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 distribution on the earth, and its rights to greater happiness and justice.
William II lacked depth (I again mention the fact) because he lacked moral strength. Not that he was immoral. Without being a saint, he admirably fulfilled the rôle of husband and father. He was in everything a zealous amateur. Yet he lacked moral strength because his Lutheran attitude, which allowed him to play the part of a Protestant preacher, was not a religious rôle. His sermons as Head of the Church did not teach him to be humble, charitable and just before God.
Contrary to what is generally believed, especially if the religious problem has not been studied, neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism is a religion. The beautiful souls one meets who have held, and who hold these religious beliefs would be beautiful no matter what belief they held, or even in the absence of any belief. They possess an innate beauty which touches the Divine. But a phase of religious belief cannot be a religion. Schisms are the accidents of the life of the Church. A tear in a costume is not a costume—on the contrary! Lutheranism was not originally a form of worship; it was a revolt, and this species of revolt will always make more rebels than believers. A revolt against Rome—Los von Rome! Impious cry! This is not only a case of "Deliver us from Rome," it is also a case of "Deliver us from the Christian religion, from the unity of the Catholic Church, otherwise called the Universal Church, which is our only chance of peace on earth." It is a denial of Latinity and of Hellenism; it is the retrogression of Central Europe to the Scandinavian Valhalla; it is not a world which expands, it is a world which confines. It does not represent the free harmony of the actions and the thoughts of men; it is the enforced uniformity of the parade step, and the silence on parade, in the ranks of the Prussian Guard.
If William II, who is responsible for the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, the burning of Louvain, the massacres of Dinant and so many other atrocities, were not, so far as I am concerned, dead, and if I were to see him again, I would say to him:
"You miserable man! Have you read Goethe? Can you imagine what he who wrote 'Man is only great according to the Heaven which is within himself' would think of you? You do not possess Heaven. You have driven away God with the Luther of hate and negation which was your God; you are a mere nullity."
CHAPTER XII
The Holsteins
I first knew Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein shortly after her marriage with Prince William of Prussia. I saw her later as German Empress at the Court of Berlin.
It was not easy to find favour in her sight; not that she was a malicious woman, but her narrowness of mind and her pretensions to the perfections of German virtues made her no friendly judge of women.
A pessimist and a martinet, she was wholly given up to her domestic duties and her worship of the God of Luther, whom she served with a zeal inimical to other gods, and with such piety that she edified Germany. But she had no conception of the immense pity and the infinite splendour of the true God. Always a sentimental country, Germany thoroughly admired this wife and mother, her husband and their children, who, when seen at a distance, really constituted a magnificent family.
But let us judge the tree by its fruits. There were in this Royal ménage no intimate dramas, no moral conflicts; everything seemed to proceed decently and in order. But none of the children born of the union of William II and Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein has deserved any consideration at the hands of men. And in pity for them I will say no more.
I was familiar with the old Court of Berlin, that of William I. I have often seen the old and infirm Empress Augusta, who always appeared to be very tightly corseted, installed on a sofa in the Imperial Salon close to a curtain which was drawn aside, and the Court circle then formed round her. She was invariably kind to me, and spoke to me in excellent French. The Emperor, William I, wandered simply and affably from one person to another.
The Crown Prince Frederick gave me the impression of being good, well read, noble and spiritual, and his wife, the daughter of Queen Victoria, was attractive owing to her candid and pleasant demeanour and her remarkable intelligence.
Count von Bismarck and Marshal von Moltke were the two lions of this unceremonial Court. Being young, I examined both curiously. Count Bismarck was noisy; he spoke loudly, and often indulged in a certain coarse gaiety. Marshal von Moltke said nothing; he seemed embarrassed with it all. But his piercing eyes made up for his lack of words, and for my part I had no desire to offend this sphinx-like person.
With the accession of William II, the patriarchal Court of William I and the Anglo-German but ephemeral Court of Frederick the Noble gave place to a Court of another kind. The ceremonial of official presentations was increased and became more frequent. The new Emperor wished to surround himself with warlike pomp, but the presence of Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein always reduced the most solemn ceremonies of the last Court of Berlin to commonplace grandeur. At this period the Empress had much trouble to gown herself and to dress her hair with taste. Her presence on the throne sufficed to transform it into a bourgeois sofa. Later, her taste in chiffons improved.
When William II came to Vienna he was received with the honours due to his rank. I took especial pains with my toilette in order to do him honour.
Accustomed as I was to his ponderous sallies, I did not expect to hear him say to me in French, which he spoke excellently, even in its boldest gallicisms: "Do you get the style of your coiffure and your gowns in Paris?"
"Sometimes in Paris, but generally in Vienna," I answered. "I represent the fashion, and I design my own dresses."
"You ought to choose Augusta's hats and help her with her gowns. The poor dear always looks shabby."
So this is the reason why the German Empress patronized the same shops which I patronized, and bought dresses which I helped design. The question of hats bristled with difficulties, because she has one of those big heads which are so hard to suit. But I succeeded, it appears, in fulfilling the wish of her husband by rendering this small service to his wife. He thanked me amiably, although he was one of those who never forgive us for benefits received.
The Holsteins, from whom the Empress was descended, had, as one knows, lost their Duchy, which was in former times Danish, and which had fallen into the hands of the Prussians. As a wife for the prince who one day would be William II, Count von Bismarck suggested Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein, who possessed an equable temperament, and whom he judged would balance the flights of fancy peculiar to a young and ardent husband.
This marriage had the merit of uniting the Holsteins to the House of Berlin by other means than by the sword. It regularized, in the eyes of Europe, the somewhat brusque method by which Prussia had annexed the Duchy. The political value of this marriage was well worth the dowry which Augusta certainly lacked.
The tall and fair future Empress was neither pretty nor ugly, but pretty rather than ugly. Her piety was well advertised, but there are pieties which had better be dispensed with if they spring from a false foundation. This was the case as regards the religious zeal of Augusta of Holstein, who when she became Empress began to regard her husband as the Head of the Protestant Church—a man who, lacking eclecticism, talked nonsense about the Roman Church, the Christian religion and Latinity. But he should have been restrained and made to observe the outcome of his Lutheran ramblings, which were mixed with invocations to Wotan and the god Thor.
Another point no less grave was that the Holsteins, who were ruined or nearly so, were obliged to try and replenish their fortunes. Augusta was forced to think of this, and primarily to establish her brother Gunther, who led the life of a German officer of a noble family without having the means to do so. William II arranged matters from time to time, but he did not display much enthusiasm. In no case does money play a greater part than with people who are attached to a Court. Without money nothing is of value, because this class of people are only measured by the money which they spend.
This was not the case with Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein. He possessed intelligence and culture. It has also been said that he was well posted in business matters. He has taken the chair at congresses in the capacity of a man of knowledge, and if during the war he did not particularly distinguish himself as a soldier, he has nevertheless shone as a financier. As a young officer these practical qualities were not apparent. It was necessary for him to make a good marriage. He failed in many attempts at matrimony. Presentable enough as a young man, he did not improve with age. When I saw him at various shooting parties in Thuringia, at the beginning of his career at Court, he was not bad-looking. When Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein asked for my daughter Dora in marriage, and we had given our consent, he asked me to fix the date. I could not help saying:
"What!... Do you seriously contemplate leading my daughter to the altar without having that dreadful nose of yours attended to?"
As a matter of fact he had a red nose of a many-sided, uncertain shape. Everyone is not like the Prince of Condé or Cyrano. A misshapen nose is certainly inconvenient.
His sister pressed for his marriage with my daughter. The same idea had struck her at Berlin as that which twenty years earlier had brought the Prince of Coburg to Brussels. The immense fortune of the King of the Belgians was by now undisputed. Calculations were made as to his income, and people talked of a thousand million francs to be divided one day between three heiresses. This aroused ardent speculative ideas, because even in those days one thousand million francs counted as something.
The Duke of Holstein, having improved the appearance of his nose, again spoke of his marriage with my daughter.
Dora was still young. At this time my husband and I had reached the tragic point of an almost definite rupture. I hoped that it would take place quietly. It was not I who let loose all the scandals. It so happened that we had decided to stay away from Vienna for a year. We therefore left for the Riviera. Gunther of Holstein went with us. Thence we went to Paris, where I brought my household. This was looked upon as a crime. People seemed to forget that my husband formed part of my household.
His company, rare as it was, was only irksome to me, and doubtless mine was no more agreeable to him. When difficulties arose between us I found constant consolation in the society of my daughter. Her mother was everything to her; my child was everything to me. At least Dora was mine. Her brother had long left me, so I kept my hold on her. I protected her; I made as much of her as I could. But having now reached the point of the story of my daughter's marriage with a relation of the Hohenzollerns, and the influence which the Court of Berlin was destined to have on Dora's future and on my own, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of portraying in these pages the ideal man of my devotion, who, having secured my moral safety, also gave me a new lease of life.
I will not deny it. According to the ordinary laws of the world, his presence at that time on the Riviera and afterwards in Paris offended all the traditions of ordinary respectable conventions.
Certain situations can only be judged in a manner suitable to them. If it is true that owing to my entreaties—the entreaties of a desperate woman who found herself isolated, and at the mercy of the man who was still her husband—the Count of Geza Mattachich was at the Côte-d'Azur at the same time as myself, and mixed with my entourage on the footing of a man of honour (as is the custom in the households of princesses), then I beg my readers to agree that my future son-in-law had no fault to find. This statement I think suffices.
Gunther of Holstein showed the count both respect and friendship, and further to prove this he asked him to act as his second in an affair of honour which he was able to arrange. But what was still more unfortunate, Dora, who had apparently some kind of instinct as to the troublesome times in store for her at Berlin, returned her ring to her fiancé and released him from his engagement.
Gunther of Holstein begged Count Mattachich to intercede with me to prevent the rupture, and I consented.
For this kindness I was destined to be basely repaid.
I did not wish to be separated from my daughter before her marriage, and especially to leave her in Vienna at the Coburg Palace. When we were leaving for the Riviera, I had told the assembled servants with tears in my eyes that I should never return there again, and the prince had listened without saying a word to contradict my assertion. I was afraid of the influence of Vienna, where my unfortunate son finally perished, and where owing to his misconduct he was destined to end his days in a horrible manner. A fearful punishment for his faults, and the moral parricide which he committed in disowning his mother. No! at all costs Dora must remain with me.
However, the Duke of Holstein insisted that Dora ought to be introduced to his family and to the Hohenzollerns. He gave me his word of honour to bring her back if I would allow her to go to Berlin for a few days accompanied by her governess. I made this soldier of Berlin swear this, but "vanquished is he who pushes the wheel of the conqueror's chariot," and I let her go.
She did not return. She was kept far away from me. This was the open avowal of the plot of which the melancholy vicissitudes were about to be precipitated.
I only learnt of the marriage of my daughter to Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein from the newspapers, when I was incarcerated in the Doebling Asylum at Vienna. I had just been taken there.
This plot—have I mentioned it?—was one of the vilest of plots—it was a plot which concerned money.
I was not mad, but my enemies thought that I should most certainly become mad in the midst of lunatics. Madness is contagious. My destruction had been determined. For as insane, or passing as such, I should be incapable of managing my own affairs. I should possess no civil rights, and my representatives could do as they pleased with my property. The King was old, and doubtless it would not be long before he "passed over." It was then certain that each of his children would inherit about three thousand millions. Was I to be allowed to inherit such a fortune, which I was sure to surrender into inimical hands, and which would then be squandered?
It is not to be wondered that my son, my daughter's husband, perhaps even my daughter herself, who was then a prisoner where William II and his wife ruled, agreed with the wishes of the Prince of Coburg, who was anxious to revenge himself for the bitter feelings which he had inspired in my heart.