led by kindness, frankness and justice. The governess was sent away.

The Queen recalled this incident and the doctor's words many times.

This medical man who was so devoted to my family, and who disappeared
all too soon, once saved my sister Stéphanie's life when she was
stricken with typhoid, and when she was better the King and Queen took
us to Biarritz--a change of air being necessary for our convalescent. My
sister and I shared the same room facing the sea at the Villa Eugénie.
I was thirteen years old, Stéphanie was seven. I was entrusted with
the care of her, and to see that she did not catch cold. One night
a tempestuous wind arose which, incidentally, produced a terrible
waterspout. Waking up, I rushed to the window, which was open, in my
nightgown. The system of closing the window would not act, or perhaps I
was clumsy; anyhow, I could not manage to shut the window. The wind now
rose to such fury that every moment I was blown back into the room. I
began to tremble as I feared for Stéphanie. But I still continued to
struggle against the force of the storm. How long this lasted I do not
know. I only remember that they found me frozen, soaked and shivering,
and that I was put into a warm bed.

My eyes closed. I heard Dr. Wiemmer say to the Queen: "What a child! Any
other would have called out or rung the bell! She did not wish for help
to protect her sister, and the storm did not frighten her. She only
listened to the voice of duty, and she did not flinch."

Alas! each of us is made according to his or her destiny.

The first blow which made me realize the cruel severity of Fate was the
death of my brother Leopold. I had for him the feelings of a devoted and
"motherly" sister.

He was my property, my chattel, my child. We grew up together. I had
considerable authority over him as I was twelve months older than he
was, and he always obeyed me.

Leopold, Duke of Brabant and Comte de Hainaut, loved to play with dolls.
I much preferred playing with him. Nevertheless my uncle, the Archduke
Etienne, my mother's brother, one of the best and most distinguished
men that the earth has produced, gave us two Hungarian dolls. These were
works of art of their kind. Mine was christened "Figaro," a souvenir
of Beaumarchais, the enemy of Courts, who thus named it; why, and
wherefore, I cannot say. My brother's doll received the much more modest
and romantic name of "Irma."

There came a time when Figaro and Irma enlivened the Château of Laeken.
They even made the King laugh. I organized performances with Leopold,
Irma and Figaro which would have made Bartholo jealous.

My brother and I were happy and light-hearted--as happy as it is
possible to be at our age. Then came death, which lacerated my whole
being, and the passing of my beloved brother in his ninth year. I
remember then that I dared curse God and disown Him....

Leopold, handsome, sweet, sincere, tender and intelligent, embodied for
me, after our mother, all that was most precious in the world--I could
no more conceive existence without him than the day without light. But
he could not stay ... and I still weep for him, although it is more than
fifty years since he left me.

If he had lived how different things would have been!

Our house, thus struck down in the male descent of its eldest branch,
never recovered from this misfortune. Belgium will remember in the great
works accomplished by her, that my grandfather and my father made her
what she is.

She will not forget that angel on earth, my grandmother, the immortal
Queen Louise. Many, many tears were shed at her death, and have still
left their traces in Belgium.

Of my grandfather, I will repeat what M. Delehaye, President of the
Chamber of Representatives, said in his address to the King during the
magnificent fêtes of July 21-23, 1856, to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his succession to the throne.

"On July 21, 1831, confidence and joy burst forth at your Coronation,
and Sire, although you were then alone on your throne with your eminent
qualities and the prospect of splendid political alliances, you are not
alone to-day. You present yourself to the country supported by your two
sons and the remembrance of the Queen beloved and regretted as a mother,
you are surrounded by the Royal family, by illustrious alliances, by
confidence and sympathy, you are supported by foreign Governments, your
fame has grown greater, and you possess the love of Belgium which has
grown still greater than any fame. Sire, we can have confidence in the
future...."

Cannot I, must I not, also, have faith in the future?

I appeal to my illustrious ancestors; I appeal to the memory of the
Queen; I appeal to the memory of the King, by whom, alas! I was too
often denied and betrayed. I appeal to that world where everything is
illuminated for the soul liberated from earth, which will alone see
clearly for me.




CHAPTER VI

My Marriage and the Austrian Court--the Day after my Marriage


I was barely fifteen when it was first decided that I was to be married.
On March 25, 1874, I was officially betrothed to Prince Philip of
Saxe-Coburg; on February 18 I entered my sixteenth year.

My fiancé certainly showed perseverance. He had already made two
proposals for me. His first was repeated after an interval of two years.
The King replied to it by advising him to travel. The prince then made
a tour round the world; this completed he renewed his request. Again he
was asked to wait.

To marry me had become a fixed idea with Philip of Coburg. What sort of
love inspired him? Was he attracted by the elusive charm of my virginal
youth, or did the definite knowledge of the King's position and the
belief in the future of his enterprises fan the flame in the heart of a
man who was absolutely engrossed with material things?

The engagement being arranged, the two families interested (mine
especially), the Queen on the one hand, and the Princess Clémentine
on the other, decided that my marriage was not to be celebrated until
twelve months later. I was so young!

My fiancé was fourteen years older than I. Fourteen years' difference is
not perhaps of much account between a young woman of twenty-five and
a man of thirty-nine; it is a great deal, however, between an innocent
girl of seventeen and a lover of thirty-one.

I had only occasional glimpses of my fiancé during his rapid visits to
Brussels. Our conversations were of no account; they were merely such
as a man of his age would hold with a girl of mine. But I thought I knew
him well. We were cousins. This constituted the first difficulty, as
the sanction of the Church of Rome was necessary to the marriage. It was
asked for and obtained. This is the custom in such cases.

My fiancé left me to complete the studies necessary for my successful
début in a strange world. And what a world! The most courtly of Courts
in the universe. A Court haunted by the shades of Charles V and Maria
Theresa! A Court in which Spanish etiquette was allied to German
discipline. An emperor whose greatness had been increased rather
than diminished by his military reverses, so well did he bear his
misfortunes. An empress who was a Queen of Queens owing to her
undisputed perfections. And around them a host of archdukes and
archduchesses, princes, dukes and gentlemen bearing the highest titles
in the land.

All this was very impressive for a Belgian princess who did not regret
her short dresses, because one never regrets them when it is the fashion
to wear long gowns, but who was nevertheless very astonished to find
herself dressed like a grown-up girl.

However, I was not embarrassed, nor was I nervous; I looked at
everything with the eyes of a girl who is only interested in her
engagement and her lover.

I would have married the prince, had I been asked to do so, on the
same day that I received his first ring. I would have gone before the
burgomaster and the cardinal with just the same eagerness as I did a
year later.

Healthy in body and pure in spirit, brought up in an atmosphere of
sincerity and morality under the care of an incomparable mother, but
deprived, owing to my rank, of more or less enlightened friends who
would have reposed certain womanly confidences in me, I gave my whole
soul to my approaching marriage without troubling myself what marriage
might mean. I was no longer a creature of this earth. I created a star
where my fiancé and I would live together in a divine atmosphere of
happiness. The man who was to be my companion on the enchanted road
of life, seemed to me the embodiment of all that was beautiful, loyal,
generous, and I deemed him as innocent as myself.

My hours of martyrdom and the distressing quarrels were to come later
when the inmost recesses of my heart were disclosed by the barbarians of
the police court, who made scandalous use of my letters written after
my engagement. These letters expressed my love. I had written to the
man who was my parents' choice as I would have written to an archangel
destined to marry me. I adorned him with the beauty of my most beautiful
desires. I transfigured him.

The savages had the effrontery to deduce from these expressions of
affection that I was an unstable and deceitful creature.

I put this question to women. Between love as we conceive it and love as
we experience it, is there not very often an abyss?

I have been culpable, criminal and infamous to fall into this abyss.
Such is the real truth.

Why did my mother--who was so good--and why did the King--who was so
experienced in human nature--wish for this marriage, in spite of the
disproportion of our ages, and the few claims to universal admiration
which my intended husband possessed, apart from his claims to worldly
position?

In the first place his mother, who, rightly, loved and respected him,
pleaded for him. She credited him with possessing some of her own good
qualities.

In the second place, Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern had expressed a
wish to ask me in marriage. The King and Queen, who were told of this,
did not want, for various reasons, to become closer allied to the house
of Berlin. Other suitors, more or less desirable, might also appear on
the scene. Therefore, to put an end to this particular scheme and any
future uncertainties, I was plighted to Philip of Coburg.

In addition to this the Queen congratulated herself on sending her
eldest daughter to the Viennese Court where she herself had shone. She
still possessed influence there, and she thought that I would benefit
from it. She was still more satisfied to think that owing to the
entailed estates of the Coburgs in Hungary, I should possess material
advantages in the country dear to her memory, and where she could
often rejoin me, perhaps where she might even retire herself, since she
foresaw a future which was gradually to become more and more difficult.

My fiancé again appeared on my horizon. A year passes quickly. The date
of my marriage was approaching. I knew all the flowers of rhetoric and
the hot-house flowers of a daily courtship. But I asked myself, why did
the Queen never leave the archangel and me alone?

My fiancé told me about his travels. He had, he said, brought back some
wonderful collections of souvenirs. But I only knew how wonderful these
were later. He also told me about his plans for the future, the numerous
properties of the Coburgs, etc. I gave myself up to delightful hopes,
and described the magnificence of my trousseau, which was enriched with
fairy-like gifts of Belgian lace and intricate embroideries.

Finally I tried on the symbolical white robe, under a heavenly veil, a
_chef d'oeuvre_ of Brussels lace, and I was acknowledged fit to manage
my long train and to make my curtsies equally as well as the most
graceful of the famous young ladies of Saint Cyr.

Loaded with jewels, I soared higher and higher, flattered by homage,
congratulations and good wishes, without perceiving that, although
my fiancé was so much older than myself, I had now become a certain
personality in his dreams and in his thoughts.

I was praised on all sides in verse and in prose, with or without music,
and it seemed that I was a "flower of radiant beauty." I was quite taken
with this phrase.

As for my husband--his bearing, his nobility and his prestige were also
praised. I remember that he wore his Hungarian military uniform when
we received the burgomaster of Brussels, the celebrated M. Ausbach, who
came on February 4, 1873, to marry us by the civil code. Then with great
pomp we appeared before the Cardinal Primate of Belgium.

An altar was erected in the large drawing-room next the ballroom. I will
say nothing about the decorations. The chants and the prayers carried me
to heaven, although I by no means forgot the ritual of my marriage and
that I was the cynosure of all eyes. It was not a public of kings, but
of princes. In the place of sovereigns, whose greatness kept them away,
their next of kin were present; the Prince of Wales, the Crown
Prince Frederick, the Archduke Joseph, the Duc d'Aumale, the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg, and, finally, a large crowd of those notables who figure in
the pages of the _Almanach de Gotha_.

If I once began to describe the details of a ceremony of this magnitude
I should never finish. Personally I was not much attracted by it. I am
always surprised when, on opening a modern novel, I notice the pains
which clever people take to describe the sumptuous ritual of modern
marriage. I only know one appropriate description of this nature: that
of the "Sleeping Beauty." Fortunate Beauty, whose Court and herself were
put to sleep just at the crucial moment of a marriage which might not
have been a happy one.

But where are the fairies now and where are the beasts who know how to
talk?

Alas! the fairies have vanished and the beasts speak no more, except
the hidden beasts in our souls, and they do not relate pretty fables and
stories. They indulge rather in unpleasant realities.

I have taken a long time in coming to the point, but no matter at what
cost, it is necessary for me to speak about things which have as yet
never been told, but which will explain how the foundations were laid
for the drama of my life.

There were hints as to this drama in former days, but I will not refer
to the vague tittle-tattle which amused rather than saddened Brussels
and its Court.

I am not, I am sure, the first woman who after having lived in the
clouds during her engagement, has been as suddenly hurled to the ground
on her marriage night, and who, bruised and mangled in her soul, has
fled from humanity in tears.

I am not the first woman who has been the victim of false modesty and
excessive reserve, attributable perhaps to the hope that the delicacy of
a husband, combined with natural instincts, would arrange all for her,
but who was told nothing by her mother of what happens when the lover's
hour has struck.

However, the fact remains that on the evening of my marriage at the
Château of Laeken, whilst all Brussels was dancing amid a blaze of
lights and illuminations, I fell from my heaven of love to what was
for me a bed of rock and a mattress of thorns. Psyche, who was more to
blame, was better treated than myself.

The day was scarcely breaking when, taking advantage of a moment when
I was alone in the nuptial chamber, I fled across the park with my
bare feet thrust into slippers, and, wrapped in a cloak thrown over my
nightgown, I went--to hide my shame in the Orangery. I found sanctuary
in the midst of the camellias, and I whispered my grief, my despair, and
my torture, to their whiteness, their freshness, their perfume and their
purity, to all that they represented of sweetness and affection, as they
flowered in the greenhouse, and lit up the winter's dawn with a warmth,
silence and beauty which gave me back a little of my lost Paradise.

A sentry had noticed a grey form scurrying past him in the direction
of the Orangery. He approached, and listening, recognized my voice. He
hastened to the château. No one knew what had become of me. Already the
alarm had been discreetly raised. A messenger galloped to Brussels. The
telephone was not then invented.

The Queen came to me without any delay. My God! what a state I was in
when I regained my apartment; I would not let anyone approach me except
my maids. I was more dead than alive.

My mother stayed with me for a long time; she was as motherly as she
alone could be. There was no grief which her arms and voice could not
assuage. I listened to her scolding me, coaxing me and telling me of
duties which it was imperative for me to understand. I dared not object
to these on the ground that they were totally different from those which
I had been led to expect.

I finished by promising to try and conquer my fears, to be wiser and
less childish.

I was scarcely seventeen years old; my husband had completed his
thirty-first year. I had become of his "goods and chattels." One can
see, alas! how he has treated me.




CHAPTER VII

Married


On the morrow of such a painful episode in the life of two newly married
people I witnessed with bitter grief the preparations for my departure
to Austria. Never was Belgium so dear to me; never had she appeared more
beautiful.

Concealing my tears, I said good-bye to all those who had known me as a
child and a young girl, and who had loved and served me, and to all the
familiar objects in the Château of Laeken, where everything appealed to
my affection. Little did I foresee that I should be looked upon one
day as a stranger there. What do I say--a stranger? No, as an "enemy,"
rather!

We departed, according to the expression sacred to custom, on our
honeymoon. But there are honeymoons and honeymoons.

I should have liked to have taken certain personal maids with me. I was
not allowed even to dream of such a thing. The Coburg Palace had its
own servants. It was explained to me that the introduction of a strange
element would break the domestic harmony of this high-toned abode. I had
therefore to content myself with a Hungarian maid, quite a proficient
person, but who was not like one of my own faithful servants.

And everything was the same. My tastes, my preferences only passed
muster after having been approved by a family council.

Unfortunately the austerity which prevailed in this family council
chamber did not reign in the palace at all hours and in all the rooms.
This I soon discovered.

But before arriving at the Coburg Palace we stayed at Gotha, where
Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, the Prince Regent, and his wife, Princess
Alexandrine, gave their niece a warm welcome.

The duke was a true gentleman, one of the personalities of his time,
who became one of my favourite uncles. He spoke, with affection, of his
friend Count Bismarck, and then touched on less serious topics, as I was
curious to know about the people and things belonging to this Germany to
which I found myself so closely related by marriage.

I have already said that it was as natural for me to speak German as it
was for me to speak French, since it was the general rule to do so
at the Court of Brussels. Has not Belgium everything to gain by being
bi-lingual and by serving as an intermediary between the Latin and the
German countries? Less than Alsace and Luxembourg but nevertheless a
little like them, should she not benefit by the two diverse cultures?

On leaving Gotha we went to Dresden, thence to Prague, and finally to
Budapest and glowing Vienna.

Let us pass, however, from these princely visits and the sameness of
their receptions to more intimate things. The interest in speaking of
these consists in the necessity for me to lay bare my slandered life,
and to relate how, having fallen from heaven, I rose to a belief in
better things.

But years and years were destined to pass before my existence was again
embellished by a glimpse of the ideal, apart from the joys of maternity.

My first recollection of something amiss in my rôle of Princess of
Coburg is, that every evening at our formal banquets my husband took
care that I should be served abundantly with good wines. I ultimately
became capable of distinguishing a Volney from a Chambertin, a Voslaver
from a Villanyi, and one champagne from another.

The body thus trained to the practice of something more or less akin
to gluttony, the soul of necessity followed its example. I extended my
range of literature, and I became familiar with books which the Queen
and the Princess Clémentine would not have believed could have been
given me by the person by whom they were put into my hands.

In the days of my open rebellion people were scandalized by certain
liberties of speech and manner which I wilfully exaggerated. But who
first taught me them? And, once again, where should I have gone and what
would have become of me if God had not put in my way the incomparable
man who alone had the courage to say to me: "Madame, you are a King's
daughter. You are about to go astray. A Christian woman revenges herself
on infamy by rising above it and not by descending to its level."

And so, stunned and intoxicated in every way, I reviewed the family of
Coburg and their various palaces and castles. Finally I found the palace
in Vienna which was destined to be my principal residence.

I positively turned cold on entering it. The palace certainly looks
imposing from the outside, but the interior is most gloomy, especially
the staircase. I only like the _salon_ in "point de Beauvais" originally
intended for Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting.

My room made me shudder. What? Was this really the setting which had
been prepared to receive the freshness of my seventeen years! A student
of Bonn, where the prince had graduated, might have liked it, but a
girl, who had only recently become a young woman!... Impossible. Try,
then, to imagine a fairly large room, the walls fitted half-way up with
small cupboards of dark wood with glass doors, and blue curtains behind
which I never wished to look! Certain pieces of furniture were Gothic in
style. In the centre of this paradise stood an immense glass case full
of souvenirs of the prince's travels; stuffed birds with long beaks,
armour, bronzes, ivories, Buddhas and pagodas; my heart sickened at the
sight. And, worse than all, there was no private entrance or annexe,
only a narrow dark corridor, which was used by the servants. To get to
my room I had to pass through that of the prince, which was approached
through a kind of salon; all the rooms communicated and showed not a
vestige of taste. Massive old furniture upholstered in rep a century old
was offered to the eyes of youth! All was old, ordinary, sombre. Hardly
a flower, nothing comfortable, nothing matching. As to a bathroom, there
was not a sign of one. There were only two baths in the whole
palace; they were far away from each other, and of positively archaic
construction. And, as for the rest--it is better left unsaid!

My first active objection was to this anti-hygienic organization, and
the lack of necessities for my immediate use. This state of things
almost broke my heart. I was told, however, that the illustrious
grandparents were quite content with what had been given me.

One knows that use is a second nature. Princess Clémentine did not
notice the things which troubled me, and even the glass case with the
stuffed birds charmed her. She admired her son's collection, fortunately
without knowing or understanding all that it contained, as in our palace
of Budapest I saw some very unique pieces; souvenirs of Yoshivara which
a young woman could not look at without blushing, even after an expert
hand had lifted the veil from her inexperienced eyes.

What a school! However, thanks to the Bacchic régime organized by my
husband, things went on indifferently well after the storm of our début
in domesticity.

Our fundamental incompatibility first appeared at the Coburg Palace in
the presence of the Princess Clémentine, over a cup of café-au-lait.
On our honeymoon the prince had told me that a well-born person should
never drink black coffee. Such is the German conviction. Germany can no
more imagine coffee without milk than she can imagine the sun without
the moon. However, ever since I ceased to take nature's nourishment I
have never been able to drink milk, I have never drunk it, and I never
do. My husband took it into his head that he would make me drink
milk, especially in coffee, as, if he failed, the traditions, the
constitutions, and the foundations of all that was German would be
shattered.

The discussion took place before the Princess Clémentine, who always
drank milk in her coffee. But her affectionate kindness could not
overcome the stubbornness of my stomach. I could see that I was
offending her. Her son became furious to the extent of saying most
painful and unpleasant things, and I answered him in like manner. The
princess, although deaf, felt that something was the matter, and we
restrained ourselves on her account, but the blow had fallen; henceforth
we both had café-au-lait on the brain!

I relate little episodes like this because life is a mosaic of small
things which cement great desires or high sentiments, and which of
themselves express the daily necessities to which we are slaves. Human
existence is a tragedy or a comedy in two acts which take place in the
drawing-room and the bedroom. The rest is only accessory.

What a bungle nearly all people of exalted rank make in fulfilling the
obligations of appearing to live! We forget the words of Franklin: "Time
is the material of which life is made."

I reproach myself bitterly to-day for having led such an empty life,
for having lived such an existence of anguish of mind. I have not
sufficiently known the true life, which is that of the soul; if I
had realized this, with what distinguished personages I might have
associated, with what authors, scholars and artists have surrounded
myself!

But could I really have done so?

My highest desires were criticized, contradicted and repulsed.

The prince, my husband, from the standpoint of his superior age,
instructed me in everything.

People were afterwards astonished at my expenditure--at my numerous
gowns....

Oh, God! I nearly became mad through the force of this continual
restraint. One fine day I burst my bonds!

Oh! this palace of Coburg, this residence where the slightest frivolous
fancy, the smallest evidence of Parisian taste imported from Brussels,
provoked harsh words; this soupçon of a _décolletage_ which caused
jealousy; this desire to live a little for myself, without being
submissive to the rigorous routine of a barracks which aroused such
storms. Mon Dieu! when I think of all this--the stuffed birds, the
unhealthy books, the dirty jokes, and the daily miseries of my life--I
am at a loss to know how I endured it. I ask myself how I could have
resisted so long? It was worse in the long run than being shut up in the
madhouse. The crime is sometimes less horrible than the criminal. There
are moral deformities which constitute an offence at every turn, and
in the end one becomes exasperated with them. I do not know to what
extremes I should have gone if this life had continued. I have always
looked upon the strength which permitted me, at the age of twenty, to
break away from my princely cage as a direct help from Heaven. Even had
I been able to foresee to what excess hatred and fury would reach, I
would still have broken away. A palace can become a hell, and the worst
hell is that where one suffocates behind gilded windows. Titles count
for nothing--a bad household is a bad household. Two people are united,
the same chain holds them irrevocably together. Certain couples manage
to get on, others cannot. It is a question of temper and conditions.
Neither the prince nor I could accustom ourselves to the differences
which separated us. This permanent conflict, which was at first latent
and which afterwards became open war, daily widened the abyss between us
into which so much finally disappeared.

But amidst all this bitterness my days had their golden hours.
Everything was not disagreeable. Storms sometimes have a ray of
sunshine. But those I experienced were of the most devastating nature!

I have said that I respected Princess Clémentine and that I was
attracted to her, but her deafness, which sadly aggravated her natural
dignity, and her spirit of another age which made her always appear to
be living in state and etiquette, often repulsed my natural outbursts
of affection. Every time when the prince and I arrived at irreparable
differences, and my mother-in-law, because of her great age, submitted
to the influence of her son, I still could not help feeling towards her
the same sentiment of gratitude which I had for her former kindness and
her superiority of mind.

  [Illustration: PRINCE PHILIP OF SAXE-COBURG]

Besides my husband, Princess Clémentine had two sons and two daughters.
One of her sons, Auguste of Saxe-Coburg, was to me what Rudolph of
Habsburg would have been, a brother-in-law who was a brother. Until his
death, which took place, if I remember rightly, in 1908 at Paris, where,
under the name of Count Helpa, he lived a life of pleasure and mixed in
the best society, he retained the same affection for me that I had for
him.

The three other Coburgs, Philip, Auguste and Ferdinand, did not resemble
one another either physically or morally. Auguste was like the Orleans
family. In him the blood of France triumphed over the blood of Germany.
In the veins of Ferdinand, who became the adventurous Tsar of Bulgaria,
I do not know what blood flowed. Let us pass on quickly. I shall have
occasion to return to him and his throne of surprises when I speak of
the Court of Sofia.

Of the two daughters, Clotilde and Amélie, the latter lives always in my
memory. A gentle victim of love for an excellent husband, she died after
losing him. United to Maximilian of Bavaria, the cousin of Louis II,
Amélie was a lily of France that strayed into Germany. She had the
good luck to meet a being worthy of herself in the patriarchal Court of
Munich, which Prussian folly has rendered so unhappy. They loved each
other and they lived for love, concealing their happiness as much as
possible. Maximilian died suddenly--thrown from his horse whilst riding.
Amélie was inconsolable and did not long survive him.

The idea never struck her brother Philip, her brother Ferdinand, or
above all her sister Clotilde, that one could die--or live--for love!

Our double connexion with the house of France brought me a happy
diversion from my troubles at the Coburg Palace, as well as in the
country, in the shape of visits of members of the Royal family whom I
had more or less known in my youth. The springtime of my life was full
of their marks of affection.

I have seen the birth of the hopes of my niece Dorothée, the daughter of
the Archduchess Clotilde, my sister-in-law, when she became engaged to
Duke Philip of Orleans.

I confess I had no faith in the future, being sceptical as to Royalist
France, and doubtless it was an effect of the general surroundings, but
I fancied that the gold lilies embroidered on the robe of the beautiful
bride would have vanished from her train long before she reached the
Elysée, the Tuileries or the Louvre. I could not, however, see without
emotion the closed crown which adorned the "queen" on the day of her
wedding.

Ah! this dream of a crown; how many heads it turns, or rather how many
heads it has turned! For now one is obliged to reflect on things in
general, and although I am a stranger to French politics I owe as
much recognition as consideration to the Republic, where I have found,
together with the security of just laws, the respect due to misfortune,
and the courtesy which Republicans know how to extend, even to
princesses. Still I cannot help following the career of the "King, in
anticipation"--my nephew the Prince of Orleans, with some degree of
curiosity.

For him everything happens on the banks of the Seine, the Garonne, the
Rhone, and the other watercourses of the most beautiful country on the
face of the earth; but the worst that I wish Philip of Orleans is that
he should never have to exchange his yachting cap, which becomes him so
well, for the crown of Saint Louis. He is certainly handicapped in life.
More than ever to-day when it is advisable for a king to have a queen.
But fate has willed that the great marriage of Philip of Orleans and
Marie Dorothée of Habsburg, which was one of the joys of the Coburg
Palace, and the occasion of the most gorgeous receptions, should turn
out contrary to what it promised.

On one occasion I counted the Royal or princely houses wherein the wind
of discontent already whispered. I arrived at a startling total. Taking
it all round in every kind of society, the average number of happily
married people is not very high. But the nearer one gets to the people,
and to their good sense and work, the better does family life become,
because they tolerate each other's failings much more wisely and agree
to help each other, until they finish by knowing a kind of happiness,
which is only achieved by the knowledge of common imperfections.

My life at Coburg would have been still more painful if from time to
time it had not been varied by changes of residence and travel.

In order not to digress from the family circle, I will only say a few
words about three towns where I had relations, and where I stayed with
them, or near them, as Princess of Coburg--Cannes, Bologna and Budapest.

First, I will mention Budapest, which was one of the most attractive
cities of the world, and will be again when the reign of Bolshevism is
over. In the old Buda the ancient East has left its traces; in Pest,
the modernity of the West has become apparent. I knew something of it in
1918.

I loved Budapest, and I preferred the small Coburg Palace in the
Hungarian capital and its charming receptions to our home and our
entertainments in the capital of Austria. The atmosphere was
different from that of Vienna, and I was pleased to find myself in the
neighbourhood of the good Archduke Joseph, my mother's brother, who
was so warm-hearted and so dear to me. His palace was at Buda, and
his château was some hours' distance from the town. They had no
disadvantages except as dwellings of my aunt and my sister-in-law
Princess Clotilde, who were very different from the affectionate and
sincere Amélie.

The archduke was a kind man who did not misjudge or censure my
extravagant fancies.

In the first year of our marriage my husband and I spent the anniversary
of my birthday, February 18, with the archduke at Alauth. There had
been a heavy fall of snow the day before, and I said, "I do not want any
presents, but please let me drive a sledge to-morrow; I have such a wild
wish to drive one; it will be my first experience!"

The Archduchess Clotilde was usually an open-hearted person, but she was
nevertheless endowed with certain straight-laced characteristics, and
she frowned severely.

It was no use to beg or to implore. The prince forbade the sledge drive.
They metaphorically relegated me to a dark cupboard with dry bread to
eat; they kept me under such close observation that I could not go out
at all, either on foot, on horseback, or in a sledge.

The archduke arrived on the scene. I was still furious.... Oh!
certainly, it is evident that I did not look on the bright side of
things; my character has always been one which resented foolishness and
wickedness.

The archduke questioned me. I told him the whole story. "Louise," he
cried, "you are right a hundred times; first of all because at your age
and when one is pretty, as you are, one is always right. We will go out
at once for a drive in the snow."

He rang, and ordered two Hungarian horses to be harnessed to a large
sledge fit for the chariot of Apollo, in which he seated me, wrapped in
my furs. He took the reins and we drove off at great speed, accompanied
by a confidential servant. I felt myself akin to the angels. My
puritanical sister-in-law and my puritanical husband dared not say a
word.

Society at Budapest was less submissive to Court ceremonial than that of
Vienna, and it was in consequence natural and more audacious. I remember
a certain ball on the Ile Marguerite, the pearl of the casket of the
Danube, when the prince was angry and did not wish me to waltz. I was
inundated with invitations, to which my husband replied by saying that
at the Court of Brussels I had only learned to dance the quadrille and
the minuet!

The quadrille! The minuet! People were quite worried. They understood
what it means to waltz in Hungary, and a waltz on the banks of the
Danube to the strains of gipsy violins is a thing which cannot be
surpassed. And now--now--they import from America dreary stuff, dull
and epileptic in movement, and they call it by all sorts of names after
trotting or galloping animals out of Noah's Ark. The waltz will always
remain as the incomparable queen of dances to those who know how to
dance.

One of those who asked me to dance was bolder than the rest, and, taking
no notice of the prince's excuse, he said: "But surely Her Highness
knows how to waltz," and at these words I was swept away from the domain
of authority by my audacious partner, a Magyar, who thus hurled me into
the whirlpool of the dance. I confess I never stopped dancing for
the remainder of the night. The prince was furious, but as he was
overwhelmed with compliments on my beauty and my success, he was
obliged, _nolens volens_, to smile!

I recall the scene which took place at our departure. Fortunately we
were asked to embark on a wonderfully illuminated boat which took us
along the beautiful river to the nearest point to our palace, and this
delightful journey was made to the sounds of the music, sometimes wild
and sometimes languorous, which can only be heard to perfection in this
country.

Had it the effect of Orpheus's lute? I was not condemned to die at
sunrise like poor Scheherazade. But why did she not dance instead of
relating stories?

At Bologna and Cannes I saw a section of society which has now
disappeared. This was to be met with at the residence of the Duchesse
de Chartres, and at the Duc de Montpensier's at the Caprara Palace. In
Italy certain of the greatest Italian aristocrats were surrounded by the
noblest names of France; on the Côte d'Azur it was more of a butterfly
world, in which shone some of the most resplendent Parisian beauties.

Where should I be if I allowed myself to evoke the shades of many of
those whom I have known during my lifetime? Already all is silent,
already forgetfulness has begun. Oh, vanity of vanities! But at least I
will say how much I was enchanted by Cannes, and by the refined taste of
French elegance. The war has transformed this town, once sought after by
the élite of society. I have read that, overrun and noisy, it has lost
the discreet _cachet_ which was once its particular character and charm.
What a pity!

There is everything and yet nothing to say about the life of worldly
people who are merely worldly people and nothing more. True, I could
fill a library were I to describe in detail the fashionable records of
my past. But of what interest would that be? I should but pander to
the social curiosity that is satisfied by the reports of the doings of
society, which, knowing the necessity of polishing its lustre daily in
order to retain its brightness, provides the newspapers with the
names of the people it receives, and the details of the receptions it
gives--merely to satisfy that commonplace curiosity which is, unhappily,
the foundation of human nature, and its desires and self-esteem.

It will be better perhaps for me to terminate this rough sketch of my
life as Princess of Coburg, before coming to the events which led to the
final _dénouement_, by a few facts concerning my children. I have been,
I believe, a good mother. I have wished to be, and I have, at least, the
feeling that I was a good mother for a very long time. I lavished much
care and tenderness upon my children.

This will only appear natural to women whom maternity makes true women,
and to whom it represents honour and glory. They must, however, allow me
to say that maternity is sometimes more difficult than one thinks,
when one has to consider the difficulties which are often raised by
the father of the child--there are situations when being a mother is a
constant trial.

Happy are those whom a peaceful and normal life allows leisure to watch
beside a cradle. Nevertheless, I knew happiness with my first-born son
Leopold, who saw the light in 1878 at our Château of Saint Antoine, in
Hungary.

The Queen was present, very delighted at being a grandmother. The
arrival of this child, a boy, heir to the titles, appendages and
functions of the family, temporarily appeased the quarrels between the
prince and myself. There was a lull in the storm, which lasted for some
little time. The influence of the Queen had its effect upon my husband.
I myself, absorbed by my maternal duties, made great resolutions to be
patient and wise in the future.

I dreamt wonderful dreams beside the cradle of my son.... Oh, cruel
fate, against which I was destined to be powerless. When he grew up, and
as the influence of environment exerted itself, Leopold became less and
less my child. I wished him to be loyal and courageous. Was he not to
carry a sword? What a knightly soul did I not wish to forge in him! But
his father claimed the right to guide him. Very soon he belonged to me
no longer.

Leopold reached the age of reason just when I had thrown off the
shackles of an existence which had become atrocious. He believed that,
having refused to continue to be the Princess of Coburg, I had thereby
appropriated the hundreds of millions which one day should have come to
him from his grandfather, and which I should throw to the winds by my
folly. So I have known the hatred which nature cannot conceive--the
hatred of a son for his mother. I have shed the tears which are shed by
mothers who are struck down by their own flesh and blood. But God knows
that each time my children, infatuated with the greed for money, which
is indeed the root of all evils, have made me suffer, I have always
forgiven them.

When Leopold died in such a frightful way that I cannot even mention it,
he had not belonged, in my belief, for a long time to this world; but it
was not I who was affected by this terrible punishment which terminated
the lineage of the eldest scion of the house of Saxe-Coburg. He who was
stricken was the father who had formed this misguided son in his own
likeness!

I think he has survived in order that he may have time for repentance.

When my daughter Dora was about to be born in 1881, I had such a
dread of the presence of her father that I did all I could to hide the
imminent hour of my deliverance. I did not wish the prince to be near me
at this painful moment; I wanted him to go out, in ignorance that I was
in the throes of travail. It happened in this way. The birth took place
in our palace at Vienna, and I quite succeeded in astonishing my world.
I evaded, during the time of my suffering, a presence which could only
have aggravated it. The midwife who was with me had not even time to go
and fetch the Royal Accoucheur, who arrived after it was all over.

Dora was my second and my last child. She promised to be a pretty girl;
she was taller than myself, very fair and rather shortsighted. She had
the misfortune to marry Duke Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, brother of
the Empress Augusta, the wife of William II. "Misfortune?" my readers
will say; "that is the usual opinion of a mother-in-law." They will see
later that the word misfortune is conformable to the facts which touch
contemporary history. I will say nothing more.

My daughter has no children. If she had, they would have been told that
their grandmother was the most wicked of women, if not the maddest,
because she often said to her son-in-law, as well as to the Prince of
Coburg and certain dignitaries of Vienna and elsewhere, who were the
accomplices and agents of the persecution by which she was overwhelmed:

"You have only one end in view, and that is to take away all that
remains to me--my liberty. But there is justice and you will be
punished!"

They have been.

Ah! if instead of making me suffer martyrdom, or allowing me to be made
a martyr, some of my own relations had dared come to me, openly or in
secret!... I am a woman, I am a mother. I do not affirm that I was not
guilty of wrong. I only affirm this: they always lied to me. They always
talked to me of the honour and virtue of the family, but, above it all,
I heard the cry of "_Money! money! money!_"




CHAPTER VIII

My Hosts at the Hofburg--the Emperor Francis Joseph and the Empress
Elizabeth


Since defeat has overthrown in one day thrones which were the foundation
of the world of Germany, I sometimes pass from the Ring towards the
Graben by the Hofburg, the ancient Imperial Palace of this city of
Vienna where I am now writing. I can see from the Fransenplatz (the
large inner court) the windows of the rooms which formerly saw me
received by the guards and chamberlains with the honours due to my rank.
These windows are now closed, empty and silent. In Vienna everything
seems dead. The old Hofburg has ceased to exist. The new Hofburg, an
outward symbol of vanished hopes, is an unfinished building. It bears
witness to the downfall of an Empire.

Of all the princesses and archduchesses belonging to the vanished Court,
I am the only one remaining in Vienna, loved, I believe, by the people,
and respected by those in authority.

There is one city in the world in which I have lived for a long time.
It has been the scene of my "crimes." This city, after it abandoned all
pretence of honour, truth and virtue, has now reserved for me my right
to speak, and, whilst abolishing titles, has left me mine. I stand alone
in the ruins of a Power which was cruel to me.

I have known the "justice" of the Court and that of the Emperor Francis
Joseph. I have learned that a princess has not the same legal rights
as the rest of the world. For her, secret arrangements exist which are
applied without the judges having anything to say, or, if they do, they
only carry out certain orders. They disguise these with all kinds of
pretexts. In my case the excuse was that of madness.

It would be impossible to-day to tax a rebellious conscience with
insanity. It would be impossible to accuse a victim of causing
impossible scandals if she dared appeal for help. No one can be thrown
by force into a madhouse, where the superintendent says that you are not
mad and yet is obliged to keep a guard over you. He had his orders! They
called these "_une affaire de cour_!"

I do not think it would require many criminal attempts of this nature to
obtain a sentence from a Divine justice which no hypocrisy of words or
deeds and no machinery of human power can deceive.

But why should not those who were guilty of an immoral and cowardly
policy be the only ones to expiate their faults? A whole nation is at
this moment expiating the decadence and the downfall of the Court of
Vienna. Yes, the poor people, who are so good, so duped, so resigned,
so industrious and so much to be pitied, are now expiating the crimes of
their rulers!

When I arrived at the Austrian Court in 1875 Francis Joseph was
forty-five years old.

He was always distinguishable at a distance by his gallant bearing in
uniform. At close quarters he gave one the impression of possessing a
certain amount of good humour, which was contradicted by the severity of
his glance. He was a narrow-minded man, full of false and preconceived
ideas, but he possessed from his upbringing and from the traditions of
Austrian politics certain formulas and mannerisms, which enabled him to
keep afloat for a long time before he was finally engulfed in the sea of
blood in which the Imperial galley ultimately foundered. But, stripped
of his rank and ceremonial, devoid of routine or receptions, audiences
and speeches, he was nothing but a fool. At his birth, Nature deprived
him of a heart. He was an emperor but he was not a man. He is best
described as an automaton dressed as a soldier.

The Emperor at first made a great impression on me when my husband
presented me to him as the new Princess of Coburg. I listened to
his amiable and polished phrases, which I found difficult to answer
becomingly. They were usually so banal that almost before leaving his
presence I had already forgotten what he had said. It was almost always
like this, except on one memorable occasion which I will describe later.

I do not know anyone who remembers a single word uttered by Francis
Joseph that was worth repeating. His conversation in the Imperial circle
was disconcertingly cold and poor. He never became animated except
when talking scandal, but that was generally in the apartment of Madame
Schratt, who constituted alike his refuge and his relaxation, where he
was really "at home" and where he was simply "Franz" or "Joseph."

I have seen Madame Schratt at the Burg Theatre. Her influence (if she
ever had any, other than that of permitting the Emperor to escape from
the insufficiencies which constituted the fatalities of his life) was
not injurious to any living soul.

An actress at the Comédie Française of Vienna, pretty, and honest by
nature, Katti Schratt was a "Brohan," and her gaiety of heart at least
pleased the Sovereign. He first gave her a peaceful and an assured
position, and then one fine evening he quietly introduced her to the
Court, where the Empress resigned herself admirably to this Imperial
audacity. She was quite satisfied in knowing that Francis Joseph was now
methodical in his passions, had curtailed his excesses and had chosen a
confidante who did not pretend to be anything more than a recreation for
him. There was a great difference between Madame Schratt and Madame de
Maintenon. There was a still greater difference between Francis Joseph
and Louis XIV.

But so far as actual looks went, the Emperor might easily have been
taken for his _maître d'hôtel_ had it not been for his uniform and his
surroundings. Seen at close quarters he was a very ordinary person. Two
bad habits, however, were noticeable in him: at the least perplexity
he pulled and massaged his side-whiskers, and at dinner he frequently
looked at his reflection in the blade of his knife. As for the rest of
his actions, he ate, he drank, he slept, he walked, he hunted, he spoke
according to the accepted ritual laid down by the circumstances of the
hour, the day, and the calendar. These mannerisms were hardly disturbed
by revolutions, wars or misfortunes. He greeted his calamities with the
same expression with which he noticed if it were raining when he was
about to leave for Ischl.

When his son killed himself, when his wife was assassinated, he did not
lose one ounce of flesh; his step was as firm as ever, and his hair just
as faultlessly dressed.

The funeral ceremonies over, nothing changed in Austria. Francis Joseph
still continued to speak in just the same tones of the love of his
people towards himself, and of his love for them.

And that same evening he was with Madame Schratt. To this man devoid of
brilliance, without courage, and without justice, I owe the misfortunes
of my life.

At the time when he should have filled his place as Sovereign and head
of the house where I was concerned, he did not do so because he was
afraid.

On two occasions only he behaved differently _à propos_ of what
concerned me; these circumstances were not, however, decisive. A man
is not judged by the way he helps you out of a carriage, but by his
behaviour in a big fire; he does not draw back before the flames in his
effort to save you!

  [Illustration: _Photo: Boute_
  PRINCESS VICTOR NAPOLEON
  (Princess Clémentine of Belgium)]

Francis Joseph was incapable of throwing himself into the fire in order
to save anyone. He could not be depended upon for any help in danger. He
would have been afraid of spoiling his uniform, or of disarranging his
whiskers!

Ah! I can easily understand the despair of his son and his wife, whose
only thought in life was to escape from this nonentity.

The Emperor's brother, the Archduke Louis Victor, was the instigator
of the hatred of which I was the victim. This man was later to know
the tortures of a dishonourable exile, and he died dishonoured. God has
punished him. I have seen His might strike this guilty man, who started
the persecutions from which I had to suffer.

For many years he laid his devotion at my feet. All Vienna knew it; the
Emperor included, and he better than most people, because scandal was
his daily bread. To him it was almost an affair of State to know whether
the Archduke Louis Victor would succeed in vanquishing the citadel of my
virtue.

Nevertheless, the prince could be pleasing when he chose; his was
an ardent nature, the excessive inquisitiveness of which dragged him
eventually into the scandal of public punishment.

I resigned myself to receive his compliments and his flowers with
patience. We all know the exigencies of the world. I had to endure the
assiduity of an archduke, the brother of the Emperor, with a smile.
But the smile has been especially given by Nature to woman in order to
enable her occasionally to conceal her thoughts!

Unfortunately Louis Victor, jealous of the worthy sentiments with which
another, who was not a "prince," had inspired me, lost his patience, and
from being the object of his love I became the object of his hatred. I
own that I had a taste for satirical repartee which I had inherited from
the King and which made me many enemies. Was the archduke offended at a
little plain speaking? Wounded vanity is prompt to avenge itself. I
had henceforth in him an open enemy. He swore that he would force me to
leave the Court.

I had inspired jealousy. What woman has not? My rivals ensconced
themselves around my former admirer. The usual intrigues began. My
freedom of life was attacked by some charitable souls whose only thought
was to destroy it, aided by a rejected Don Juan. The archduke was not
long in arranging the necessary details. People commenced to talk of
the notice which I took of that honourable man, the only person who has
filled my life. I have always given him my whole confidence and esteem.

The Archduke Louis Victor went to his brother and told him that he
had seen me with his own eyes in a popular restaurant at night,
_tête-à-tête_ with a Uhlan officer.

Carried away by indignation at such forgetfulness of my rank, three
noble Furies, whom I will not mention, and who possessed exclusive
rights to represent virtue on earth, made it known to His Majesty that
if I were allowed to attend the coming State ball they would turn their
backs upon me in the presence of the Imperial circle.

My sister, who was told of this uproar, questioned me and warned me.
I had no difficulty in discovering whence the plot emanated, and I
protested my innocence to Stéphanie. On the evening when the Archduke
Louis Victor had told his brother he had seen me at the restaurant, I
had not quitted the palace. I may add that I have _never, never, never_
sat in a restaurant _tête-à-tête_ with anyone. When I have had occasion
to appear at a dinner or supper in public I have always been accompanied
by one or more persons of my entourage.

And what was more, at the identical hour mentioned by my calumniator
I was with the prince my husband, and we were having one of those
discussions which constituted the daily storms of our existence. The
prince was there to witness this, besides which, the servants could
attest that I had not given any orders for my carriage and that I had
not left the palace. So nothing would have been easier than to have
contradicted the archduke and his virtuous friends.

My sister was quite convinced, but, not wishing to place herself between
the devil and the deep sea, she said that she thought it would be as
well if I appealed to the Emperor in person. The cabal, however, acted
quickly. Francis Joseph forestalled my request by summoning _me_. I saw
him in Stéphanie's room. I was in such a state of righteous rage that,
alas! I was unable to control myself in the presence of this infamous
man.

First of all I thanked the Sovereign for his audience, and I said
(mastering my temper with difficulty) that he ought to defend me and
take my part; that I was the butt of the attacks of a miserable cabal,
and he ought to put an end to it by punishing the slanderer. I asked
him to make an inquiry, as I had a perfect right to one. The rest of my
words may be left to the imagination. As the Emperor knew what defence I
should probably put forward, he had prepared his answer according to the
formula of one of the heads of the Imperial Chancellery who had trained
him in his youth. This is what he said: "Madam, all that has nothing to
do with me; you have a husband; it is his affair. I think, however, that
for the present you had better take a trip somewhere, and not appear at
the next State ball."

"But, Sire, I am a victim; you make me out a criminal."

"Madam, I have listened to my brother, and when Victor has spoken..." He
finished with a sign which was Imperial and definite.

I was not the kind of woman to suffer such iniquity in silence. But I
managed to conceal my contempt, and replied:

"The future will reveal, Sire, which of us has lied, the Archduke or I."
I then made my regulation curtsy, and the Emperor left the room.

On my return to the Coburg Palace I went to my husband and told him that
I trusted to his honour to destroy the abominable plot in which I was
involved, and that he must send his seconds to the Archduke Victor.

The Prince of Coburg coldly answered that if I had lost the Imperial
favour _he_ had no wish to lose it by fighting a duel with an archduke
who was the brother of the Sovereign.

After the chivalrous Emperor I had indeed encountered another Galahad;
I was furious, but I could do nothing. My fury, however, brought about
unlooked-for results. The prince did not wish to remember that I was
at the palace on this particular evening. He declared that he would not
contradict the assertion made by my slanderer. This was the last straw.
From that hour my mind was made up. I would not remain any longer with a
husband who had abandoned me in this disgraceful manner. I would listen
to the voice that said: "Madam, you are lost in the world where you
live; it is cowardly and perverse." But my family feeling proved
stronger than my anger. I said to the prince: "We must separate and
regain our liberty. But we have children. Let us avoid a scene. Let us
travel for a year, and if at the end of that time we have not found a
better way of living together we will part; you must go your way and I
will go mine."

To the mind of a man such as the Prince of Coburg these words were the
most awful imaginable. The prospect of a separation or a divorce would
be known to millions of people, to the King and others, and not only to
the father of my children; such a thing was impossible. He said I should
hear more about this. And I did.

Since I am telling the whole story from the beginning I must give the
other reasons for Francis Joseph's inconceivable attitude towards
me. These were more or less political, and I do not wish to dwell on
politics, and still less on any affecting him. But at the same time I
am writing for the purpose of adding a few fresh facts to the history
of this time, as well as for the purpose of defending myself from false
accusations.

Francis Joseph refused to help me, and he abandoned me from the first
moment because he was obliged to be cautious; he therefore left my
husband complete liberty to do as he pleased. The Prince of Coburg
knew the secret of Meyerling and the termination of Rudolph's despair.
Moreover, the prince had a brother Ferdinand who was quartered at
the outpost of Nach Oste in Bulgaria. The Coburgs were a power in
themselves. Francis Joseph bowed down to them. He chose the lesser of
two evils and sacrificed me.

I only knew him to adopt a chivalrous attitude on two occasions. Once
when I asked him to change a gentleman-in-waiting attached to my person
and that of my husband who made common cause with the Archduke Victor,
he immediately granted me my request. Again, when I had entered upon a
new life, and was living up to a higher ideal and disregarding the most
sinister proofs of an atrocious calumny, it happened that the Prince of
Coburg found himself face to face with a man of honour who was ready to
give him satisfaction. My husband put on an air of supreme disdain. The
Emperor then reminded him that the uniform of a soldier was intended for
more than purposes of show. He advised the Prince of Coburg to fight; he
fought.

I believe this was the only military victory that Francis Joseph gained
over anyone; and as for the prince, an Austrian general, it was the only
battle in which he was personally engaged.

       *       *       *       *       *

I often think that Providence was very merciful to the Empress in
not letting her attain old age, riveted as she was to the chain which
dragged the Empire into the abyss of human foolishness and ferocity.

Shall I say that my thoughts go out to her in prayer? She, too, was a
martyr; she is only second to the Queen in my daily meditations. The
difference in my age and rank kept me, to my great grief, farther apart
from her than I should have liked. At the time when I could have drawn
nearer to her, I was torn between my yearning for the ideal, and the
vanities of the world. If she was a serene empress I was a distressed
princess! But I had, however, something in common with her; the love of
nature and freedom and the taste for Heinrich Heine.

Without putting this writer on the same pedestal as Goethe, the mind
by which I have tried to vivify my own, I have enjoyed many happy hours
reading Heine, and the older I have grown the more I have learned
to know and admire the poet who was both an inspired humorist and a
philosopher. He was the De Musset of Prussia and Judea, the wit _par
excellence_ of Europe--Heine had taken from France and given her a unity
of gifts, the blending of which promises a race of men, freed from race
barriers, moved by the same love of eternal beauty. An indication of the
reconciliation which the future will perhaps see.

It is possible that he _was_ a Jew; the Apostles were also Jews. But I
understand and appreciate the sentiments of the Empress in going to see
him at Hamburg, continuing to be on friendly relations with his sister
after his death, and lastly in erecting a monument to him at Corfu.
Rudolph once said of his mother: "She is a philosopher on a throne." She
had truly a great mind.

The day on which I had the honour of being received privately by the
Empress was an exciting one for me. I knew that she only wore black,
white, grey or violet, so I arranged my toilette without invoking the
help of a dressmaker, and if I am to believe the flattery of the Rue de
la Paix, I knew how to dress myself; but I confess that, confident as I
had now become in matters of dress, I took my time in deciding what to
wear on this occasion. In the end I chose a violet gown most tastefully
trimmed with grebe and a little velvet toque. I can say without boasting
that my toilette was remarked upon and generally admired.

The Empress was delightful. She spoke of the Queen in well chosen,
simple terms, as of a friend dear to her. This was her way of speaking
about almost everything. Her conversation was of a high order, but
at the same time it was absolutely natural. She scarcely ever spoke
harshly, and always in low and pure tones. She possessed a soulful
voice--muffled crystal, but crystal all the same. I have never seen a
smile like hers; it was like a smile from Heaven; it enchanted me and
it affected me, it was at the same time both sweet and grave. She was
beautiful, a celestial beauty with something ethereal in the purity of
her features and the lines of her figure. No one walked like Elizabeth
of Austria; the movement of her limbs was imperceptible, she glided; she
seemed to float on the ground. I have often read that some celebrated
and adored woman was endowed with "inimitable grace." The Empress
Elizabeth truly possessed this inimitable grace. And her large eyes
seemed to speak and express a noble language peculiarly their own, which
embodied the three virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity.

Bavaria, her birthplace, has retained throughout the ages the essential
elements of the Celtic race established as far as the Danube. South
Germany also has this ancient European blood in abundance. The Empress
represented the most refined characteristics of Celtic beauty. She was
not a German type--at least not a type of Central Germany--she expressed
to perfection, both morally and physically, all that separated and will
continue to separate Munich and Vienna from Berlin.

       *       *       *       *       *

Recollections crowd upon me when I return in thought to the Hofburg. I
must record some of the most striking.

Thus, I will think of the Archduke John, who was afterwards known as
John Orth, the name of one of Maria Theresa's castles on the Danube, the
spot preferred of all others by this strange being.

Like Rudolph, with whom he was on terms of great friendship and certain
understanding, the Archduke John could not breathe the air of Courts.
He once said to me: "You and I, Louise, in many respects are not made to
live here."

He interested me, but I did not like his sarcastic spirit. He had none
of Rudolph's high ideals. When he disappeared I believed him to be
living somewhere in secret, and that there was a possibility of his
reappearance. I read in the papers not long ago that a person who might
easily have been the Archduke John had just died in Rome, where he had
lived for twenty years in seclusion. Rome attracts the solitary and
disillusioned souls of the world. If this unknown man was really John
Orth, he was indeed able to meditate on the grandeur and decadence of
empires.

I will leave this mysterious shadow and speak of two others who have
passed, whose existence touches us more closely and constitutes a
problem of State to minds interested in this subject.

I see in imagination the ball where Francis Ferdinand d'Este showed by
his attachment to the Countess Chotek what would eventually come to pass
between them. He loved her and she loved him; they were married. This
was a great event. The countess was clever and intelligent, and she
was not personally displeasing to the Emperor. She knew better than to
offend this narrow-minded being. But her rôle in the political events
of central Europe, from the day when the death of Rudolph allowed her
to dream of a throne (even though it was only that of Hungary), was more
important than one imagined.

It has occurred to me more than once, that if France had known and
would have put up with an Austrian policy, she would have found that
the Countess Chotek, raised to the rank of Duchess of Hohenberg, had far
different ideas from those of Berlin. Unfortunately France committed the
fault (and she will forgive me for daring to say so, _en passant_) of
separating politics from religion, and of forgetting that religion is
the first of all politics. She bound her own hands, bandaged her own
eyes, and advanced on Europe. There was very little chance for her to
reach the Danube, the most important of all the European routes.

I knew how much the King of the Belgians deplored the blindness of
France, and what he said on this subject to more than one distinguished
Frenchman. It was to the effect that the disadvantage of democratic
governments was that they were obliged to provide numerous schools
of thought before they possessed the small number of principles which
constitute the foundation and the whole secret of government. The
religious principle is not the least of these.

In a country in which statesmen formerly abounded, and which has ended
politically through corrupt foolishness, that destroyer of characters
and convictions, Countess Chotek, the woman of solid beliefs, came into
prominence through the possession of a political brain.

She made Ferdinand d'Este a man capable of action and energy. Her chief
fault and that of her husband was that through fear of showing weakness,
they did not know how to show kindness. The hereditary archduke and his
wife were strict in maintaining their landed possessions, and they taxed
the people with great severity.

It needed little to aggravate the latent hatred against the heir to the
thrones in a state divided against itself, and, added to this rivalry,
jealousy and general restlessness existed, and certain trifling matters
due to the severity of Francis Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg
were perfidiously exploited against them. The day of their death was
decided, the way was prepared, and the instruments selected. But I must
pass over the terrible events of yesterday, the result of which does not
justify me to speak.

The hereditary archduke and his wife had a powerful camarilla against
them. They were not in need of partisans and they could have opposed
cabal after cabal, but their adversaries, who were nearly all hidden,
had plans outside the Monarchy.

This is not the place or the moment to discuss the conflict of
influences of which Vienna was the battlefield. It will be the work of
some penetrating and impartial genius who will perhaps be in a position
to enlighten the world as to the general worthlessness of the Court of
Austria during the ten or fifteen years before 1914. He will then make
known to the world the history of one of the most formidable conflicts
of self-interest and vanity which the world has ever known.

At the Court of Vienna there was a camarilla consisting of a group
of men, more or less filled with ambition, who gathered around the
Sovereign, guarding every approach to him, and they exploited the Prince
to the best of their hatred and avidity. As the Emperor became more and
more of a figure-head the old favourites saw themselves confronted with
the coming power. This power, for the less important reasons which are
known, and for others greater than these, recognized the morganatic
marriage of Francis Ferdinand, and the ardent Catholicism of the Duchess
of Hohenberg, who, owing to her character and her ambitious dreams
for her children, possessed both interior and exterior enemies. There
resulted, therefore, a third camarilla, the most secret and the most
redoubtable, for the simple reason that, in a Court where individuals
fight amongst themselves, they indirectly fight the whole world. They
do not betray merely this one and that one--they betray their whole
country.




CHAPTER IX

My Sister Stéphanie Marries the Archduke Rudolph, who Died at Meyerling


My younger sister spent a happy girlhood at Brussels. At the age
of nineteen she was a radiant beauty. Without knowing whom she was
eventually to marry, she had been encouraged to look forward to making a
more advantageous marriage than her eldest sister.

The King had never been very enthusiastic over my marriage with the
Prince of Coburg. He had higher ambitions for me. My mother, however,
desired the marriage. I have already given her reasons.

To avenge himself for his disappointed hopes, the King intended
Stéphanie to marry an heir to a throne. He had thought of Rudolph of
Habsburg as a possible husband for her, and the Queen agreed with him.
What a daring idea! For however honourable the Royal House of Belgium
might be, it did not rank so high as that of Austria.

I was not in ignorance, as I shall shortly relate, of the project
of this marriage which began under the most dazzling auspices, and
terminated in the most appalling tragedy.

History has been more interested in the final catastrophe than in the
story of the early days of the married life of Rudolph of Habsburg
and Stéphanie of Belgium. I, too, will discuss the finale and describe
Rudolph as I knew him on the eve of his death.

Rudolph was then thirty years old. He might easily have called himself
"the beloved of the gods." A great Court was at his feet; the most
beautiful town in the world, after Paris, was an abode where all might
have belonged to him. The people of the Monarchy placed their hopes of
the future in him. He had a wife whom everyone envied; a daughter
whom he overwhelmed with caresses; a noble and good mother whom he
worshipped; and lastly, a father whose great Empire would revert to him;
but Rudolph, the ill-fated and unhappy, preferred to die.

Let us, once for all, finish with the legends of Meyerling, and as far
as it is possible have done with the lies connected with it. Rudolph of
Habsburg committed suicide!

It is said that there is no proof of this. This is wrong; the proof
exists. I am able to give it.

The history of the liaison which led Rudolph of Habsburg and Mary
Vetsera to the grave has often been told. I will therefore confine
myself to relating a few points which are but little known.

There was in the love of the hereditary archduke for Mary Vetsera either
a lurid fatality or a sinister influence....

When I was in Vienna shortly before I decided to write these pages, I
was sorting some private papers which recalled me to the period when
I was the confidante and friend of Rudolph. Having finished my task, I
went for a drive.

At the turning of a crowded street my attention was attracted by the
sight of a melancholy looking old woman dressed in a dark costume. My
carriage was going slowly at the time, so I could not fail to notice
that she seemed crushed by numerous calamities, bent to the ground under
the weight of a heavy burden, and she walked close to the buildings,
almost touching the walls as she passed. Her face showed utter dejection
and horror, and it was seared with innumerable tragic wrinkles. In this
funereal apparition I recognized the mother of Mary Vetsera.

What had happened to the smart woman of the world whom I had been
accustomed to meet chaperoning her daughter, then in the full bloom of
her bewitching youth?

I have only to close my eyes in order to see Mary Vetsera--superb and
glowing as she appeared at an evening entertainment given by the Prince
of Reuss, the German Ambassador--the last sensational appearance in
Viennese society of the girl who was about to become the heroine of the
"bloody enigma" of Meyerling.

But the enigma is very simple.

  [Illustration: THE ARCHDUKE RUDOLPH]

Nevertheless, one must be behind the scenes in order to see all and
know all. And this will always be difficult for journalists, who concoct
distorted versions of "facts" which are the enemies of "history." Every
journalist continues to rely on his imagination or on his observations,
which vary according to his point of view. If the truth, therefore, is
long in coming to light it is not very extraordinary. The astonishing
thing about the Press is not so much that it abounds in lies as that it
sometimes states the truth.

I had just arrived at the Embassy. The Prince of Reuss left me in order
to precede my sister and her husband who were making an official entry.

Rudolph noticed me, and leaving Stéphanie came straight up to me. "She
is there," he said without any preamble; "ah, if somebody would only
deliver me from her!"

"She" was Mary Vetsera, his mistress of the ardent face. I, too, glanced
at the seductress. Two brilliant eyes met mine. One word will describe
her: Mary was an imperial sultana, one who feared no other favourite,
so sure was she of the power of her full and triumphant beauty, her deep
black eyes, her cameo-like profile, her throat of a goddess, and her
arresting sensual grace.

She had altogether taken possession of Rudolph, and she longed for him
to be able to marry her. Their liaison had lasted for three years.

Mary Vetsera was a member of a bourgeois family of Greek origin with
some pretensions to nobility. The family, which was numerous and
impoverished, hoped much from the favour of the Heir Apparent. Perhaps
the only one who did not concern herself in worldly matters was a sister
of the idol who, unlike her, had not the gift of beauty. Her merit was
of a less perishable order. When the drama of Meyerling engulfed Rudolph
and his love, this sister of the dead Mary disappeared in a convent.

At the soirée I was struck by my brother-in-law's state of nervous
exhaustion (this soirée took place, I may mention, during the second
fortnight of January, 1889), but I thought it well to try and calm him
by saying a word or two about Mary which would please him, so I remarked
quite simply:

"She is very beautiful." Then I looked at my perfectly gowned sister,
beautiful, too, in another way, who was making a tour of the room....
My heart contracted. All three, Stéphanie, Rudolph and Mary were
unfortunate.

Rudolph left me without replying. An instant later he returned and
murmured: "I simply cannot tear myself away from her."

"Leave Vienna," I said; "go to Egypt, to India, to Australia. Travel. If
you are lovesick that will cure you."

He shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly and spoke no more during the
evening.

It was not a pleasant soirée. An atmosphere of uneasiness hung over
the brilliant assembly. For my own part, I was so depressed that on my
return home I could not sleep.

I had followed, so to speak, all the gradual developments of Rudolph's
passion.

Upon my arrival at the Court of Vienna I instantly liked the archduke,
and he gave me his friendship. We were almost the same age. I venture
to say that we resembled each other in many points. Our ideas on certain
matters were identical. Rudolph confided in me, and I soon placed my
confidence in him.

It often happened that after my arrival in Vienna I was not always on
my guard. God knows, then, that it was praiseworthy of me to say to
the prince, in the intimate manner adopted by those Royal and princely
families who had imbibed the patriarchal German spirit:

"Get married. I have a sister who is like me. Marry her." He at once
changed the subject by replying: "I like Middzi better." Middzi was a
pretty girl, a perfect Viennese type, a Parisian of Eastern Europe. He
had two children by her.

But at last wisdom prevailed with me, perhaps my will also, and the
finding in maternity the courage to support many things which later
grew worse and were no longer bearable. I was not then either "mad,
extravagant," or "capable of every kind of deceit," as my persecutors
said later.

On the contrary. For a long time my good qualities and virtues were
praised by people who later covered me with opprobrium.

At this period my younger sister was said to be a charming happy replica
of myself, and therefore Rudolph took the train for Brussels. Stéphanie
thus became the second highest personage in Austria-Hungary--the future
empress of the Dual Monarchy.

The archduke had no trouble in finding favour in her eyes. He was more
than handsome; he was fascinating. He had a slight figure, but it was
well proportioned. Notwithstanding his delicate appearance, he possessed
a strong constitution. He always made me think of a thoroughbred; he
had the shape, the light build and the temper of one. His nervous force
equalled his sensitiveness. His pale face reflected his thoughts. His
eye, the iris of which was brown and brilliant, assumed varying shades
and changed in shape with his expression. He passed rapidly from love to
anger, and from anger to love. He was a disconcerting individual, with a
captivating, changeful and refined soul.

Rudolph's smile perhaps made a still greater impression. It was the
smile of an angelic sphinx, a smile peculiar to the Empress; he had
also her manner of speaking; and these traits, added to his winning and
mysterious personality, charmed all with whom Rudolph came in contact.

Well read and always ready to welcome new ideas, he sought the society
of artists and savants. He was happy in the company of such men as
the distinguished painters Canon and Angeli, and Billroth, the eminent
professor.

My readers must not expect a pen portrait of my sister. It would be
difficult for me to write about her in laudatory phrases since I have
said that she resembled me. I will only say that she was better-looking.

Rudolph and Stéphanie made a well-matched pair. A daughter was born
to them--Elizabeth--now Princess of Windisgretz. She owes her material
independence to the fortune which she inherited from her grandfather,
the Emperor Francis Joseph, and this fact added to her independence of
soul has made her a very noticeable personality.

After the birth of her daughter, my sister, almost on the day following
her churching, decided to travel. She said that she wanted to go to the
seaside and recover from the effects of her confinement. She therefore
went to Jersey, where she stayed some considerable time.

Rudolph was opposed to her going away. He negatived the idea by saying
that she ought to stay with him, as he was unable to accompany her owing
to his duties as Heir Apparent.

But we are a family who, having once decided upon doing anything, are
very difficult to persuade to the contrary.

Stéphanie was obstinate. She never thought that a young wife's duty
was to remain as long as possible near her husband, especially when he
happened to be the man most exposed to the temptations of the Court of
Vienna.

Rudolph was greatly vexed at the length of an absence which really could
only have been excused on the grounds that it was not so long as it
might have been.

The Crown Princess fell ill. When she escaped from the hands of the
doctors who had lavished their attentions upon her, Rudolph was told
that he would have little chance in the future of again becoming the
father of legitimate children.

The blow was severe. From that day he tried to forget his troubles.
He strove to banish them by drink, by hunting and other kinds of
amusements. This desire for forgetfulness increased.

At this critical moment he met Mary Vetsera. The first time that her
beauty was brought to my notice I nearly betrayed myself, having been
placed in an unexpected and awkward position, which served to show me
the height which passion can attain in a nature such as Rudolph's.

One evening we gave a dinner at the Coburg Palace. The Crown Prince,
according to his rank, sat on my right, and my sister sat opposite me.

There was naturally much gossip current in Vienna about the liaison
which existed between Rudolph and Mary Vetsera. Stéphanie, thanks to her
dignity of character, was silent, but I know that she suffered. I was
not afraid of mentioning this delicate subject to Rudolph, and I had
expressed my hopes that the gossip was exaggerated. I wished to believe
that he was merely the victim of a passing caprice. Yet at my own table,
with the servants present, the guests watching (especially my sister's
and her husband's) our slightest movements, Rudolph took it into
his head to show me, sheltered by the tablecloth and the usual table
decorations, the miniature of a woman, hidden in something which
appeared to be a cigarette-case. "This is Mary," said he; "what do you
think of her?"

The only thing I could do was to pretend neither to see nor to hear him,
and I began to talk to my sister across the table. But after this, of
what follies would Rudolph not be guilty? We were not long in finding
out!

My brother-in-law died on January 30, 1889, between 6 A.M. and 7 A.M.
Three or four days previously my sister came to see me one morning--a
rare thing for her to do. I was still in bed, as I was tired. Stéphanie
seemed anxious and disturbed.

"Rudolph," said she, "is going to Meyerling, and intends staying there
some days. _He will not be alone._ What can we do?"

I raised myself on my pillows. I felt a strange and sinister foreboding.
I remembered Rudolph's words at the Prince of Reuss's soirée. "For the
love of God," I cried, "go with him!"

But was this possible? Alas! no. I next saw my sister when she was a
widow and my brother-in-law was dead, lying in state, with his bloodless
face swathed in a white bandage....

On the afternoon of January 28 I was driving in the Prater accompanied
by a lady-in-waiting. It was a fine winter's day, and the sunshine was
still lingering over Vienna. The horses were proceeding at a walking
pace in order that I could enjoy the beauty of the day, and enable me to
notice the carriages and the equestrians and acknowledge their salutes.

In the Hauptallee I noticed with astonishment Rudolph, unattended and on
foot, chatting in a lively manner with Countess L., who has been so much
talked about and who has published so much, but whose rôle in connexion
with Rudolph was such that it was not agreeable for me to know her.

The archduke saw my carriage. He made a sign to me to stop, and came up
to me. He was then speaking to me for the last time.

I have often asked myself why his trivial words caused me such
indefinable anxiety. I still remember the sound of his voice, and I have
not forgotten the peculiar look which accompanied his words. Rudolph was
pale and feverish; he seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"I am going to Meyerling this afternoon," he announced. "Tell 'Fatty'
not to come to-night, but the day after to-morrow."

"Fatty," to speak with all due respect, was my husband. The Prince of
Coburg was always included amongst the boon companions of Rudolph's
hunting and other pleasure parties.

I tried to keep my brother-in-law by my side for a moment or two longer,
and induce him to say something more. I asked him: "When will you come
and see me? It is a long time since you have been."

He replied, looking at me most strangely:

"What would be the use of coming to see you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Rudolph stayed at Meyerling from the evening of January 28 until the
morning of the 30th, alone with his mistress. When his guests arrived
for the hunt, the gathering was exactly like one of those pagan feasts
in the days of Nero and Tiberius, when Death was bidden to the banquet.
But the guest condemned to die was the prince himself, and he dragged
with him into the abyss the imperious mistress who had first brought him
to its brink.

They were found dead in their bedroom. It was a frightful sight, and it
was first witnessed by Count Hoyoz, and then by the Prince of Coburg.

If Mary Vetsera was indeed the dominating force, and as Venus would not
relinquish her prize, Rudolph, in an access of despair and rage, did not
forgive her for placing him in an impossible position; but neither did
he pardon himself.

On the morning after a nerve-racking orgy both lovers perished. It all
happened with lightning-like rapidity.

It was impossible for Rudolph to continue keeping two households.
Impetuous but enslaved, he could not endure a liaison which paralysed
his energies, but which he lacked the strength to break, so great was
the hold which Mary had obtained over him.

Novelists have often depicted the frightful situation of the thraldom of
the body, and the desperate protests of the spirit which can only escape
by death.

Rudolph at thirty years of age was utterly out of love with life. He was
worn out from living in the atmosphere of a Court which suffocated
him. His death by his own hand was due to several causes, of which the
following are the principal:

First, his bitter regret of a marriage which did not give him what he
expected, after his disappointment in knowing he could not have a son;
the impossibility of realizing the wish to dissolve it--an impious wish
in the eyes of his relatives, the Holy See and the Catholic Church; and,
finally, the certainty he had as to the chances of the longevity of
the Emperor, that heartless being, that living mummy, who had embalmed
himself with selfish and petty cares.

Rudolph often remarked: "I shall never reign; he will not allow me to
reign."

And if he had reigned?

Ah, if he had reigned! I knew all his plans and his ideas. Of these, I
will only say, modernity did not frighten him. The most daring modern
idea would have been acceptable to him. He had already destroyed, in
imagination, the worn-out machinery of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
But, like pieces of invisible armour held together by expanding links,
the constraints, the formulas, the archaic ideas, the ignorance and the
disillusions from which he was always wishing to escape, closed in on
him. His life was a perpetual struggle against a feeble, worn-out,
blind and corrupt Court, the routine of which enslaved his body without
shackling his intelligence. He was compelled either to go under or to
reign for a time and then to conquer, and throw off the burning garment
of Nessus, open the windows, overthrow the Great Wall of China and chase
away the camarilla.

But the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy would perish rather than change. It
went to its death with a courier in advance!

The sad news of Rudolph's death reached Vienna on the morning of
January 30. General consternation prevailed. In the afternoon one of the
Emperor's aides-de-camp came to see if he could obtain more news from
me.

I was scarcely able to speak. I had been told that the Prince of Coburg
had assassinated my brother-in-law!

There were some charitable souls in Vienna and at Court who did not
admit that Rudolph's affection for me was merely fraternal.

Ah, if one only realized to what jealousy and wickedness the highest are
exposed!

After the death of the Crown Prince all kinds of stories and scandalous
gossip were rife!

I told the aide-de-camp that I knew nothing beyond the tragic news of
the death of Rudolph and Mary Vetsera, and that my husband, who had
left that very morning at six o'clock to shoot at Meyerling, had not
returned.

In the meantime I had seen one of Stéphanie's ladies-in-waiting, who had
told me about the catastrophe. Mastering my emotions, I went to see my
sister at the Hofburg.

I found her pale and silent, holding in her hand a letter whose secret
must now be given to history.

This letter, which had just been discovered addressed to Stéphanie in
Rudolph's private desk, announced his death. He had already resolved on
this course when he spoke to me in the Prater. The letter commenced as
follows:

"I take leave of life." It was too much for me to read that. The words
were blurred by my tears. "Be happy in your own way," he said to his
wife. And his last thought was of his child. "Take great care of your
daughter. She is most dear to me. I leave you this duty." Unhappy child,
who has had no father. I have often pitied her, and I pity her more than
ever. She does not know what she has lost.

The Prince of Coburg did not return to the palace until the night of the
31st, after having passed many hours alone with the Emperor. He came at
once to my room. His disturbed condition and his wild words showed how
distraught he was. I pressed him to give me some of the details of the
tragedy. "It is horrible, horrible," he said. "But I cannot, I must
not say anything except that they are both dead." He had sworn to the
Emperor to keep silent, as had Rudolph's other friends who had gone to
shoot at Meyerling. The secret was well kept. The servants who might
have spoken have, for very good reasons, disclosed nothing.

When I went to see the Empress, at her request, I found myself in the
presence of a marble statue covered with a black veil.

I was so agitated that I could hardly stand.

I passionately kissed the hand she extended, and in a voice broken like
that of the mother at Calvary she murmured:

"You weep with me! Yes, I know that you too loved him."

Oh, unfortunate mother! She adored her son. He helped her to bear that
life smothered in ashes which his malicious father led beside one who
was so noble. After Rudolph had been snatched from her and from his
Imperial future, the Empress fled from this Court which henceforth held
nothing for her, and she met death alone. It is known by what a sudden
and cruel blow she died--the innocent victim of the penalty of her rank.

I saw, I see in the successive dramas of the House of Austria a
punishment sent by Heaven. A chain of bloody fatalities which recalls
the tragedies of Sophocles or Euripides is not simply a game of chance.
The justice of the gods is always that of God. The Court of Vienna was
destined to perish horribly. It had betrayed everything; first of all
its traditions, for nothing noble remained--even its intrigues were
base. It was only a servants' hall for the valets from Berlin. And after
Francis Joseph appeared at the famous Eucharistic Congress on the eve of
the war, and stood before the altar as Prince of the Faith, he went to
finish the dull day at the house of Madame Schratt, and listen to the
backstairs gossip of Vienna and the unsavoury reports of the police
news!

Rudolph died of sheer disgust!




CHAPTER X

Ferdinand of Coburg and the Court of Sofia


The glory of the Coburg family reached its zenith at the time of
Leopold I and the Prince Consort.

They gave to the world a series of princes who were veritably made to
rule. Their direct influence on Belgium, and indirectly on England,
created a period of peace and an "Entente," of which the beneficial
results are so well known.

Later, when my father continued the brilliant work bequeathed to him
by King Leopold, Duke Ernest, Prince Regent of the Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, proved himself no less inferior to his cousin at
Brussels. In Vienna Prince Auguste, who was so good and with whom
unfortunately I had very little to do as a father-in-law, also proved
that he was a man of valour.

Of the various Coburgs, those of Vienna who were my husband's brothers
represented with him the male descendants left to carry on the name of
the race.

I will chiefly mention Ferdinand, the ex-Tsar of Bulgaria. I will not
expatiate again on the branch of my family to which he belonged. Its
rôle in contemporary history is sufficiently well known.

Ferdinand of Coburg, who is still alive as I write this, is one of
the most curious beings it is possible to imagine. To describe him
adequately needs the pen of a Barbey d'Aurevilly or a Balzac.

The clearer my mind becomes as I get older, and the more I try to
understand this strange person, the less I comprehend him when I
consider him from the ordinary point of view of human psychology.

I have read that woman is an enigma. I believe there are men who are
more puzzling enigmas than any woman. One can only wonder whether
this man has not created for himself, even more so than William II, an
artificial world of his own in which he wished to live. I will presently
say _which_ world I think appealed to Ferdinand of Coburg. I realize
that any princely education which tends to encourage the self-esteem
of princes by outward respect and flattery must of necessity accentuate
their peculiarities, unless some wholesome influence restrains the
promptings of worldly vanity.

A really superior mother was unable to regulate the undisputed mental
gifts of Ferdinand. He was born in the autumn of Princess Clémentine's
days. He was her Benjamin. She was weak as water where he was concerned.
This strength, greater than all strengths--namely, a mother's love--has
also its weaknesses. Bad sons abuse these, and, according to the laws
of that justice whose workings are often unseen, but whose judgments and
punishments are sometimes visible, this son deserves a severe sentence.

He was sixteen years old when I arrived at the Palace of Coburg. He was
slight and elegant; his countenance, lit up by azure eyes, possessed all
the beauty of youth allied to something of the Bourbon type. The fire of
intelligence and the wish to read the book of life animated him.

He promised to be different in every way from his eldest brother. In his
moral character he appeared to possess the good qualities of his second
brother, the charming Auguste of Coburg, but they were only useful in
helping to form the distinguished bearing which later became natural to
him, and which concealed beneath a brilliant appearance a complex and
stormy nature.

I was a year older than he. We were the life and soul of the old palace,
and at times I was able to forget its dullness and my own troubles.
I was the confidante of Ferdinand, and I did not hesitate to make him
mine.

Although Ferdinand later displayed hostility towards me, he devoted
himself at this period to pleasing his sister-in-law and surrounded
her with flowers, attentions and kindness. But it so chanced (and it
remained so for a long period) that the eldest and the youngest of the
Coburg brothers were at enmity on my account, although this feeling
was not outwardly apparent. I must relate these incidents, otherwise it
would be difficult to explain the presence of the many enemies who one
day overwhelmed me. This enmity proceeded from the same miserable cause
which will eternally be at the bottom of so many human dramas--namely,
man's jealousy and his lustful appetites thwarted by rules of morality.

Ferdinand of Coburg, idolized by his mother, accepted as a spoiled
child by society, initiated early in the most refined pleasures, allowed
himself to be transported by his exalted imagination into a world of
his own. I have seen, I still see in him a kind of modern necromancer,
a _fin de siècle_ magician. He was a cabbalist in the same way that M.
Peladan was a wise man of the East, and from these adventures always
proceeds something which influences destiny.

If at first I only saw him making what appeared to me to be strange
gestures, without explaining what these signified, I have now arrived,
through my experience of men and things, at understanding why he was
then so incomprehensible. He must have been possessed by a power beyond
this earth. But he did not believe in God; he believed in the Devil. I
am only going to relate that of which I am sure. I am only going to say
what I have seen. I do not wish to be more superstitious about certain
things, or more troubled in soul than Ferdinand of Coburg. I ask myself
to what fantastical sect, to what Satanic brotherhood he belonged in his
early days, doubtless with the idea of furthering his ambitions and his
extraordinary dreams of the future.

I remember that in our palace at Vienna, Ferdinand would sometimes ask
me to play to him when we were alone in the evening. He insisted upon
the room being only dimly lit. He would then come near to the piano and
listen in silence. At midnight he would stand up solemnly, his features
drawn and contracted. He then looked at the clock and listened for the
first of the twelve strokes, and when they were nearing the end he would
say:

"Play the march from _Aida_." Then, withdrawing to the middle of the
room, he would strike a ceremonial attitude, and repeat incomprehensible
words which frightened me.

Ferdinand used to articulate cabbalistic formulas, stretching out his
arms with his body bent and his head thrown backwards. Amongst the
mysterious phrases a word which sounded like _Koptor_, _Kofte_ or
_Cophte_ was often repeated. One day I asked him to write it down. He
traced letters of which I could make nothing, excepting that I seemed to
recognize some kind of Greek characters.

After these séances I questioned him, because while they were proceeding
I had to be silent and play the march from _Aida_. He invariably
answered: "The Devil exists. I call on him and he comes!"

I did not believe this; I mean to say I did not believe in the Devil's
actual visit, but I was nevertheless a little frightened, and when my
brother-in-law once again began his incantations I would look round
to see if there was anything extraordinary in the room. But there was
nothing unusual excepting Ferdinand and my own curiosity--and, perhaps,
the unrevealed vision of both our futures!

Full of eccentricities, he would bury gloves and ties which he had worn.
There was quite a ceremonial attached to this, at which I was sometimes
obliged to assist. Ferdinand dug the hole himself, and repeated strange
sentences with a mysterious air.

His mouth would then assume that bitter expression which age has
accentuated. Did he indeed juggle with the Prince of Evil, and did he
acquire thereby the dominating spirit which became so strong in him?

Did he seek some kind of brain stimulant in these practices, under the
action of which, I believe, auto-suggestion becomes dangerous?

I leave it to physicians, to occultists and to casuists to diagnose this
case. I am simply a witness, nothing more.

Ferdinand was not yet Prince of Bulgaria. He was only known as a
charming lieutenant in the Austrian Chasseurs, who had exchanged from
the hussars because he was not in sympathy with the animal from which
it is possible to fall, and which is generally supposed to be the most
noble conquest of man. I wish to say plainly that Ferdinand of Coburg
was a wretched horseman. Who would have thought that this officer of
noble descent who had exchanged into an infantry regiment would later
possess a throne, and would dream of becoming Emperor of Byzantium?

He designed his crown and arranged his State entry and his coronation,
just as did the miserable Emperor William who wished to crown himself
_Welt Kaiser_ in Nôtre Dame de Paris, and I do not hesitate to say
that he dreamed of a ceremony to which the Pope would come, willing
or unwilling, and that all confessions should be reconcilable in his
Imperial, august and sacred person.

It is really impossible to-day for a man to be a king according to the
ancient formula of absolute power. This kind of wine is too strong; it
goes to the head.

Formerly, a prince, even an autocrat, did not see or understand that a
small number of faithful persons guarded and restrained him equally as
much as they served him. He was usually at war for three-quarters of his
reign, and he shared the rough life and privations of a soldier. Now
he listens to a thousand voices, a thousand people and the calls of a
thousand duties. He no longer fights in person, and there are, besides,
long periods of peace. Comfort surrounds and enervates him; wonderful
inventions and discoveries have changed everything around him. But
although the values and aspects of society and individuals are totally
modified, everything is still at his feet.

There is something in losing the knowledge of realities as the
unfortunate Tsar Nicolas lost it, as William II lost it, and as
Ferdinand of Bulgaria lost it. For Ferdinand grasped power and guarded
it like an autocrat, and I am convinced that he will be grateful to
me for not enlarging on his policy and the methods which his policy
employed.

He had obtained the throne through the help of Princess Clémentine, who
was ambitious for her beloved son. What a pity she did not live longer!
The more so because, in his passion for authority, Ferdinand tried to
overrule his mother, to whom he would sometimes say, in his domineering
manner, words that fortunately owing to her deafness she did not hear.
If she could have remained on earth to advise him, he might have led
a better life. Whether or no he would have listened to her is another
matter.

At the same time, it was she who procured the Crown of Sofia for him,
and she maintained him during his perilous début of sovereignty. She
gave millions to the prince's establishment and the principality.

The accession of Ferdinand as a prince was first opposed, and afterwards
recognized; finally he adopted the title of Tsar. He might have said
like Fouquet: "Quo non ascendam?" Everything succeeded with him. Soon he
became so self-confident that he was actually seen on horseback. I can
truthfully affirm this, as I chose one of his favourite mounts; this
especial one came from our stables in Hungary, and was a tall, steady
and strong-backed bay mare. Ferdinand was a big powerful man, who
needed a stolid-tempered animal that would not shy at guns, cheering, or
military music. I tried the mare myself on the Prater in the presence
of the prince's envoy. We had really found the very thing for Ferdinand,
but I would have been more than sorry to have had it myself as it was
altogether too dull, no noise startled it; and it was sent to Sofia,
where Ferdinand showed off, mounted on this fine animal, on which he
probably dreamt of entering Constantinople. His war against the Turks is
not forgotten. He thought himself already at the gates of Byzantium....
But I do not wish to relate what everyone knows. I prefer to show in a
new light the secret drama which his diabolical contempt for God and
the moral laws of Christian civilization provoked, when he baptized
and brought up his sons in the "orthodox" religion whence Bolshevism
originated--just as the European war has sprung from Lutherism, and just
as the more terrible trials of England will arise from her religious
disputes.

Ferdinand of Bulgaria, born in the Catholic faith, first married Marie
Louise of Parma, daughter of the Duke of Parma, the faithful servant
of the Roman and Apostolic faith. This marriage, celebrated when he
was Prince of Bulgaria, had not been agreed upon without the express
condition that the children should be baptized and brought up in the
religion of their mother and their ancestors. This constituted a formal
article of the contract. Ferdinand solemnly consented to it. But when he
thought that the support of Russia might be useful to him in his plans
regarding Constantinople, he did not hesitate to break his vows; he gave
his two sons to Russian schism. Marie Louise of Parma, mother of the
souls of her children, betrayed, repulsed and broken in her belief
in her husband, immediately fled from the Konak of Sofia, and came to
Vienna to hide her sorrow and her fear in the sympathetic arms of her
mother-in-law, who was equally tortured by the blasphemy of her son.

People who have some ideas on the question of conscience, especially
when it touches religious convictions, will easily understand the
intensity of this drama.

I was then at the Coburg Palace. I saw the Princess of Bulgaria arrive
there after having fled from the palace, where, in the opinion of this
pious mother, her innocent children had lost their hope of salvation. It
was no doubt much to endure. God is far greater than we imagine Him to
be. Our interpretations of His justice, although inspired by revelation,
will always underestimate His compassion, for we have not the words to
express, still less to explain, the survival of souls.

The poor princess was naturally extremely unhappy. I well remember her
agonized pale face, her indignation and her desire to annul her marriage
at the Court of Rome.

Fearing that Ferdinand would come and take her back to Sofia by force,
she insisted upon remaining near Princess Clémentine, who had a camp bed
put in a little room adjoining her own. The Princess of Bulgaria did not
feel safe except in this refuge.

Reasons of State and the impossibility of living without seeing her
children, who were retained as prisoners of their father's throne,
proved after all stronger than the princess's rebellion and despair.
Some months later she consented to return to Sofia.

The House of Parma was, like herself, astounded. The Holy See had
excommunicated Ferdinand. This malediction threw the entire family
of Parma into mourning; they had been so trustful and so proud of
Ferdinand's love, in which they had shown their confidence by giving him
one of their daughters.

I next saw the poor Princess of Bulgaria at Sofia. She had heroically
returned to her conjugal duties; she had just recovered from her
confinement.

Who knows--who will ever know--what actually passed in her mind?
Consumed by inward griefs, she perhaps died as a result. She was one of
those sensitive souls who actually die of a broken heart.

I have often thought of her. She was a martyr to the love of her
children. One visit to Sofia in 1898 remains indelibly impressed in my
mind.

My husband accompanied me, but there was always something indefinable
and indefinite between himself and his brother, probably the
subconscious enmity which I have previously mentioned. We could not,
however, have been welcomed more warmly. The life of the Sovereign was
wonderfully well organized in this country which was still primitive.
Nothing was wanting at the palace. There East and West were happily
united.

Ferdinand gave me as a personal guard an honest brigand of sorts,
picturesquely garbed after an Oriental fashion. From the time that this
man was ordered to watch over me and only to obey my orders, he took up
his stand before my door, and day and night he never moved therefrom.
My husband himself could not have come in without my permission. I have
never understood how this ferocious sentinel managed to be always on the
spot.

My brother-in-law showed me a most delicate and refined attention. He
constituted me the queen of these days of festivity. I was overwhelmed
by the homage of his entourage. Each meal was a decorative and culinary
marvel. Sybarites would have appreciated the cuisine at the Palace of
Sofia.

I have always appreciated meals which are meals. It costs no more to eat
a good dinner than to eat a bad one; it is a weakness of the body and
mind, a crime against the Creator, to disdain food when it is prepared
with care. If we have been given the gift of taste, and if good things
exist on earth, they are equally for one as for another. Ferdinand at
any rate held this epicurean belief.

Every night after supper there was a dance at the palace. The Bulgarian
officers were most enterprising dancers. Educated at Vienna or Paris,
they understood the art of conversation. They were distinguished by
an instinctive air of nobility, as are all the sons of a virile and
essentially agricultural race with a wholesome and wide outlook.

During the day the prince did the honours of his capital and his
kingdom. We recalled the memories of the Coburg Palace, and our former
excursions and parties. We returned in spirit to that Forest of Elenthal
so dear to our youth. We drove, accompanied by an escort which I have
never ceased to admire. I am unaware whether the Bulgarian roads have
improved, but at the time of which I write they were few, and they
were maintained at the expense of Providence. A short distance from the
capital they became tracks. But the escort followed without flinching,
utterly indifferent to obstacles of every description which encumbered
an already too narrow road. I have rarely seen the equal of either man
or beast in crossing ridges, walls and ditches. It was witchcraft on
horseback.

Ferdinand was superbly indifferent to everything unconnected with his
sister-in-law. I gazed at him, and I thought of the devil-worship of
our youth. He was always strange. I saw now, as I had seen long ago, the
amulet in his buttonhole, disguised as a decoration, a button fashioned
in the shape of a yellow marguerite beautifully executed in metal of
the same shade as that of the heart of the flower. Each time I asked
him about this "gri-gri" he assumed a serious manner, and gave me to
understand that it was something which he could not discuss.

He had earnestly begged us to spend a short time with him. Had he the
same idea which he had once explained to me openly at dinner, and which
he emphasized privately in another way? I cannot believe it.

I think that, carried away by his thoughts, he was no longer master of
himself. I do not know whether I was ever mad, as his elder brother
so much wished to believe, but I am absolutely sure that Ferdinand of
Coburg was not always in possession of his senses.

Yes, this spiritual scholar, this lover of art, this lover of flowers,
this delightful friend of the birds in his aviary to whom he told
nursery tales and charmed like a professional bird-charmer, this
accomplished man of the world, this son of Princess Clémentine, and this
grandson of Queen Marie often assumed a kind of demoniacal personality
and gave himself up to the evil delights of sorcery.

At one dinner, which I remember as if it were yesterday, he said in low
tones so that my husband could not hear (my husband being opposite to me
in the seat of the princess, who was absent owing to indisposition):

"You see everything here. Ah, well! All is my kingdom; I lay it, myself
included, at your feet."

I could only welcome this romantic declaration as fantastic gallantry
rather than a literal statement. I tried to reply as if I treated the
remark as a joke. But apart from his expression, which gave the lie
to the level tone of his voice, I had more than one reason to distrust
Ferdinand, now that his imagination was mastered by desire.

In fact, the same evening he came to me, and, taking me away from the
dancers, led me to another room where a French window was open to the
Oriental night and the stillness of the little park, and inquired if I
had understood what he had said.

His tone was harsh and his look stern. There was something imperious and
fascinating about him. I was much disturbed. He insisted brusquely:

"It is the last time that I shall offer what I have offered. Do you
understand?"

My eyes wandered to the salon. I saw beside me the Prince of Bulgaria so
different from his brother, still young, handsome and full of power. But
the image of Princess Marie Louise passed before my eyes, and also the
vision of the Queen.... I shook my head, and murmured a frightened "No."

I must have looked as pale as wax. Ferdinand's countenance changed. His
features took on a sinister expression; he, too, turned pale, and in a
hoarse voice he threatened me, saying sneeringly:

"Take care. You will repent this. By 'Kophte' (?)."

He added those incomprehensible words which he always used when he asked
me to play the march from _Aida_ in the darkened salon at midnight.

That evening I felt something dangerous was in store for me. It was so;
from that moment Ferdinand of Coburg joined his brother in his enmity
towards me. And his enmity was no small matter.

I am quite aware that these facts will appear incredible to most people.
They seem more like an old romance by Anne Radcliffe! But everything,
both in the public and private life of Ferdinand of Coburg, _was_
incredible. I do not wish to refer to the judgment already meted out to
him by history. My desire is not to gloat over his downfall, but to show
in what inconceivable surroundings I lived. I was a member of a
family where everything was perfect and at the same time execrable.
Unfortunately I was not then in a position to love good and shun evil.
It took me twenty years to escape.

Ferdinand of Coburg has commenced his punishment on earth. Knowing him
as I do, I am certain that he suffers intensely, even though he may
sometimes receive consolation from the Devil!

I think he believes himself a superman. That fool Nietzsche--in reviving
a theory as old as the hills, when supermen called themselves cavaliers,
warriors, heroes and demi-gods--has turned a considerable number of
heads in German countries. He did them the more harm in that their
superhumanity, infested by the morbid materialism of the century, became
separated from the ideal which once animated these mighty persons, and
elevated them to honour instead of luring them to crime. It is certain
that despicable motives and methods can only end in a terrible material
and moral defeat. Ferdinand of Coburg, who has been ambitious from his
youth upwards, was a student of Nietzsche at the time when his theories
achieved notoriety. So Nietzsche obtained as his disciple a being who is
now one of the most notable victims of Zarathustra.




CHAPTER XI

William II and the Court of Berlin--The Emperor of Illusion


I wish to speak of William II as of one dead. He does not belong to this
world; he belongs to another.

I must be excused if I am sparing of anecdotes. It would be painful to
me to recall to life and movement one who has passed. My desire is to
limit myself to explaining effects of which I know the cause.

It was puerile to wish under high-sounding vain words such a petty thing
as the arrest and trial of a Government sunk in shame.

Society cannot recognize any Divine law in crimes against civilization,
since they place man below the level of the beast.

William II fell from the throne and was arrested by a more powerful
hand than that of earthly justice. He has known the severest prison
of all--exile; the most frightful regime--fear; the most terrible
sentence--that of conscience. Who will know the secret of the nights
of this fugitive traitor to his people whom he fed with deceptions and
lies, and whom he has led to ruin, civil war and dishonour? For not only
did he dishonour himself, but he dishonoured Germany in dishonouring her
arms.

Where is the honest German who has recovered from the intoxication of
war who can hear the name of Louvain, of the _Lusitania_, of poison
gas and other horrors without shuddering? But the responsibility of all
these crimes must rest on William II.

The passing of centuries will be necessary to wipe out the stain of his
murderous folly. This constitutes the shadow over the unfortunate Empire
which makes it appear monstrous to the nations of the Entente.

But I wish to say at once, because I am certain of it, Germany is what
Imperial Prussia has made her, and would again make of her.

The victim of her confidence and candour, she accepted as gospel
all that her Sovereign, the heir of victorious ancestors, declared,
professed and taught her.

It is harder to inherit a kingdom than people think, and I say this
without irony. William II was not human like his grandfather, who cried
out when he saw the sacrifice of the cuirassiers of Reisdroffen: "Ah, my
brave men!" William II possessed nothing of his father, who earned the
name of Frederick the Noble, and who died of two maladies, that of his
throat and that of his feverish impatience to reign.

William II was charming as a boy. As a child he was an amiable
playfellow. We have plundered the strawberry beds of Laeken together--a
sacrilege which was pardoned solely on his account.

I have followed his career as far as it was possible. I believed him to
be great. I have heard much of his power not only from his own people,
but from all people. He had a wonderful part to play. He did not know
how to play it; he could not; he lacked the means to do so, and perhaps,
first of all, a clever and good wife. He had no depth of soul. A
different wife might perhaps have supplied him with this quality.

Francis Joseph at the beginning of his active career as an Emperor was
almost brilliant; he certainly appeared distinguished. Thirty years
after, his face assumed an expression of vulgarity of which his first
portraits gave no forecast, although at a distance he still gave the
impression of being "somebody." But the high _morale_ of the Empress was
somewhat reflected in him.

Less blessed in a wife, the longer William II has lived the worse his
looks, his speech and his bearing have become. Two men--the late King
Edward VII and my father, the King of the Belgians--took his exact
measure and augured nothing good for his future.

The intimate opinion of him expressed by my father has often recurred to
me, but this would entail a separate chapter and it would lead us far.
I will confine myself to stating that the King had always foreseen that
Germany, intoxicated with the warlike perorations of William II, who
was a preacher of the old Prussian regime, would end by throwing herself
upon Belgium, upon France and upon the whole world.

The defences of the Meuse were a convincing indication of the King's
forethought. But we shall never know all that the King said, what he
did, and what he desired to do in this matter.

Unfortunately certain parties and certain influential men in Belgium
wrongly countered his plans instead of acting upon them. The country has
suffered cruelly for this mistake.

By what means did William II arrive at those false conclusions which
swept away the thrones of Central Europe and which have caused so many
calamities? It was not, as has been thought by the Entente, the result
of a fatal environment created alike by the ambitions of Germany and her
barbaric instincts. The German Emperor wielded immense power. He was
in truth an absolute monarch, and in consequence the Reichstag, the
Bundesrath, or the various State Parliaments never interfered with
him. The Emperor's Cabinet ruled the army, which in its turn ruled the
nation. Thus everything was centred in the person of the Emperor, this
magnificent fruit of Prussian discipline and force.

But in this fruit which made such an impression when seen on its wall,
there was a hidden worm. William II was a liar; he lied to others and
to himself without knowing that he was a liar. He lived continually in a
world of fiction. In short, he was an actor.

But he was the worst of actors; he was the amateur, the man of the
world who plays comedy--and drama--who is so taken up with his own
small talent that he becomes more of an actor than an actor, and in
consequence is always acting in everything and everywhere.

This passion for the theatre is alike William II's excuse and his
condemnation. It is his excuse because he entered so well into the
"skin" of the various characters which he played, that in each of them
he was sincere. It is his condemnation, because a king and an emperor
should be a Reality, a Will, a Wisdom; but he was none of these.

Personally he was hollow and sonorous. He did not know much. He did not
at close quarters, like Francis Joseph, give one the impression of being
the concièrge at an embassy, but he always gave one the impression that
is best illustrated by a saying which I remember having seen in the
_Figaro_: "Have you seen me in the part of Charlemagne, or as a Lutheran
bishop?"--(for he was _summus episcopus_)--"or as an admiral, or as the
leader of an orchestra?" His many talents have been recounted. They may
all be reduced to one--the art of self-deception in order to deceive
others. Under this veneer of self-deception there existed an empty soul,
without a standard of honour, without poise, at the mercy of any kind of
flattery, impressions, or circumstances. No sooner did he hear a speech
than he gave his opinion, and assumed an attitude according to the rôle
of the character to be represented.

He may be described as the best son in the world, for he was not wicked;
he was worse--he was weak. It was Chamfort, if my memory serve me
rightly, who wrote: "The weak are the advance guard of the army of the
wicked." William II was the scout of the advance guard; his Staff was
the army. He who was so afraid of thunder usurped the place of Jupiter,
the Thunderer, but this amateur soldier was far too nervous to endure
even the noise of battle. When his officers for their own advancement
persuaded him that he possessed military and naval talent, he dreamt of
the rôle of "Welt Kaiser," and prepared for the conquest of the earth.

Caught in their own trap, his faithful adherents were intoxicated by
the intoxication which they had provoked. The Emperor's Cabinet was
the theatre of a continuous orgy of gigantic schemes. At Vienna men's
imaginations were inflamed. The Berlin-Bagdad Railway of Central Europe
revived the earlier Near-East scheme. And a whole camarilla interested
in the advantages to be derived from these splendid enterprises praised
them extravagantly.

If in 1914 the Emperor Francis Joseph had possessed any glimmer of
reason and good sense, he would have taken notice of the formidable
uncertainties of the Berlin problems, and maintained peace while
refusing to die at the cries of the victims of a war.

Left to himself, William II let loose the worst and most barbarous
powers on the nations who were dragged into the horrors of war.

I have said that he lacked depth. He was in reality inconsistent.
Although playing a thousand parts, he had no personality.

A man is only "someone" by reason of his personality. Many fools and
dishonest men reach their goals in life through intrigue, chance,
favouritism and human folly. But they are none the less foolish and
dishonest for all that, and this is why the world is so evil.

William II assumed chivalrous airs, but he still remained coarse in his
outlook. This was often apparent in his jokes with the officers of the
Guards. He had no tact or judgment. His lack of tact was due to his bad
Prussian education; to his student days at Bonn, which were given up
to drinking bouts; and as a young man, to his taste for frequenting
the Berlin casinos. As for his lack of judgment, this was the result of
inherent vanity, which everything tended to develop to his own injury
and that of Germany. The vain man is the being who is deceived by
everyone, because he has begun by deceiving himself. And he is usually a
hopeless idiot.

William II once said to me, under the impression that he was paying me
a compliment: "You would make a fine Prussian grenadier." The compliment
seemed to me "Pomeranian."

If William II had possessed tact and judgment he would have known how to
adopt a policy other than threats and violence, and a diplomacy utterly
opposed to the trickery with which Germany was so affected during his
reign.

Incapable of judging the times in which he lived, weighed down by
Prussian tradition, and full of zeal as titular chief of the House
of Prussia, descended from a Suabian family which had emigrated to
Brandenburg, he persuaded the upper classes of Germany that he had
consolidated his prestige. The Middle Ages have had a disastrous effect
on him and, through him, on all Germany.

In addition to battlemented railway stations and post offices fortified
by machiolated galleries, the influence of mediævalism led the
Emperor-King and his people back to the old hates, the old struggles and
the old ideas, just as if the world had not changed with the passing of
centuries. The result was that science, inventions, and discoveries were
first made to serve the industry of war, the continuation of conquests,
the mailed fist, and all the follies which soldiers, writers and
military journalists applied themselves to serve, finding therein their
daily bread.

However, those nations brought into closer contact by means of
intercommunication and by exchange of ideas have commenced to find
solutions of difficulties in pacific ways--solutions which until
now have only been dragged from the path of war. By this I mean the
preservation and the development of the human species, its better
distri

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