MEMORIES OF THE
KAISER’S COURT

MEMORIES OF THE
KAISER’S COURT

BY
ANNE TOPHAM

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS

SEVENTH AND CHEAPER EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

This Edition, at 2s. 6d. net, First Published in 1915

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MEMORIES OF THE KAISER’S COURT

CHAPTER I

ARRIVAL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT

I confidently expected that a carriage would be waiting for me, but nothing in the least resembling a royal equipage is to be seen. There is only a row of those shabby, time-worn, open droschkies, harnessed to attenuated, weary-looking horses, which, even since the advent of the “taxi” into the social conditions of the Fatherland, still maintain a precarious, struggling existence in most German towns.

I am a helpless stranger, with a very limited knowledge of the German language as applied to porters and cabmen, and consequently very much at the mercy of these functionaries.

As my luggage is plainly addressed to the “Königliches Schloss,” the group of officials who surround me, all talking together in strident tones, are most anxious that I should get there as soon as possible. I manage to convey to them my idea that a carriage will probably be coming for me soon, and after a few minutes’ interval of waiting one porter obligingly goes outside the station to look up the long street for the missing vehicle; but he returns sadly shaking his head.

“Kein Wagen,” he murmurs with an air of finality; and in spite of my misgivings they all fall upon my various possessions and put them into the oldest and most decrepit of the droschkies—the only one left—with a horse to correspond, and a driver who strikes the last note in deplorable shabbiness and stupidity. No one who has not travelled in German trains fed with German coal can appreciate the sheer discomfort and misery caused by this wretched fuel, which vomits forth clouds of thick black smoke, laden with solid, sooty particles, having a fatal affinity for the features of the passengers. I have assimilated to myself a certain amount of this invariable accompaniment of Continental travel, and am uncomfortably conscious of the fact. Neither is it thus—in a wretched droschky, with my luggage piled drunkenly around me at various untidy, ill-fitting angles—that I had dreamed of entering the precincts of royalty.

Later on I grew callous in this respect and perceived that I had been unduly sensitive over a small matter; but my feelings on this important occasion were, it must be admitted, acutely miserable. One knows instinctively that a first impression counts for a good deal.

Up the long Louisen-strasse and past the Kurhaus we rattle over the cobble-stones of past ages with which so many German towns are paved, and down a side-street I catch a glimpse of a smart-looking brougham with a footman sitting beside the coachman on the box, driving quickly in the direction from which we have come. I am convinced that it is the carriage meant for me, and would like to go back again to the station; but all attempts to convey my meaning to the egregious person whose back obscures my view are unavailing. He shrugs his shoulders, whips up his horse, utters guttural incomprehensible ejaculations, and points to a large old building in front of us before whose open gates a sentry is pacing. The sentry looks surprised and hesitates, the animal in the shafts crawls through the gateway and comes to a sudden halt in the midst of a big paved courtyard, surrounded by open windows and containing in one angle a pleasant flower-garden of green turf and climbing geraniums. We are in the Royal Homburg Schloss.

A beautiful sun-bathed silence prevails everywhere. Through a gateway opposite, leading into a second courtyard, a fountain can be heard plashing gently with occasional intermittent hesitations and precipitations, while a pigeon croons slumberously at intervals on the roof. Otherwise it seems an absolutely deserted spot. There is nothing to indicate before which of the various doors, which stand half open to the light and air, I ought to be set down.

The driver assumes a round-shouldered, blinking, vacuous attitude of masterly inactivity, while his horse takes a nap after his exertions. I descend from the hateful vehicle and wonder what I ought to do next. Between heat, exasperation, and incertitude, added to the fatigues of travel, I am in a parlous condition, one fume and fret of weariness and desperation.

Presently from under the archway, interposing his bulk between me and the glancing sunlight, comes walking slowly a gentleman of stately mien, garbed in black frock-coat and tall silk hat. He wears the aspect of an Ambassador, and may be one for all I know or care. I fling myself into the orbit of his path, assembling together with beating heart the few fragmentary bits of German that remain with me after the varied emotions of the day. I murmur something inarticulate and wave my hand explanatorily in the direction of the supine droschky-driver, who, surrounded by my luggage, still continues to crouch in obvious somnolence on his box.

The black-coated functionary may not be a diplomat—I subsequently find that he is a Hoffourrier, one of those pleasant minor court-officials who regulate royal journeys and the small financial housekeeping arrangements of royal households—but he has the art of seizing a situation at a glance. His eye wanders whimsically over the luggage, the slumberous droschky-driver and his horse. It strikes him, no doubt, as a humorous situation. So it would appear to me under different circumstances. He answers in polite but unintelligible German, wakens the driver, directs him to a door in a corner, and rings a bell; a rush of gaitered footmen follows; something kaleidoscopic and swift takes place; I find myself following a servant down a long, cool, bare passage decorated with old German prints—up a tiny winding staircase into a pleasant, shady room looking out over the red roofs of Homburg away towards great purple hills against a background of pale lemon-coloured sky.

The quiet, calm beauty of the outlook as seen from this high-pitched gabled corner of the quaint old Schloss falls soothingly on my tired, travel-worn soul. I sink into a funny old-fashioned chair covered with a blue spotted chintz which has been out of fashion for at least a hundred and twenty years, and contemplate the fat, plethoric, square sofa and the rest of the furniture, which is delightfully old—so old that its ugliness has mellowed into something charming and alluring. There is a big mirror fixed over a marble-topped mahogany chest of drawers in which I catch a glimpse of my haggard face; there are various mahogany chairs covered with the before-mentioned blue-spotted print; there is a carpet of vivid moss-green. All is very plain and comfortable and old-world, and spotlessly clean and fresh. Flowers are on the writing-table which stands in the embrasure of the window.

Soon a pleasant chinking of china is heard outside, and a man in a flowing Russian beard parted in the middle brings in a tray with tea. He bows politely as he enters the room, the bow without which no well-trained German servant comes into the presence of those whom he serves, and deftly arranges the tea-table. He is clad in plain dark livery, such as is worn by all the Diener-schaft in the royal employment who are below the rank of footmen.

The sight of the teapot and the taste of the tea set at rest the doubts I have had whether this cheerful beverage would be one of the luxuries I should have to renounce permanently on leaving England.

“German people all drink coffee, and if they do make tea it’s like coloured water,” I had been assured many times over. That this is true still of the great mass of the people my experience in many parts of Germany has proved; but the Court buys its very excellent tea direct from a big London warehouse and brews it with due respect to its peculiar needs.

A small bedroom, in which my luggage has been deposited, leads out of the little sitting-room. It contains also the same quaint old-world furniture, together with a short, squat, solid-looking mahogany bedstead with deep wooden sides, covered with one of those big bags filled with down which take the place of an eiderdown quilt and are so typically German. One sees them hanging out of the windows for an airing every morning—at hours, it is needless to say, permitted by the police.

I wash away the dust of the journey, change and begin to unpack, wondering if my clothes are right, if I ought to have had longer or shorter trains on my dresses, and wishing somebody would come along and explain to me any points that might guide my inexperienced steps.

The departing English teacher whose place I am taking has written to me a letter purporting to give advice as to wardrobe and etiquette, but she has recently become “engaged,” and except an impression that white kid gloves are a chief necessity of life at court, there is little of practical use to be gathered from the vague kindliness of her short note. She writes that there is practically no etiquette except such as can be “seen at a glance,” and leaves it at that.

A knock comes at the door; a voice, a pleasant, cheerful woman’s voice, calls my name; and with both hands outstretched in welcome enters a tall, middle-aged, smiling person, who introduces herself as the lady-in-waiting with whom I have been corresponding. She radiates kindness and sympathy, is gaiety and charm personified, knows exactly how I am feeling—how excited, dubious, tired, and worried—and she laughs it all away while she stands clasping my hand and shaking it at intervals. She is much amused at the description of my entry into the Schloss, and explains that a carriage and luggage-cart had been sent to meet me with one of the Empress’s own English-speaking footmen, so that everything might be as easy as possible; but there had been a mistake as to the time—probably on my part—and as the train was very punctual I had been there too soon.

“And now,” she concludes, “you will dine to-night with Her Majesty at half-past seven.”

I start back in horror.

“Yes,” she laughs; “it is the best opportunity, because the Emperor is away and it will be very quiet—just a few of the ladies and gentlemen of the court; and it will be quite easy, you know. Her Majesty is so kind, so sympathetic—she knows how tired you must be—she will not expect you to be brilliant; but when there is a plunge to be made,” she pointed downwards as to an unfathomable abyss, “it is better to make it and get it over, isn’t it?”

“Will the Princess be there?” I ask with the calmness of despair.

“No, not to-night. She is very much excited and wanted to come and see you, but is to wait until to-morrow. She has been talking all day about your coming.”

I wonder dubiously in what aspect I present myself to the thoughts of my unknown pupil—whether pleasantly or otherwise.

On looking back, that first dinner at a royal table has in it many of the unstable elements of a dream, I might almost say of a nightmare. It passed confusedly through my mind as a series of impressions following each the other with such rapidity and lack of cohesion that only the Cubist or Futurist mind could hope to depict it adequately. An impression that my frock is not quite the right thing, that it is too English and not German enough—it was to be a “high” dress, said the Countess, as we parted, and mine was neckless while the other ladies were clothed right up to the ears and chin; further impressions that I am preternaturally dull and stupid, that the smile I attempt is obviously artificial, that I am an isolated speck of mind surrounded by an incomprehensible ocean of German babbling.

Before dinner I have been solemnly conducted by the Countess to the apartments of the Empress, wearing one long white kid glove, while the other is feverishly crumpled in my hand together with a fan, without which even in the coldest weather no properly equipped lady can, I learned, be considered fit to appear before royalty. An elderly footman shows us into a little ante-room furnished in brilliant yellow satin, and here we sit and wait, chatting in the desultory, half-hearted manner of people who expect every moment to be interrupted.

It is some ten minutes or so before a door leading into an inner apartment is opened and we are ushered in.

“You will kiss Her Majesty’s hand,” whispers the Countess with a reassuring smile as she passes on in front of me.

The Empress is sitting on a sofa, with a stick beside her, for she has had the misfortune to sprain her ankle rather severely some days before, and she receives us with a pleasant, gentle smile and a look which reveals at once the fact that she herself is feeling a slight embarrassment. I suppose the Countess presents me to Her Majesty—I have no definite recollection of it—but at any rate she disappears and leaves us alone together. I bend and kiss the outstretched hand, and feel already that this is going to be quite a pleasant interview, so eminently sympathetic and kindly reassuring is the face that smiles into mine with a certain shy diffidence.

I find myself sitting in a chair talking easily and without restraint to a mother about her little daughter. It is all quite simple and straightforward. There is no longer anything to trouble or be doubtful over. We exchange views on theories of education, on a child’s small idiosyncrasies, on the difficulties of giving her enough fresh air when so many hours are taken up with study. We get absorbed in our talk, and find that we have many views in common—always a delightful discovery, whether the other person be an Empress or a charwoman. At last Her Majesty realizes that a good many hungry ladies and gentlemen are waiting not far away for her appearance and their dinner, and so at length she rises and walks through several rooms, preceded by a footman who flings open both leaves of the folding doors, till we emerge in an apartment brightly lit with many wax candles, where a subdued buzz of conversation suddenly stops and the whole company bows and curtsies at once, like a field of corn when the wind passes over it.

At table I sit between a young officer in uniform and the English lady who is leaving to-morrow and to whose privileges and responsibilities I am to succeed. I learn with horror that with her departure I shall be left to grapple single-handed with whatever difficulties may arise—without any aid or advice excepting that which the “Countess,” who is continually occupied, may find time to fling to me at odd intervals of the day. The German Ober-Gouvernante, whom I had expected to find at my side with counsel and guidance, is in strict quarantine, having been in contact with some infectious illness, and will continue to be possibly contagious for the next ten days. She is being purified and disinfected somewhere with relations, and will resume her duties when the Court returns to the New Palace near Potsdam.

In the meantime I shall carry on as well as my ignorance allows the numerous duties of her position as well as my own! Perhaps it is the sympathetic pity of the kind German people in my immediate neighbourhood, their encouragement to be “firm” towards my pupil, the transparent hints that she is a remarkably difficult child to manage, and that only a person of unyielding discipline who will exact rigid and unquestioning obedience can have the least chance of coping with her extraordinary temperament, that make the true inwardness of the situation apparent.

“I rather like naughty children,” I murmur wearily, with an effort to throw off the forebodings caused by their remarks; “they have so much more character than good ones. Most people who turn out rather remarkable seem to have been distinguished in their youth for naughtiness.”

They all smile indulgently, with the air of humouring the whims of a child whose words are not to be taken seriously.

“Grown-up people can often be very annoying too,” I remark, as a further contribution to the discussion. They smile again at each other, and immediately change the subject to something else quite unconnected with education, and, lapsing into German, leave me, so to speak, stranded in a backwater, where I wonder vaguely if I can possibly keep my eyes open much longer and if it will be lèse-majesté if my head suddenly sinks into my dessert plate.

Mercifully, when we rise from the table I am dismissed to much-needed repose by the Empress, and bow my way through the door out of the confused blur into which the lights and the people’s faces are beginning to merge.

I had had no sleep the previous night, having spent it tossing on the stormy waves in a state of acute misery from sea-sickness; I had travelled all day through the scorching hours, with little to eat or drink, in a train which shook and rattled and bumped as only Continental trains can; I had been anxious and harried, owing to ignorance of the language and customs and train-regulations of the country through which I was passing; I had been fretted by the droschky-driver, presented to an Empress, and had supped at the royal table in private, which is much more alarming than on a ceremonious occasion; so that it was the mere wreck and shadow of myself which, guided by the pictures, crawled half-dazed along those interminable passages.

But the morning aspect of even the most difficult situation is invariably more courageous and hopeful than that of evening. I breakfasted in the little sitting-room with my compatriot, who is absorbed in packing, and vouchsafes not one single helpful hint as to my future conduct, for which to this day I bear her somewhat of a grudge. She dismisses the whole business with the airy lightness of one whom it no longer concerns. She shows me a beautiful silver dish, a wedding present from Her Majesty, and packs it away with a smile on her face. She hums a tune while she wanders in and out from room to room, where the sunlight flickers, brightening and disappearing under the light clouds that sail in the blue above.

At about half-past ten a footman comes with a summons to go downstairs, so I put on my outdoor things and follow him out into the sunny courtyard, through a big archway, and along winding sandy paths, till I reach a point where I can see the Empress sitting at a table under some big trees near what is called the “English garden"—a garden made, and still maintained much as she left it, by that daughter of George III who married a Landgraf of Hesse-Homburg.

Here it is that the Kaiser’s little daughter first comes dancing lightly into my life, to remain in it, a permanent and very delightful memory. A steep grassy bank in front descends so deeply to a tiny lake lying below that the intervening shore is hidden. Suddenly above this bank appears the sleek golden head of a small girl of nine or so, dressed in a stiff, starched, plain white sailor dress with a blue collar and a straw sailor hat.

Her mother calls to her in English, “Come here, Sissy”; and with a hop skip and jump over the intervening space she springs forward and holds out her hand to me with frank friendliness.

A few steps behind her comes another flying figure in white—her brother, Prince Joachim, the youngest of the six sons of the Kaiser; and then above the bank emerges the young officer I met at supper the night before, who is Governor to the Prince. Both children begin talking volubly in German to the Empress, the little girl, as far as my limited knowledge permits me to judge, emphatically contradicting every word her brother says. They are obviously—well, perhaps, it would be over-emphasis to call it quarrelling, but they are certainly not quite in accord. The young officer, lingering in the background—lingering in backgrounds becomes a fine art at court—gives me a meaning glance, raises his eyebrows, smiles and shakes his head with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“They are always zanking,” he says to me in his fluent but imperfect English, when, after a few minutes, the Empress departs, leaving me to the full and undisturbed enjoyment of my duties. I subsequently consult a dictionary and discover that zanken is a German verb meaning “to wrangle,” “to dispute acrimoniously.” It is a conspicuous characteristic of the children’s intercourse in those early days. Although they cannot bear to be parted from each other, they are as frankly and reciprocally rude as politicians, discovering an amazing fertility in the application of opprobrious and insulting epithets, flowers of rhetoric of which I gather a few for personal use if necessary. These storms beat with bewildering and baffling violence on my head, lacking, as I do, the knowledge of the German language necessary to make my censure more discriminating; but I note that Prince Joachim’s Governor is just as helpless as myself, though his command of the vernacular might be supposed to give him some advantage.

The next few days are busied with initiation into that mysterious inner side of court life of which the general public necessarily knows little but imagines many vain things. Chief among those early impressions is that of the Kaiser himself, whom I have not yet seen, as he is absent on one of his numerous journeys. Distilled through the alembic of his little daughter’s mind I soon perceive that the Emperor, hitherto known to me only by the medium of newspapers, which, although perhaps accurately informed as to facts, often throw a misleading light on the character and temperament of this much-discussed monarch, is not always playing the part of the frowning Imperial Personage of fierce moustaches, corrugated brow and continually-clenched mailed fist—that he frequently recedes from this warlike attitude and becomes an ordinary humorous domestic “Papa,” who makes sportive jokes with his family at the breakfast table and is even occasionally guilty of the more atrocious form of pun.

This phase of “Papa’s” character is forcibly, almost painfully, brought home to me when one day his daughter, in a moment of relaxation, seeks to amuse herself by practising the schoolboy trick—she is very schoolboyish—of making with her mouth and cheek the “pop” of a champagne cork and the subsequent gurgle of the flowing wine.

“Whoever taught you these unladylike accomplishments?” I ask, in the reproving tones appropriate to an instructor of youth.

“S-s-sh! It was Papa,” she answers gleefully, repeating the offending sound with an even more perfect imitation than before; “he can do it splendidly,” and she “gurgled” with persevering industry.

It is obvious that in the intervals of inspecting regiments and making warlike speeches “Papa” unbends to a considerable extent when in the bosom of his family. But I learn with some regret that “poor Mamma” seldom has time to get a really proper breakfast, because after she has poured out “Papa’s” coffee, buttered his toast and ministered to his other wants she has only time to snatch the merest mouthful for herself before he is hurrying away to call the dogs and put on his cloak for a brisk early morning walk.

“Come on, come on,” he says, with cheerful impatience; “how you do dawdle over your food, to be sure! I’ve finished long ago,” and the whole family has to leave its meal half eaten and start on an hour’s tramp through the streets of the town or to the beautiful hills outside. It is clear that “Papa” is the dominating force of his daughter’s life. His ideas, his opinions on men and things are persistently quoted by her; trenchant, fluent criticisms on persons of world-wide fame, astonishing verdicts on men of the hour, issue from her lips in bewildering confidences.

“Papa says that Herr Muller” (the name of course is not Muller) “is a Schafs-Kopf and doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she would say glibly of some well-known politician on whose utterances the world was hanging with bated breath.

These communications are sometimes almost disconcerting. They add a burden to life, a fear lest one may betray some great political secret from sheer inadvertence. It is a relief when the Princess turns her confidences into less embarrassing channels.

The chief pets of her existence at this time are two ponies, which, together with a small victoria upholstered in pale blue satin, have been presented to her by the then reigning Sultan of Turkey, who was afterwards deposed. These two little creatures, named Ali and Aladdin, are of a pale fawn-colour, with long white silky manes and tails, and when drawing the small blue-lined victoria, which has a diminutive groom perched on a small seat behind, make an extremely exotic circus-like effect on the country roads round Homburg. The Princess always drives herself, and delights in flourishing a rather large whip, which it is necessary frequently to apply to the ponies’ fat sides, for they are of a somewhat sluggish disposition; but their appearance outside the Schloss gates is hailed with delight by the crowds who stand waiting there waving their hats and handkerchiefs on all sides.

Cronberg, the residence of the late Empress Frederick, now in the possession of her daughter the Princess Frederick Charles of Hesse, is within driving distance of Homburg. At this time the children of another sister of the Emperor are staying there—the Greek princes and princesses, whose father was then Crown Prince and is now King of Greece. As the Princess of Hesse is herself the mother of six sons, two pairs of twins among them, there is no lack of playfellows for the Princess and Prince Joachim, who frequently exchange visits with their young cousins. Cronberg is a beautiful house built in old German style, quite different from the peculiar Greco-French character of most palaces in Germany.

It is pleasant to watch the cataract of white-clad children rushing in and out of the doorways, displaying that universal characteristic of their age—a desire to penetrate to unusual places, such as kitchens, cellars and attics. They have glorious games on rainy afternoons in the upper regions of the old Homburg Schloss, in whose cobwebby, dusty rooms, among old forgotten lumber, are to be found many curiously interesting things—old portraits of dead and gone Landgrafs and Landgravines, pictures of the children of the old house, attired in the cumbersome finery which in past days hampered unfortunate infancy, pieces of queer armour, ancient blunderbusses and rapiers, old moth-eaten furniture with the silk worn into rags.

I had developed an unsuspected talent in the direction of Versteckens—the ever-popular hide-and-seek—more especially in the rôle of seeker, and distributed the thrills of which the game is capable with even-handed impartiality, not forgetting that even the child of least originality, who hides in the most perfectly obvious place with large portions of his anatomy plainly visible, likes to have, so to speak, a run for his money, and enjoys the hovering discovery best when it retires baffled on the verge, and the wrong cupboard is frequently and persistently searched.

The form of the game which we played exacted that the seeker should count slowly up to a hundred with tightly shut eyes and then begin the search; but I compromised this rather wearisome method by allowing five minutes’ “law” and beginning to count at ninety. These odd five minutes were utilized to examine at ease many objects which I should otherwise never have seen; and to an accompaniment of muffled shrieks, thundering footsteps, and a passing vision of fleeting white legs, short frilly skirts, and rather smudgy princely features (for these out-of-the-way corners were a trifle dirty) I was enabled to study many quaint old steel engravings of hunting scenes which hung on the walls, engravings which would make a collector’s mouth water.

I still remember the indignation with which Prince Max of Hesse made the discovery that I did not pass these intervals in a state of temporary blindness.

“You don’t keep your eyes shut all the time: you must keep them shut,” he objected. (They all spoke English and German equally well, but preferred German when talking among themselves, with the exception of the Greek children, who always spoke English.)

I have some difficulty in persuading him that I may honourably keep my eyes fixed on a picture without transgressing the rules of the game.

“But you can see us go by out of the corner of your eye,” he persisted.

“But I should hear you in any case.”

“Well, then you must shut your ears as well; hold your hands over them.” He is a very conscientious little boy and a past master in the matter of argument. If he had not been dragged along by my Princess there is no saying what I might have been forced to do, but she knows when she is having a good time and is no stickler for the strict observance of rules.

“Come along, Max,” she cries; “I’ve got a splendid place. Don’t begin to count yet, Topsy.” She has already found a nickname for me, and “Topsy” I remain, for the rest of my career.

On the evening of one of the days when we have been playing hide-and-seek my pupil tells me an interesting piece of news.

“Papa is coming back to-morrow morning,” she says gleefully, “and then you’ll see him. I expect you’re looking forward to it very much. I shall tell Papa all about you. You are just like all English people—very thin. Why don’t you eat more and try and get fatter?”

“I don’t want to get fat,” I reply indignantly; “and if I did, what would be the use when I have to run about all day after you children? I expect I ran at least ten miles this afternoon when we were playing hide-and-seek.”

“I expect you did,” answered the Princess regretfully. “It was a splendid game, wasn’t it? Georgie hid in a bath once and Alexander turned the tap on him; but,” returning to an earlier subject, “Papa will want to know all about you, and I shall tell him you are very thin. Won’t you be very pleased to see Papa?”

I murmur something politely appropriate and noncommittal, but the fearful joy reserved for the morrow somewhat troubles my thoughts that night. Life seems already to be almost sufficiently strenuous.

CHAPTER II

HOMBURG-VOR-DER-HÖHE

She is in her tenth year when I first know her, a well-grown child of her age, with rather pale features and a lively, alert expression. She wears her fair hair cut in a straight fringe across her forehead and hanging in long “nursery ringlets” over her shoulders. These ringlets are produced, in what is naturally perfectly straight hair, by the art of her English nurse, whom I often watch with a certain fascination as she brushes the shining strands round her finger, forming without any extraneous aid the most beautiful and regular curls possible.

There are but two people of whom the Princess really stands in awe. Her “Papa” of course is one, and I am not sure if her English nurse does not occupy an almost equal position with His Majesty in this respect. “Nanna” is a disciplinarian of the first water, and like other disciplinarians, brooks no interference with her own laws, which, in a court where many overlapping interests exist, is apt to breed many difficulties. She has been thirteen years in the service of the Empress, has brought up the younger children from birth, watched by them together with their mother many nights when they were ill, and practically saved the life of Prince Joachim, the youngest of the Kaiser’s six sons, by her constant and faithful care of his delicate infancy. But one by one her nurslings have been taken from her, not without a certain fierce opposition on her part. Prussian princes are given early into military hands. It is a tradition of their training, and the shrewd old nurse has a very strong opinion, shared by the Kaiserin, that an inexperienced young officer is no person to be entrusted with the superintendence of a young child’s physical and mental needs. She has battled indomitably, and often successfully, for her charges, invading even the professorial departments; and, aided and abetted by the Court doctor, who naturally considers physical before intellectual development, has often entirely routed the educational authorities, who have had to retire baffled and disconcerted.

But her triumphs were short-lived. An elaborate educational machine equipped with expert professors for every subject, with a carefully thought-out programme, in which every hour of the day is rigidly mapped out, cannot be stayed for the whims of one obstructive woman obviously prejudiced against German institutions. The frequent skirmishes had developed into something of the nature of a campaign. It is not good for children to be, as they frequently are even in less illustrious circles, the centre of warring elements; so at last the inevitable happened, and with much reluctance “Nanna’s” dismissal to England, of course with an ample pension, was finally decided upon. When I first made her acquaintance in Homburg her influence was a waning one; her autocratic rule was loosening—her departure delayed only by the beneficent hand of Majesty, which shrank from the final severance from a faithful if somewhat injudicious servant.

“Nanna” subsequently asserted that I had been specially deputed as an instrument of Providence to console her during those last few weeks; and though I myself am not personally conscious of any qualifications for the office of consoler, I may at any rate lay claim to the credit of having been a very efficient safety-valve for her emotions, which poured over me in a constant flood of retrospect and admonition. She was uncompromisingly British, in spite of her thirteen years’ residence abroad. It was at once her strength and her undoing. She refused to strike her flag to any mere lady-in-waiting or German Ober-Gouvernante, and maintained an inflexible principle of behaviour in situations where the tact and pliability indispensable to diplomatic relations were most needed.

“Do you think I was going to stand her putting the thermometer in the bath-water to see how hot it was?” she asked me indignantly, referring to the absent Ober-Gouvernante; and I agreed that it was the kind of thing that no one could be expected to bear.

She was a good faithful soul, rather crabbed and cross sometimes, and she inspired in the German footmen and housemaids under her orders a good deal of respect and fear, and also, as I subsequently discovered, a certain amount of affection, such as sterling qualities will always earn for themselves somehow; and if the German associations modified nothing in her character, the same cannot be said of her speech, which, while still remaining British in outward form, became in the course of years somewhat warped from its original purity.

“At Christmas,” she told me once, when showing the gifts that the Empress had made to her, “last year I became a set of teaspoons, and the year before I became a lovely silver teapot.” She had obviously confused the German word bekommen, “to get,” with the similar-sounding but different-meaning English word.

It was at a picnic that I was first presented to His Majesty the Emperor. We had all driven one afternoon in a series of carriages to a beautiful spot in the surrounding hills, where, a little way into the forest which bordered the roadside, a table on trestles was laid for tea. I had already been warned by the Princess of the impending joy.

“You’ll see Papa now, and be introduced,” she said before we started, her face glowing in sympathy with what she supposed I must be feeling. “Won’t it be lovely?”

His Majesty and the gentlemen with whom he is talking volubly when I first catch sight of him are all in uniform, which gleams brightly under the deep green of the pine trees. The German officer, it is well known, wears uniform continually, and adds greatly thereby to the colour and gaiety of the social functions in which he takes part. The Emperor sets an example also in this respect, and on the very few occasions when he appears in mufti loses a great deal of his imposing appearance. Civil dress has with him something of the baffling nature of a disguise, and the ordinary easy lounge tweed suit, which many Englishmen wear with advantage, is distinctly unflattering to him, although he looks well in a frock-coat and silk hat. But he never appears quite himself, never really fits into any but military or naval garments.

“When His Majesty has finished talking you will be introduced,” said one of the ladies-in-waiting. “The Empress will present you, so do not go far away.”

So I stand waiting under the trees, watching the footmen while they place camp-stools and arrange cakes and teacups, and hearing gusts of the Emperor’s conversation, which, being carried on in German, is quite unintelligible to me, though there is one word “Kolossal” which keeps emerging frequently from the rumble of talk.

Presently the group of uniforms breaks up. His Majesty turns towards the Empress, somebody signs to me, and I step out of the shadows and come forward. “Papa’s” keen blue eyes look at me with that characteristically penetrating, alert, rather quizzical brightness which I afterwards learn to know so well. They seem almost too violent a contrast with the deep sunburn of his face. My hand is enveloped in a hearty, almost painful handshake, and I am confronted with a few short, sharp questions.

“From what part of England do I come? Have I ever been in Germany before? What do I think of Homburg? Do I speak German?”

I subsequently have the pleasure of many stimulating discussions with His Majesty, when we debate a variety of questions, from armaments to suffragettes, and are not invariably accordant in our views; but on this occasion our talk is necessarily short and perfunctory.

Presently we are all sitting at the tea-table, but the Emperor remains a little apart, continuing the conversation with his adjutants, dipping from time to time his Zwieback into his tea, as is permitted by German custom.

Ausflüge und Land-Partien—excursions and picnics—are an integral part of German existence in summer-time, and the Hof lags no whit behind in this respect. Though the Emperor detests cold, damp weather, he leads an open-air existence, and loses no opportunity of being im Freien. He breakfasts, drinks tea and eats supper out in the garden whenever the weather permits; and it is probably for this reason more than any other that the principal German meal, Mittagessen, whose elaborateness does not allow it to be served al fresco, still keeps its place in the middle of the day, allowing the simpler supper to be served out of doors in the cool of the evening. It is a charming and healthy custom, this eating under the blue sky, but naturally only possible in the soft, warm Continental climate, where one misses the sharp tang in the air of our sea-girt isle.

Near Homburg lies an ancient Roman fortress, which has been excavated and restored by the Emperor. Excursions either on horseback or by carriage to the Saalburg are a great feature of the stay in Homburg, and often the whole party is permitted to excavate in likely spots for “remains.” The Empress once disinterred a very beautiful bowl, and it is no unusual thing to come across fine specimens of pottery or iron-work. Everybody is supplied with a short wooden implement for digging in the soft loam, and the royalties, including Prince Joachim and the Princess, together with the ladies and gentlemen of the party, labour industriously through a summer afternoon under the direction of Professor Jacobi, who directs the work of excavation and checks any undue exuberance in digging which might lead to disastrous results.

These digging parties, which are only indulged in on rare occasions, sometimes give scope for the exercise of a peculiarly characteristic form of German humour. Often a broken cup or vase or an ancient Roman dagger made in an excellent imitation pâté of chocolate is previously embedded in the soil, and the ardent excavator, glowing with the success of a great discovery, finds to his chagrin, on reaching home, that at the solemn washing of his find, which always takes place with great ceremony in the presence of the assembled company after supper, not only the encumbering soil but also the whole fabric of the precious antique dissolves away into a hopeless ruin, at once revealing the unkind imposture. This playful joke is easily carried out, since no one is allowed to excavate excepting in carefully indicated spots.

The Emperor at his own expense has rebuilt portions of the old Roman settlement; and the newness of these buildings, the freshly-painted barrack-rooms of the old Roman militia with their Latin inscriptions over the doorways, the brightness of the small glazed bricks of which the walls are constructed, give a somewhat jarring sense of unreality to the whole Burg, and raise the question whether it is advisable or not to attempt to reconstruct the past in quite such a conscientious manner—whether the actual ruins, scanty though they may be, do not tell their tale better than these new up-to-date buildings so curiously well-equipped with modern appliances.

But the buildings have their uses quite apart from intrinsic interest, as is proved one afternoon when the children, including the “Hessians” and “Greeks,” are invited to the Saalburg by the Empress, who is herself present, and a heavy rain coming on, a sort of spurious hockey game, played with croquet mallets, is organized and pursued with the greatest vigour in the “Hall of the Centurions.” The Emperor, who is out driving somewhere in the neighbourhood, arrives with his suite during a crisis in the game, and is much amused to watch the small horde of princelings, among whom his own daughter is very conspicuous, as they chase the ball backwards and forwards, sometimes only missing his own Imperial legs by decimal fractions of inches.

Even in those first early days at Homburg it is at once noticeable what a great difference the presence of the Emperor makes in the atmosphere of the court. A certain vitality and still more a certain amount of strain become visible. Everybody is to be ready to go anywhere and do anything at a moment’s notice—to be always in the appropriate costume necessary for walking, riding, or driving. His Majesty walks a great deal. Often we drive out some distance beyond Homburg among the lovely mountains and forests, and descending from our carriages tramp along at a brisk pace for several miles, when the carriages meet us, and we return. It is altogether a strenuous existence for the entourage, who must always, so to speak, be mobilized for active service, which is probably just what the Emperor wishes. From early morning till night there is hardly a moment of respite from duty, and my own day is a very crowded one, with hardly time left for the necessary frequent changes of costume, which are one of the chief burdens of existence at court.

An elaborate toilette is customary at the midday dinner—something in silk or satin, with a long train—and it must be completed by the inevitable fan and white glacé gloves, of which one is worn on the hand, the other carried.

We all assemble before dinner in a large drawing-room, where the ladies and gentlemen of the suite and any visitors who are invited stand about talking till the appearance of the Emperor and Empress. Often the Princess comes in before them with Prince Joachim. The folding-doors are thrown wide open for the entrance of Their Majesties, who always appear at different doors, the Emperor usually being last, and are announced by a footman. Everybody at once stops talking, wheels about and bows simultaneously.

One day the guests at dinner include an elderly lady and gentleman of an old-fashioned German type, who shrink into a corner and look rather clever and scientific. The Princess and Prince Joachim run up and kiss the old lady and shake hands with the old gentleman.

He is Professor von Esmarck, who, when he was a struggling young doctor, fell in love with a Princess—the aunt of the present Empress of Germany—and married her. The elderly lady with the tightly-brushed hair is his wife. They live in a pleasant little house in Homburg, and always dine at the Schloss when the court is staying there.

My own experience would lead me to testify to the truth of what I have read somewhere, that the chief function of a lady-or gentleman-in-waiting is to stand in a draught and smile.

“Standing and waiting,” said my kind Countess, “that is the chief part of our lives; it makes one mentally and bodily weary till one gets used to it.”

Hand-shaking too is practised to a considerable extent. It does not seem to matter how many times people have met before in the day and shaken hands, they generally seem to like to do it again while waiting for dinner. Presumably it helps to pass the time away, and gives an excuse for walking about from group to group. My place at the oval dinner-table is at one end, between Prince Joachim’s governor and his tutor. The Emperor and Empress are seated at the sides, opposite to each other, while the guests, intermingled with court ladies and gentlemen, radiate right and left. Footmen wearing the court livery, which includes rather ill-fitting gaiters, wait behind every chair and the Emperor’s “Jäger” in green uniform attends exclusively to his master’s wants. Red and white wine and champagne are served to all the guests, but neither the Emperor nor the Empress drinks anything but fruit-juice as a beverage. William II has a horror of excessive indulgence in alcohol, and sets his face against it by both precept and example.

“You English people,” he says to me on one occasion, “you drink those awful fiery spirits—horrible stuff—whisky, brandy, what not? How can you imbibe such quantities of poisonous liquid—ruining your constitutions? Simply ruining them—whisky-and-soda everywhere—no, it’s awful: I tasted it once—like liquid fire—ugh! Your drinking habits are fearful.”

He admonishes me for our national failings with uplifted finger and serious face, and I try feebly to maintain that, though in the past we have been undeniably guilty and still drink far more than is good for us, yet according to published statistics we are year by year growing more sober—that the percentage of drunkenness in the army is slowly but surely decreasing, that there are fewer crimes owing to drunkenness, and so on—but His Majesty evidently has more faith in his own observations than in any amount of statistics, and continues dubiously to shake his head and his finger at me as though I were personally responsible.

Dinner is finished in about three-quarters of an hour, and at a sign from the Empress every one rises and, the ladies preceding the gentlemen, all file slowly into the salon, where coffee is served and every one stands and drinks it. This standing about after dinner is one of the most tedious of all court duties, lasting sometimes for an hour. As the Emperor and Empress never sit down, but move from one group to another, talking to this or that guest, the rest of us prop ourselves surreptitiously against projecting pieces of furniture and try to look as happy as circumstances permit. The little Princess and Prince Joachim flit from one person to another, wrangling according to custom in subdued undertones so that “Papa” may not hear, trying to tease their mother into some concession, or whispering their experiences into the ears of one of the ladies. There is always a good deal of surreptitious stifled giggling, and it is easy to see that the waiting is an irksome restraint to their active minds.

If there are a great many important guests, the children dine alone with their governor and myself, when they are expected to speak English all the time; but they lapse into German with the greatest facility, especially when the usual zanking begins. They also every evening eat supper together, continuing cheerfully and acrimoniously their criticisms of each other’s conduct. Prince Joachim indulges in the usual cheap sneers at femininity with which many schoolboys goad their sisters into revolt.

“Mädchen,” he remarks with superb disdain, “die Mädchen——”

“Speak English,” commands his governor, who is anxious to improve his knowledge of that language.

“Girls,” replies the Prince, speaking with distinct and aggravating deliberation, “Girls cannot be soldiers—zey are no use at all. It is good zat we have but one girl in our family. She cannot be an officer. She cannot fight. She cannot ride——”

“Much better than you—she rides,” returns the incensed Princess. “You who fall off your horse if it gives a little jump. Pfui!” She bangs a spoon on the table to emphasize her indignation.

The Prince is delighted at the success of his efforts, and continues to jeer unmercifully.

“Girls can’t ride,” he reiterates; “zey can’t fight—zey are always crying—zey are always cross——”

“Try to say ‘they,’ not ‘zey,’ ” I interpose, hoping to divert his thoughts to other subjects.

“Joachim can’t speak English one bit,” says his sister; “he says ‘zey’ and ‘zese’ and ‘zose,’ and ‘I drink your healse.’ He is a silly boy; he can’t jump, he can’t play tennis, he can’t ride——;” and so on ad infinitum.

Twice a week after we have finished supper I take Prince Joachim away and read English with him in his room, while the Governor sits listening in a chair, his long red-striped military grey legs stretched out before him, his hands clasped on his knee, an absorbed, concentrated look in his eyes. The book chosen is Stevenson’s immortal “Treasure Island,” for the Prince has stipulated that whatever we read shall not be about Muster-Kinder, which I interpret as meaning “pattern-children,” the kind abounding in certain books, but happily seldom met with in real life. I consider it a hopeful and healthy sign in the Prince, his objection to Muster-Kinder, and promise that my reading shall be blameless in this particular respect. He seems a little suspicious as we settle down and I open at the first chapter, but before many pages have been turned he is holding his breath to listen, and his verdict on my choice of a book is that it is magnificent—prachtvoll.

It may here be remarked that there are few if any original books in the German language written especially for boys, who have to content themselves with translations of Fenimore Cooper’s works, “Robinson Crusoe” and “The Swiss Family Robinson,” and of late years with the “Adventures” of the famous Sherlock Holmes, who has a great vogue upon the Continent, and whose history may be bought at almost every railway bookstall abroad.

Not only the Prince, but also the Governor, in spite of his thirty years and his military experience, immediately fall under the spell of the story, notwithstanding the many words in it of which they do not know the meaning. When the hour comes to an end and the Prince begs for an extension of his lesson, the Governor pulls out his watch and after a slight hesitation, smilingly grants another ten minutes before bed-time.

“Schnell, schnell,"—“quick, quick,” implores the Prince, and I hurry on towards the fatal Black Spot and the fate of the blind man, and am pressed to come again as soon as possible and not wait till the lesson becomes due, because they both—Prince and Governor—are so anxious to know what happens next.

At the end of the following week the court is to leave Homburg for its permanent residence—if anything so unpermanent can be so termed—in the New Palace near Potsdam, where the Ober-Gouvernante will be waiting to share my multifarious labours, and where I am assured that the regular routine—“only we never have any regular routine, it is always being broken,” sighs the Countess—at any rate an approximate routine may be confidently anticipated.

I pack feverishly in the small intervals of time snatched from my other occupations, and at half-past seven one evening go down to the courtyard, where files of carriages are waiting. I am supposed to accompany the Princess to the station, but at the last moment something is changed and I am sent off with a young adjutant whose English vocabulary is very limited. We drive down the long street, packed with people waiting to see Their Majesties go by. They cheer and wave enthusiastic handkerchiefs at each carriage as it passes, and though we may not usurp the royal prerogative and bow our acknowledgments, we assume affable expressions indicative of vicarious enjoyment of their exuberant loyalty, and so arrive presently at the royal waiting-room, which is gaily decorated with flags and evergreens. A crowd of officers and adjutants are on the steps awaiting the arrival of Their Majesties, and here my Princess comes presently, having driven in with her brother.

In the waiting-room sits the venerable old Duke of Cambridge, who is staying in Homburg and has come to say “farewell” to the Emperor and Empress, whose approach is heralded by a louder burst of cheering, which swells and increases outside the station.

The royal train, painted in blue and cream-colour with gold decorations, is alongside the platform, the regulation red carpet is laid down, maids and valets peep furtively from the windows of distant compartments, footmen are hurrying to and fro, while the ladies and gentlemen of the suite continue their normal occupation of waiting, chatting to each other in the usual desultory manner. Presently Their Majesties emerge from the waiting-room and walk over the red carpet into the train, we all get in after them, and our journey begins among the frantic “hochs!” and “hurrahs!” of the crowd outside.

We in England may believe in our own loyalty, but I doubt if we can compete with a German crowd in giving it expression. We are never able quite to abandon ourselves to the same unrestrained, wild enthusiasm, are always just a little too self-conscious—too afraid of being absurd. The German is untrammelled by considerations of that kind; he revels in his own emotions, encourages his wife and family to revel in theirs, waves patriotic flags on the least provocation, puts his small son of six into a complete miniature Hussar uniform, lets him swagger about in the streets wearing it, to the undiluted envy of other small boys, sings “Heil dir im Sieger-Kranz” (which goes to the same tune as “God Save the King,” and has therefore a pleasantly familiar air to British ears), and is rather proud than ashamed at being moved to tears of national pride as his Kaiser passes by. No nation is more emotionally patriotic than the German, and that patriotism finds its chief centre in the personality of their Emperor.