Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess Part 13

Baby took it all in a most dignified fas.h.i.+on. He neither squalled nor kicked, but seemed to enjoy the homage paid him.

When we reached the palace there was another big crowd of well-wishers, who shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e for Louise and the baby, and, malicious thing that I am, I noticed with pleasure that it all happened under George's windows.

"This will give father-in-law jaundice," said baby's nurse in Italian.

She is a girl from Tuscany and very devoted to me.

"If he dies, I will be Queen the sooner," thought I,--but happily I didn't think aloud.

CHAPTER XI

SCOLDED FOR BEING POPULAR

Entourage spied upon by George's minions--My husband proves a weakling--I disavow the personal compliment--No more intelligent than a king should be.

DRESDEN, _September 5, 1893_.

I wrote the foregoing at one sitting, without interruption. It's not so easy a matter to put down the consequences of our triumph, or rather mine and baby's.

When I entered my apartments, I met a whole host of long faces. The Commander of the Palace, in great gala, offered a most stiff and icy welcome. The adjutants, the chamberlains, the _maitre d'Hotel_, all looked ill at ease. They evidently felt the coming storm in their bones and didn't care to have it said of them, by George's spies, that they lent countenance, even in a most remote way, to my carryings-on. Even the Schoenberg--my own woman--shot reproachful glances at me when the Commander of the Palace happened to look her way.

Frederick Augustus looked and acted as if he was to be deprived of all his military honors.

"Your courage must have fallen into your _cuira.s.sier_ boots, look for it there," I said to him in an undertone when he seemed ready to go to pieces at the entrance of the King's grand marshal, Count Vitzthum.

With that I advanced towards His Excellency and, holding out my hand to be kissed, took care to say to him with my most winning smile,

"I trust His Majesty will be pleased with me, for of course our grand reception was but a reflex of the love the people have for their King. I never for a moment took it as a personal compliment."

My smart little speech disconcerted the official completely. Maybe he had orders to say something disagreeable, but my remark disarmed him, forestalled any quarrel that might have been in the King's or Prince George's mind.

Frederick Augustus, who is no more intelligent than a future king should be, was so amazed, he had to think hard and long before he could even say "Good evening" to the Count. As for the latter, he hawed and coughed and stammered and cleared his throat until finally he succeeded in delivering himself of the following sublime effort:

"I will have the honor to report to His Majesty that during the time of your Imperial Highness's entry, your Imperial Highness thought of naught but the all-highest approval of His Majesty."

Whereupon I shook his hand again and dismissed him. "It will please me immensely, Count," I said, "immensely."

CHAPTER XII

ROYAL DISGRACE--LIGHTNING AND SHADOWS

Ordered around by the Queen--Give thanks to a bully--Jealous of the "mob's" applause--"The old monkey after '_Hochs_'"--Criticizing the "old man"--Royalty's plea for popularity--Proposed punishments for people refusing to love royalty.

DRESDEN, _September 8, 1893_.

Thrice twenty-four hours of royal disgrace and I am--alive. This morning: "All-highest order," signed by Her Majesty's Dame of the Palace, Countess von Minckwitz: "The Queen is graciously pleased to invite your Imperial Highness to audience."

Of course her pleasure is a command. I dressed in state and ordered all the ladies and gentlemen of my court to attend me to the royal chambers.

Queen Carola was very nice, giving the impression that she would be more lovely still if she dared.

"Prince George has just commanded your husband," she said,--"the King ordered this condescension on my brother-in-law's part. You will have to thank him for it."

Isn't it amusing to be an Imperial Highness and a Crown Princess to be ordered around like a "boots" and to be "commanded" like an orphan child to say thanks to one's betters!

I promised and the Queen, a.s.suming that I intended to act the good little girl, took courage to say--for she is the biggest of cowards--"You are too popular, Louise. Such a reception as you had! All the papers, even the Jew-sheets, are full of it."

And before I could make any excuses for my popularity she added in sorrowful, half-accusing tones: "I lived here ever so many years and the mob never applauded _me_."

"It's so fickle," I quoted. I had to say something, you know.

"And contemptible," added the Queen heartily. "But how is baby?"

I begged permission to send for him. Her Majesty was pleased to play with the little one for a minute or two and that secured me a gracious exit. The Queen attended me to the door, opening it with her own royal hand, thereby rehabilitating me with my entourage waiting outside.

Meanwhile Frederick Augustus had a "critical quarter of an hour" with father-in-law, who a.s.sumed to speak on behalf of the King.

"The King," he said, "despised 'playing to the gallery' worse than the devil hated holy water." (This court is overrun with Jesuits, and we must needs adopt their vernacular.)

The King, he repeated, thought it very bad taste for anyone to take the centre of the stage in these "popularity-comedies," and he told a lot more lies of the same character. Then he bethought himself of his own grieved authority.

"Tell your wife," he said, "that I, her father-in-law, and next to the throne, do everything in my power to escape such turbulent scenes, and that I would rather ride about town in an ordinary _Droschke_ (cab) of the second cla.s.s, preserving my incognito, than in a state carriage and be the object of popular acclamation."

When Frederick Augustus repeated the above with the most solemn face in the world, I thought I would die with laughter and actually had to send for my tire-woman to let my corset out a few notches.

"The old monkey," I cried--"as if he wasn't after '_Hochs_' morning, noon and night; as if he thought of anything else when he mounts a carriage or his horse."

"You forget yourself, Louise," warned Frederick Augustus in the voice of an undertaker, and I really think he meant it. But I wasn't in the mood to be silenced.

"And as if I didn't know that, like Kaiser Wilhelm, he keeps a record of towns and villages that were never honored by one of his visits, intending to make his ceremonial entry there at the first plausible opportunity."

"It isn't true," insisted Frederick Augustus.

Then I got angry. "It may be thought polite in the bosom of your family to call one another a liar," I retorted, "but don't you get into the habit of introducing those tap-room manners in the _menage_ of an Imperial Highness of Austria. I forbid it."

And then I gave rein to some of the bitterness that had acc.u.mulated in my heart against the old man. Didn't I know that George was mad enough to quarrel with his dinner when, on his drives about town, he observed a single person refusing to salute him? And wasn't it a fact that the Socialists had combined never more to raise their hats to him just because he insisted on it? And wasn't that one of the reasons why the government was more hard on them than happened to be politic?

"You mustn't say these things," pleaded Frederick Augustus.

I pretended to melt. "May I not quote your father's own words?"

"What my father says is always correct," replied the dutiful son.