A SAD LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 March 1935, Page 10

A SAD LIFE

THE EMPRESS FREDERICK.

How little can we foretell the future! how inextricably tangled are the strands of human lite and ot world history! No destiny and no future could have seemed brighter than that dawning for the baby Princess Royal of England when, the eagerly welcomed child of two radiantly, happy lovers, Queen Victoria and her Consort, she opened her blue eyes on the world (writes Gladys Qwen, in the “Sydney Morning Herald’’). Eldest daughter of the greatest Queen in Europe, betrothed at 16 to the handsomest man in Europe, the nephew and heir of the King of Prussia, mother, two years later, to the beloved baby, of whom she was so proud, and who, as the Kaisar Wilhelm, had perhaps the greatest destiny in Europe—all the world seemed fair to her. She was pretty in spite of her tiny stature, unusually able, with liberal sympathies and enlightened ideas well in advance of her day, even in England, and unheard of in aristocratic Prussian circles. She adored her husband, and he never wavered in his devotion and companionship. All the ingredients for happiness and prosperity were hers, and yet history hardly provides a more tragic figure or a more misunderstood and misjudged woman. The Princess Catherine Radziwill, an almost life-long friend, and a connection by marriage of the Prussian | Royal family, tells her story in the

“Empress Frederick.” Her future husband saw her first when she wets eleven and he was twenty-two, and he told an old friend thirty years afterwards, “You cannot form an idea what a sweet little thing the Crown Princess was at the time; such childlike simplicity, combined with a woman’s intellect, and this dignity which you know. She seemed almost too perfect; so perfect, indeed, that often I caught myself wondering whether she was really a human being. But she was," he added, “and to-day I feel almost prouder to have won her than when she consented to give herself to me." FATES AGAINST HER.

Long before the little Victoria wa; even thought of, the fates were con spiring against her happiness am loading the dice against her. Hei future father-in-law. the Prince Wil liam df Prussia, afterwards the Em peror William 1.. fell desperately it love with a cousin, Elisa Radziwill the aunt of the .writer of the biography. Although of princely blooc she was not considered suflicieutlj exalted in rank to be his wife. Like Gibbon, atter a long and fruitless struggle, William “sighed as a lovei and obeyed as a son," renounced Elisa, and married the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, with whom he passed 59 years of extreme misery. Elisa died broken-hearted, and fiftylive years later, when the Emperor William was within a few moments of his own death, he asked to have her miniature placed in his hand. He had begged to be allowed to renounce the crown. Had he been allowed to do so "the entire course of history might have turned out differently! His younger brother, Prince Charles, was a weak character who would never have had the courage to summon the great Bismarck; or if he had done so, would never have stood by him in the struggle. Most likely

there would have been no Austrian or Franco-German war; there would have been no battles of Sadowa or Sedan; there would Have been no reconstituted German Empire; there would have been no World War!” William’s disappointment affected his whole life. He inflicted the same rigid discipline upon his own family, including his handsome liberalminded son, and the eager little English Princess Who had come to Berlin so anxious to love her new country. Her mother-in-law, Augusta, never forgave her son’s wife for inspiring in him that intense love which she herself had never been able to win from her own husband, and to that mother-in-law’s tongue, and to the gossip inspired by her, aud eagerly circulated in the then small and almost provincial society of Berlin, the future Empress Frederick could attribute the almost universal dislike and suspicon whch dogged her path. So, at least, the Princess Radzwill tells lis. The Princess writes that a j year before the Empress died, “I hap-j pened to use the words, ‘lt is said,’! ‘Catherine,’ said she, ‘never say “it is. said.” You don’t know what harm one can do with those three words.’ ” A tragic revelation! WATCHED AND MALIGNED.

Every action was misunderstood, and spied upon, her correspondence to England watched, and every unguarded remark reported, magnified and circulated throughout the land. From the very completeness of her companionship with her husband, the discussions and the conversation in her own home were open and from the heart. Little did she know that jealous ears were absorbing, distorting, and reporting the natural opin-

ions which she thought sacred to her own immediate family. She could not tolerate injustice and could not always restrain her anger when she beheld it. When her husband, having won his spurs in the wars, was slowly but surely admitted by his martinet father to some share in his country’s destinies. hope sprang up that not only l he, but his wife, might live down the chorus of disapproval which dogged them. The old Emperor was failing,! the Crown Prince was to take on • more and more of his future duties. 1 when the last disaster occurred, and 1 his fatal throat illness came like a ' bolt from the blue. The English sur-.l geon..called in, not by his wife but '

dj by the German specialists, made a r fatal mistake in liis diagnosis, and - the Court rumour, uuappeased. said - that the Crown Princess bad inspired i this opinion in order that the succcl-, , siou of her husband to the Crown - should not be set aside in favour of j Ijher sou! Even her extraordinaryi bravery ip ‘never allowing her hus-l ‘ band to know his full danger, wasi imputed to her as a crime, instead of Has obedience to the doctor’s orders. 1 Catherine Radziwill, who was with >| her. says: “If she had given up hope i of his recovery, she could not have . | strengthened and soothed and con- . soled him nor could she have spoken • with him about the future. Thu j'thought of there still being a future ■ for him was all that gave the stricken » man the courage he so sorely needed." ■ Her three eldest children deserted > her, and the future Kaiser and his wife seemed to take a joy in humiliat- ■ Ing her and flouting her opinions and l j her advice. ( The Empress Frederick made griov- 1 . ous mistakes no doubt, neither with > tongue nor pen was she always disi creet. but surely her bravery and her . candour deserved a happier life