Henry W. Fischer

“ Castle Wachwitz, March 10, 1893.
Queen Carola is a good soul though she doesn't dare call her soul her own. I never heard her say "peep" in the presence of his Majesty. She looks forlorn and frightened when King Albert is around.
I like her better since I am a mother, for she loves baby. Yes, though she is a Queen, I saw her actually smile at the child once or twice.
Poor woman, the point of her nose is always red, and, like Father-in-law George, she believes weeping willow the only fit emblem for royalty. The look of the whipped dog is always in her weak eyes. ”

“ And here I am thinking, thinking, thinking.
"The end of the Boulevard" is the beginning of Dresden's Bois. Does this madman really suppose that Her Imperial Highness, the Crown Princess of this kingdom, will lower herself and respond to his demand for a rendezvous?
Yet, how he must love me to risk saying what he did say to me. He is no ill-balanced youth; he is a man of ripe judgment. His passion got the better of him.
I adore passion.
I must go no more to the theatre. Impossible for me to see him nightly. ”

“ And Frederick Augustus! He will miss me in his way.
Ten more minutes. I hear the distant clatter of a carriage. Richard driving to our rendezvous, two streets north of the palace gate.
Will my limbs carry me to him and liberty? I pace the room to test their strength.
"Louise," says the voice within,—"your last chance. Your good-natured husband, your darling children, your old parents, pomp and state and circumstance, indeed, a crown, you are going to abandon for—what?"
A man whose carnal side only you know, a poor man, an artist without fame, a professional without future. ”

“ The more I looked at the Vortänzer, the more he enchanted me. Taller than any other man present, elegant, blonde, clean-shaven. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh, I judged. Might be the reincarnation of the Duc de Richelieu, who seduced my three cousins d'Orleans.
His face is livid with white and carmine tints; his eyes glow with an irresistible charm. That figure of his! The elegance of the palm tree, both straight and flexible. And the infinity of grace as he waltzed that little Baroness around.
"Baron Bergen, of the Guards," breathed Lucretia into my ear. ”

“ Isn't it amusing to be an Imperial Highness and a Crown Princess to be ordered around like a "boots" and [Pg 58] to be "commanded" like an orphan child to say thanks to one's betters!
I promised and the Queen, assuming that I intended to act the good little girl, took courage to say—for she is the biggest of cowards—"You are too popular, Louise. Such a reception as you had! All the papers, even the Jew-sheets, are full of it."
And before I could make any excuses for my popularity she added in sorrowful, half-accusing tones: "I lived here ever so many years and the mob never applauded me." ”

“ Prince George's evil counsel wasn't powerful enough to procure me beatings, but my husband's military education, his love of discipline, backed by alcohol, thrusts a sword into his hand, and, if I refuse to comply with his atrocious demands, I am liable to be treated like so many "mere" civilians that are sabred in the public streets for refusing to do some spurred and epauletted blackguard's bidding, or entertain his insults.
If the Socialists, who are forever railing against these self-same army poltroons, only knew it! ”

“ Imagine the feelings of the old King when he rode up to the Shah's gala coach and found it empty.
The marching past had begun, and still the "King of kings" turned his back on it all, while trying to persuade me to be Queen of his seraglio.
Our courtiers, the princes, the Queen, the generals were in despair. They took counsel with each other, disputed, advised, got red in the face. The Shah's gentlemen alone kept cool. They probably argued: If our master prefers the company of a pretty woman to looking at ten thousand men, he shows his good taste. ”

“ Frederick Augustus accompanies us. After the strenuous city life (in Dresden!) , he needs a change and a long rest from drinking and carousing, he says boastingly.
Of course, while he is here, I dare not invite the Vitzthums. But as soon as he is gone, they shall come for a couple of weeks, and their presence will make Henry's possible.
It's dreadful the way I miss the sweet boy. I suffer like a dog, when the longing seizes me, suffer both in heart and body. When I contemplate his miniature, tears come into my eyes. I often cry for hours thinking of him. ”

“ He seldom or never visits his confrères in the capitals of Europe, but when I was a girl our gloomy palace at Salzburg saw much of the ghosts of decaying royalty. The Dukes of Modena and Parma, the King of Hanover, the Kurfurst of Hesse, the King of Naples and other monarchs and toy-monarchs that were handed their walking papers by sovereigns mightier than themselves, visited us off and on, filling the air with lamentations and cursing their fate. ”

“ Those Jews have actually the audacity to reprimand the King and the royal princes, to impute ignoble motives to us all! They talk of us as if we were Messieurs and Mesdames Jones or Browns, trying to enrich ourselves at the expense of a corpse!
They call us "inheritance-chasers," "purloiners of pupillary funds," "starvers of innocent children."
The Duke's kept-woman is "a lady of the highest character" and we are not; her children are of the blood royal—only better for the dash of plebeian. ”

“ She thought she held the whip hand because a king cannot produce princes without his wife, while the wife can produce princes without the king; besides Frederick Augustus was no paragon, and he who plants horns, must not grudge to wear them.
A wanton's calculations, it will be argued,—but Louise's records show that her husband, the king-to-be, fell in with her main idea,—that he forgave the unfaithful wife, the disgraced princess, because, as Queen, her popularity would be "a great asset."
And Americans, our women of whom we are so proud, are asked to bow down to such sorry majesties! ”

“ Your nobleman and noblewoman adopt all tones, all airs, all masks, all allures, frank and false, flattering and brutal, choleric or mild, virtuous or bawdy—anything as long as it makes for their profit. Some months ago I met at the Dresden court the Dowager Countess Julie Feodorowna of Pappenheim, who told everybody she could persuade to listen that her eldest son, Max Albrecht, had to resign the succession, because he married beneath him, an American heiress, Miss Wheeler of Philadelphia. ”

“ Father-in-law George tells me to trust no one but him, my husband, and Frederick Augustus's sisters, cousins and aunts, and to rely on prayer only, yet, stubborn as nature made me, I prefer respectable white paper to my sweet relatives.
Up to now my most ambitious literary attempts were intimate letters to my brother Leopold, the "Black Sheep." As I now start in writing letters to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self may be corresponding with my better self, or vice versa. If I was only a poet like Countess Solms, but, dear, no. All real bluestockings are ugly and emaciated. ”

“ Dresden, August 1, 1902.
Richard is moulding my character. I, once so proud of rank and station, I, who upheld the Wettiners' robbery of a poor, defenseless woman, the Duke's wife, because Socialistic papers spoke in her favor,—Louise now allows anarchistic tendencies to be poured in her ears. She almost applauds them.
This easy change from one extreme to the other at a lover's behest is one of the things that make woman's rule—or co-rule—as the male's political equal—impossible. It's a sort of Phallus worship that always was and always will be. ”

“ Not much for a multi-millionaire's wife or daughter, I reckon, but a terrible lot for an Imperial Highness.
When I read of the sums the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goulds and other dollar-kings spend in Paris and London, and even with us in Dresden, I sometimes wish I could exchange places with an American Duchess or Countess long enough to buy all the things beautiful and pretty I would like to own. An awful thing is royal poverty, but the reputation of affluence and unlimited resources, stalking ahead of us, whenever we enter a store or bargain with a jeweler, is worse. ”

“ Max gets up to make a speech and one could fairly see the lies wriggle out of his mouth full of defective teeth: exemplary family life; traditional friendship of all members for each other; perfect unity; the King and all the princes brave as lions; the Queen and all the princesses paragons of virtue. And the fatherly love with which the King embraces us all ”

“ We are invited, of course. We are next in importance to Prince George. Our entourage is more numerous and more richly costumed than that of the other princes. Four horse coaches for us; Ministers of State waiting on us. I have train-bearers, pages, what-not.
But the King and Prince George cut me and Frederick Augustus in sight of the whole court, of the public in fact!
I don't mean to say that the "All-highest Lords," as they call themselves, treat us as air, or offer insult plain to the ear and eye—they couldn't afford to—nevertheless the stigma of royal disfavor is stamped on us. ”

“ I rose superior to Queen Carola, who never had a child, and to Maria, Mathilda, Isabelle and Elizabeth, who either couldn't or didn't. But, to my mind, acting the cow for the benefit of the race did not invite stable manners.
I wasn't used to them. They hadn't figured in the dreams of my girlhood. I thought love less robust. I didn't expect to be squeezed before my ladies. Even the best beloved husband shouldn't take liberties with his wife's waist in the parlor.
And Frederick Augustus's negligee talk is no less offensive than his manner of laying loving hands on my person. ”

“ Prince George's intrigues, octopus-like, enmeshing me! [Pg 262]
Ten years I have been Crown Princess of these realms. Three Princes and a Princess I gave to Saxony. A fifth child is trembling in my womb, yet every atom of happiness that falls to my lot is moulded into a strand of the rope fastening 'round my neck.
I haven't a friend in the world. A most dangerous thing to be on good terms with the heirs to the crown. Makes the temporary incumbent of the bauble nervous, makes him jealous.
When I am Queen, I will have friends in plenty. ”

“ When I learned that Bernhardt was in Dresden, I phoned him to come out and see me—without asking either royal, princely, or the Tisch's permission.
A junior prince, without fortune or high protector, is really to be pitied. His title, the vague possibility that some day he may be called to the throne, stand between him and enjoyment of life as a man. Nothing left, but to enjoy himself like a pig.
Bernhardt admits it. "They planted me in the God-forsakenest hole in the kingdom. If I saw a pretty woman [Pg 164] in my garrison from one year's end to the other, I would die of joy. ”

“ Here we have a royal prince of twenty-four or twenty-five subjected to kicks and cuffs by his uncle, who happens to be king—no indignity either to the slugged or the slugger in that—but when a pretty princess gets a few "Hochs" more than an ugly, mouse-colored majesty, she is all but flayed for "playing to the gallery."
"High-minded" royalty robs widows and despoils orphans; re-introduces into the family obsolete punishments forbidden by law; maintains in the household a despicable spy system! Its respect for womanhood is on a par with a Bushman's ”

“ As for me, I am a woman and mother first, and my child is an animated lump of flesh and blood—my flesh and blood—first and all the time. Of course, when baby came I wanted to nurse it. You should have seen Frederick Augustus's face. If I had proposed to become a wet-nurse to some "socialist brat" he couldn't have been more astonished. Yet my great ancestress, the Empress Maria Theresa, nursed her babies "before a parquet of proletarians," at the theatre and at reviews, and thought nothing of giving the breast to a poor foundling left in the park of Schoenbrunn. ”

“ I said. "It's a very pretty place." Poor Frederick Augustus' face lit up. "But there must be an end to the talk about I being in disgrace. If the King is as friendly to me as he makes out, let him come and see me and the babies. As to summonses by Baumann or others, I won't accept them."
"Very well," said Frederick Augustus, and I saw that I had risen mile-high in his estimation, "when will it be your pleasure to leave for Loschwitz?"
"Tonight, if I have permission to invite Leopold for a week or so." ”

“ Frederick Augustus talks of having some more princes and—acts accordingly. Perish the thought that his Louise is an adulteress, that she ever had a lover, has one now!
He is haunting my room, running from door to window, from window to door. Every little while he opens the portières to see if no one's coming to address him "Your Majesty."
"Your popularity with the public is a great asset," he says over and over again. "Lucky devil I, to have a wife as smart as you." ”

“ Pillnitz, May 23, 1901.
I caught Prince George in the park after laying in wait for him three long hours.
"Why does Your Royal Highness forbid me to see my children?" I demanded, every nerve aquiver.
"His Majesty's orders. He thinks you are not fit company for growing children. You are leading a godless life."
"What does Your Royal Highness mean?"
"What I said. A godless life, such as you entered upon, is an invitation to the devil. Sins are the devil's envoys. When you are black with sin, the devil himself will come to claim you." ”