Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess

Of course, the someone was the Tisch, but how did she know? I will ask her as soon as Frederick Augustus is gone.

Loschwitz, May 2, 1901.

"Have you ever seen my Diary?" I asked the Tisch this morning.

"Never, Your Imperial Highness."

"Then how do you know I keep a Diary?"

"I surmised it because I saw Your Imperial Highness write repeatedly in one and the same book." The hussy affected a humble tone, but the note of triumph and hatred underlying the creature's meekness did not escape me.

"And the mere surmise prompted you to blab to my husband, arouse his suspicions?"

"For Heaven's sake," cried my Grand Mistress, "I had no idea that His Royal Highness didn't know about the Diary. Secrets between the Prince-Royal and Your Imperial Highness – how dare I pre-suppose such a state of things? His Royal Highness casually asked how the Crown Princess killed time in Loschwitz. I mentioned riding, driving, bicycling, writing letters, writing in the Diary – "

My fingers itched to slap her lying face, Grand-Duchess of Tuscany fashion, but I kept my temper.

"Listen to me," I said. "While you have secret instructions to play the serpent in my household and to betray, for dirty money, your mistress of the Blood Imperial, your duties as a spy are confined to my going and coming, to my exterior conduct, to my visits outside the palace, to my friendships, perhaps.

"They cannot possibly encompass my thoughts. And my Diary is the repository of my thoughts – thoughts that must not be defiled by your favor-seeking curiosity. Be warned. The next time you dare act the burglar – I say burglar– I will kick you out of doors like a thieving lackey."

She got as white as a sheet and hissed back: "Your Imperial Highness can't dismiss me. Only His Majesty has power – "

I interrupted her with an imperious gesture.

"I said I will kick you out of doors like a thieving lackey," I repeated, "and I will do so this moment if you say another word. Whether or not His Majesty will punish me for the act, that's my business. You will be on the street and will stay on the street."

I pointed to the door: "I dismiss you now. You will keep to your room for the rest of the day."

I saw the Tisch was near collapse.

"Your Imperial Highness deigns to insult a defenseless woman," she breathed as she went out.

Defenseless! So is the viper that attacks one's heel! First these "defenseless" creatures goad one to madness, then they appeal to our noblesse oblige. The enmity between the Tisch and I is more intense than ever.

CHAPTER XLIX

ARISTOCRATIC VISITORS

I hear disquieting news about my lover's character – The aristocracy a dirty lot – Love-making made easy by titled friends – Anecdotes of Richelieu and the Duke of Orleans – The German nobleman who married Miss Wheeler and had to resign his birthright – The disreputable business the Pappenheims and other nobles used to be in – I am afraid to question my lover as to charges.

Loschwitz, May 15, 1901.

The Vitzthums have been visiting for a week. Henry lodges in the village, but spends nearly all his time in the castle and grounds. We play tennis, polo, ball; we drive, ride, go bicycling, we dine and sup together.

I ought to be the happiest woman in the world, but a shadow dims the ideal picture my mind's eye drew of the lover.

I have it recorded somewhere – I wish I hadn't, so I might doubt my memory – that Henry told me he never borrowed from his sister. Countess Vitzthum's confidences to me show that he did repeatedly, that, in fact, he is forever trying to borrow.

"He is a spendthrift; he cannot be trusted," said his sister, who loves him dearly. "He will wreck his career if he continues at the pace he is going. Some day we may hear of him as a waiter or cab-driver in New York."

These disclosures frightened me. I might forgive him the lie, but what is he doing with the money?

Spending it on lewd women like Bernhardt, I suppose.

I said: "Oh," and Madame von Vitzthum seemed to catch its significance. It occurred to her at once that she had said too much and she tried to minimize her brother's delinquencies. But I know.

Maybe some of my money went to pay hotel expenses for —

At Midnight.

My cousin Richelieu caused his mistresses to be painted in all sorts of monastic garments and licentious devices, saying: "I have my saints and martyrs; they are all that; but, as for virgins, there are none outside of Paradise." Substitute paillards for the holy ones and you have the situation in a nutshell.

The Vitzthums are panderers. They always manage to leave me alone with Henry. When we are a-wheel, they ride a mile ahead; while playing tennis one or the other aims the ball, every little while, to enter the open window of a summer-house, where my lover and I can exchange a few rapid kisses. When we are driving, without coachman or groom, of course, they always "feel like walking a bit," while Henry and I remain in the carriage.

The same at the house, on the veranda. They are always de trop. Vitzthum even sacrifices himself to the extent of paying court to the Tisch and engaging her entire attention, if it must be. He reminds me of a certain colonel of the French army during the Regency.

"Monseigneur," said this gentleman to my cousin d'Orleans, "permit me to employ my regiment as a guard for my wife, and I swear to you that nobody shall go near her but Your Highness."

Of course, it's very lovely of them, but rather emphasizes the poor opinion I have of the nobility.

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.

"Then you despise money?" I queried with a malicious thought just entering my head.

"Not exactly, Your Imperial Highness," she said, "but our house laws – "

"Those funny house laws," I smiled, "you don't say they forbid a Pappenheim to accept half a dozen millions from his wife, when, in days gone by, the Counts of Pappenheim's chief income was the tax on harlotry in Franconia and Swabia."

The Countess nearly dropped. "Don't be alarmed," I said. "See the pompous looking man in the corner yonder? It's Count Henneberg. His forbears held the fiefship of the Würzburg city brothel for many hundred years. That's where the family fortune came from."

Loschwitz, May 17, 1901.

I am an ingrate. I bit the hand that fed me. Noble iniquity that yields such delicious crumbs of love as Henry and I stole in moments of ecstasy in park and parlor, in pavilion and veranda, on our drives and rides, be blessed a hundred times. Ah, the harvest of little tendernesses, the sweet words I caught on the wing – recompense for the weeks of abstinence I suffered!

Occasionally only, very occasionally, I feel like questioning Henry as to the lie he was guilty of. I quizzed his sister time and again about his relations with women. She always gives me a knowing laugh; I wonder whether she means to be impertinent, or is simply a silly goose.

I won't ask him. If he is innocent, as I sincerely hope, he will be offended. If he is not, he will be ashamed of himself and will avoid me in future. It's "innocent," you lose, and "guilty," you don't win.

And I love him. I want him, whether he lies to me or not.

CHAPTER L

TO LIVE UNDER KING'S AND PRINCE GEORGE'S EYE

Abruptly ordered to the royal summer residence – The Vitzthums and Henry take flight – Enmeshed by Prince George's intrigues – Those waiting for a crown have no friends – What I will do when Queen – No wonder Kings of old married only relatives – Interesting facts about relative marriages furnished by scientist.

Loschwitz, May 18, 1901.

All-highest order to proceed to Pillnitz, the royal summer residence, without delay – a command I cannot possibly evade. Conveyed in curt, almost insulting terms – the Tisch's work, no doubt.

It came like lightning out of a blue sky, just when Henry and I had planned some real love-making à la Dresden.

The Vitzthums lost no time taking their leave when the scent of royal disgrace was in the air, and, as if to emphasize the obscene office they had assumed, they spirited Henry away ere we had time even to say goodbye.

What a life I am leading with the ogre of the King's wrath forever hanging over me; Prince George's intrigues, octopus-like, enmeshing me!

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. But then I won't need any. Immense wealth will be at my disposal. I will have offices to distribute, titles, crosses and stars.

Instead of tolerating the serpents now coiling at my fireside ready to spring at a word from their master, I will appoint to court offices persons I love or esteem, at least.

Henry shall be my Chief Equerry; the Tisch will be dismissed in disgrace – no pension.

But I am day-dreaming again. I started out to say that I had no friends. Yet there's Bernhardt? Precisely – as long as I am his mistress.

Marie is dead, Melita expects to be divorced before the end of the year. She will be a Russian Grand-Duchess, and the tedium of petty German court life will know her no longer.

Aside from Lucretia, there isn't a man or woman at the Saxon court whom I can trust, for our high functionaries are only lackeys having a bathroom to themselves. In no other way do they differ from the servants who are allowed one bathroom per twenty-four heads.

But the high aristocracy! Its men and women flatter us to get us into leading strings, try to make us pawns on the political or social chess-board. As a whole, they are a despicable lot.

No wonder kings of old married members of their own family exclusively, even their sisters, in re of which the learned Baron von Reitzenstein told me many interesting details.

He copied especially from Egyptian records, but also from Armenian, Babylonian and Persian, to wit:

Daranavausch married his niece, Phratunga.

His son and successor married his niece Artayanta.

Artaxerxes was also married to a niece of his.

Darius II and Parysatis married their sisters.

Kambyses married two of his sisters.

Artachschasa II married his two daughters; Kobad his daughter Sambyke.

Artaviraf, the founder of a great ancient religion, married no less than seven of his sisters – because "there were no other women worthy of the honor."

According to that, the aristocracy of old must have been as rotten as that of our day.

Lucretia is the only person I trust, and they would have robbed me of her services long ago if my marriage contract did not vest the power of dismissal in me.

Unlike me, she can afford to defy the King's wrath.

CHAPTER LI

COLD RECEPTION – ENEMIES ALL AROUND

Frederick Augustus gives his views on adultery – Doesn't care personally, but "the King knows" – "Thank God, the King is ill" – I am deprived of my children – Have I got the moral strength to defy my enemies?

Pillnitz, May 20, 1901.

I am undone. That malicious Tisch woman holds me in the hollow of her hand.

I dropped into a sea of ice when I set foot in the castle. Long faces, suspicious looks, frigidity everywhere. The King treats me like a criminal. I wonder the guards don't refuse their spiel at my coming and going.

Pillnitz, May 21, 1901.

Frederick Augustus arrived. He doesn't say for how long, and acts the icicle in the presence of others. At night he seeks his "rights," seeks them brutally.

This afternoon he said to me:

"That you made me a cuckold isn't exactly killing me; this sort of thing happened to better men than I, and – I was almost prepared for it. But to hear it announced from the King's lips – "

Because His Majesty knows – Frederick Augustus raved and swore I had dishonored him.

"If I wasn't a royal prince, I would be kicked out of the army," he whined.

In short, adultery isn't so very reprehensible if the King doesn't know.

Late tonight profound disquietude at court. The King is ill.

Thank God, the audience I feared must be postponed.

Pillnitz, May 22, 1901.

It wasn't. His Majesty appointed Prince George his representative, and I received a command to call on him at ten sharp.

I wrote on the Court Marshal's brutal invitation: "I refuse to see His Royal Highness."

Ten minutes later the Tisch entered my apartment with a look of triumph on her hateful face. She handed me a letter on a golden plate and waited.

"Your Ladyship is dismissed," I snapped.

She didn't move: "I expect your Imperial Highness's commands with respect to the royal children," she said. "May it please Your Imperial Highness to read Prince George's letter."

I tore open the envelope. His Majesty's representative "graciously permits me to see my children at nine in the morning and between five and six in the afternoon. At no other time, and never unless Baroness Tisch is in attendance."

I threw the letter on the floor and trampled on it. "Get out," I commanded the Baroness. If she hadn't gone instantly, I believe I would have choked her.

So I am deemed unworthy to mother the children I bore; and a spy is officially appointed to watch my intercourse with the little ones lest I corrupt them. No other inference was to be drawn from the measure.

"I will show them." But no sooner was the threat launched, than a great fear clutched at my heart.

Was I in a position to defy them? To guard the purity of the royal children "is the King's first duty towards his family." If he had proof positive that I was an impure woman, there was no use quarrelling with his decision. Besides, moral delinquencies engender more than physical weakness. I felt my boasted energy ebbing away fast.

"I am without strength, unnerved, because Henry left me," I lied to myself. The abandoned woman is either a tigress or a kitten. I happen to be no tigress.

CHAPTER LII

PRINCE GEORGE REVEALS TO ME THE DEPTH OF HIS HATRED

A terrible interview – "The devil will come to claim you" – Uncertain how much the King and Prince George know – I break into the nursery and stay with my children all day – Prince George insults me in my own rooms and threatens prison if I disobey him.

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."

He dropped his theological lingo and continued: "My fine daughter-in-law wants to be everybody's lady-love. If she had her sweet will, she would ruin every young chap in the residence and the surrounding country."

He looked about him and, seeing we were unobserved, eased his bile in this pretty epigram as rank as a serpent's saliva: "An adulterous wife, that's what you are. Satan alone knows how many you seduced."

It was more than I could stand and I burst into tears. In moments like this women always cry, but even if I hadn't felt like doing so, I would have cried because George hates it.

"Prove to me, prove to the King that you are sorry for what you have done, return to the path of righteousness, to God, and we will see about the children," he whispered as he moved away.

"What does he know?" "How much have they found out?" I kept saying to myself as I withdrew to my lonely apartments.

Pillnitz, May 24, 1901.

No answer to the questions in my last entry. The silent persecution continues unabated. I am growing desperate.

Pillnitz, May 25, 1901.

This morning at eight-thirty I went to the nursery.

The Baroness tried to speak to me. I held up my hand. "Not a word from you, or something terrible will happen."

Fräulein von Schoenberg, who is really a sweet girl, offered some respectful advice. I begged her to be silent. If the door had been locked I would have forced it with the dagger I carried in my bosom.

Lucretia came and whispered. "I have decided to stay, and stay I will. Let them do their worst if they dare," I told her.

I changed the children's curriculum. "You can drive every day; you can't have mother every day. Let's have some games."

I remained in the nursery till all the children were asleep. They partook of the breakfast, lunch and dinner I ordered for myself. A great treat for them. We were very happy.

But I waited in vain for interference. Nothing happened to clear the situation. Those questions were still unanswered when I returned to my apartments.

I had just sat down to read the evening papers, when Prince George entered unannounced.

"If ever again you dare disobey my commands" – he shouted without preliminaries.

I cut him short: "Are the children yours or mine?"

"They belong to Saxony, to the Royal House," he bawled, and poured forth a torrent of abuse without giving me a chance to put in a word. "You shall be disciplined to the last extremity. We will imprison you in some lonely tower, without state or attendants. You shall not see your children from one year's end to the other."

"Prison for the Crown Princess? Would you dare, Prince George?"

"At the Tower of Nossen rooms are in readiness for your Imperial Highness," sneered my father-in-law as he walked out.

Nossen! A ruined country-house, flanked by a mediæval tower in the midst of swamps. The nearest habitation miles away. Neither railway nor post-office, neither telegraph nor telephone – just the place to bury one alive. And I only thirty-one.

Augustus the Physical Strong imprisoned Countess Cosel at Nossen six months before he sent her to her prison-grave in Stolpen. After Cosel's departure, another royal mistress was lodged in Nossen, and as she would neither commit suicide, nor succumb to the fever, they starved her to death. And it all happened in the eighteenth century.

The word Nossen sent cold shivers down my spine. I am sure I won't sleep a wink.

CHAPTER LIII

REVOLVER IN HAND, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION

An insolent Grand Mistress, but of wonderful courage – Imprisonment, threats to kill have no effect on her – Disregards my titles – My lover's souvenir and endearing words – How she caused Henry to leave me – My paroxysms of rage – Henry's complete betrayal of me.

Pillnitz, May 26, 1901.

This morning I awoke a mental and physical wreck, but determined to solve those vexatious questions: "What do the King and Prince George know?" "What have they found out?"

I slipped on a dressing-gown, fetched my small revolver from its hiding-place in the boudoir and rang for the Tisch.

I received her politely enough. I was quiet, cold, calculating. She gave a start as she observed my stony countenance.

"Baroness," I said, motioning her to come nearer, "explain the attitude assumed by His Majesty, Prince George and the rest."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I want to know. Do you hear, Grand Mistress? I command you to speak," I cried.

A sneer of contempt hovered about her lips. She is a viper, this woman, but has the courage of the rattle-snake in action.

I turned the keys in the several doors and threw them under the bed. From under the pillow I drew my revolver.

I showed her the weapon and calmly announced, accentuating each word: "You won't leave this room alive until the question I put to you is answered to my satisfaction. I want the whole truth. You needn't excuse your own part in the business. As Henri Quatre said to the lover of Diane de Poitiers, secreted under her bed, as he threw him half a cold bird: 'We all want to live, some honestly, some dishonestly.' You choose the dishonest road. Be it so.

"But I want you to state what you accuse me of. Hurry," I added menacingly.

The Tisch was unmoved. Either she thinks me a horrible dastard or is brave to madness. She looked at me fearlessly and smiled. She seemed to enjoy my rage.

"Answer or I will shoot you like the dog you are."

And then her cold and fearless voice rang out: "Put your revolver away. I am not afraid to tell you, and that thing might go off. Is it possible," she continued sarcastically, "you have to ask?"

This woman dared to address me "you." "Tisch," I thundered, "my title reads Your Imperial Highness."

Another contemptuous smile curled her thin lips as she answered insolently: "At your commands. But if you want me to talk, put away the weapon. I won't open my head while threatened."

I threw the revolver into a drawer of my chiffonier and the Tisch approached me. "Do you know this?" she hissed, whipping from her desert bosom the golden Portebonheur, Henry's present.

I had missed it for two days. Fear seized my throat.

"Do you know this?" repeated the Tisch, pushing the button and disclosing Henry's miniature with the legend "To my sweetest Louise."

"Where did you get it?" I asked, half-dead with shame and fear.

"Never mind. It's the last piece of evidence that fell into my hands. The real facts I have known for a long while."

"And sold that knowledge?"

"I did my duty."

"Report, then."

And she told the story of her infamy – or mine?

My true relations with Henry were discovered by her at Loschwitz. He is a distant relative of hers and she an intimate friend of his mother. Hence she took care not to compromise the young man. The entire blame was put on me.

"Her Imperial Highness is indulging in a dangerous flirtation with Baron Bergen," she advised the King. "They must be separated at once lest that exemplary young man fall victim to her seductive wiles. I beseech Your Majesty to order the Crown Princess to Pillnitz and put a stop to her most reprehensible conduct."

Hence the royal command to proceed to Pillnitz without a moment's delay. "The King and Prince George deem your honor unsafe unless you are under their watchful eyes," she had the effrontery to tell me.

She drew a key from her pocket and opened one of the bedroom doors.

With her hand on the knob, she said, bowing formally:

"By Your Imperial Highness's leave, I will keep the Portebonheur to use in case you are ever tempted again 'to throw me out of doors like a thieving lackey!'"

A low bow, a sarcastic smile, – my executioner was gone. And I broke some priceless bric-a-brac, stamped my foot on the pearl necklace Frederick Augustus had given me, tore three or four lace handkerchiefs and stuffed the rags in my mouth to prevent me from crying aloud.

Pillnitz, May 27, 1901.

Lucretia finished the Tisch's report. The good soul hadn't had the courage to tell me before, but now that the Grand Mistress had spoken, considerations of delicacy no longer stood in the way.

What a judge of character I am, to be sure: Henry, whom I raised from obscurity, whom I befriended, loved, advanced, rescued from the hands of usurers – a traitor, pshaw, worse, – I cannot write down the word, but it's in my mind.

Henry, who hadn't the time to take leave from me, devoted an hour to the Tisch before he went away with the Vitzthums.

He told her all and gave her his word of honor – the honor of a man who accepted money from the woman weak enough to love him – that, first, he would never see me again of his own accord and would reject both my entreaties and commands; secondly, that he would petition to be transferred to a distant garrison to be out of the path of temptation; thirdly, that he would burn my letters.