CONFESSIONS OF A PRINCESS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 260, 20 October 1911, Page 3

CONFESSIONS OF A PRINCESS

CI IHOI S REVELATIONS. LIFE OF A DUTCH DOLL." London. Oct. 15. Th'-re was- published yesterday in London (he extraordinary nieinoir. in hieli ike cx-< iown Prillii--,s. who. if she had not fled from her husband, or. rather, her husbands father, would tn this moment have been the Queen of Saxony. explains the reasons for In r actions, anil a good deal more. It wtt.-, perhaps, due to the Princess that she should some da\ give her side of the question. But .lie doubt s if she will really have improved her case very much with the public by her method of putting it. The book is crammed full of the intrigues. scandals, and quarrels of Royalties from beginning to end. but they are none of them Royalties that the average English-speaking person has ever concerned himself with, or. in most cases, even heard of. Of the great working Royalties that are known to us. the German Etiiperur is the only one who comes on to the stage of the Princess s book at till, and that only incident ally.

The Kaiser apparently was very kind and courteous to her when she went to stay in Berlin, and she returns the courtesy I>y a void summing up in this hook of the little faults and peculiarities of himself and his wife. She never even gets near the English Royal family. You do occasionally hear of the family decrees of the old Emperor of Austria. But the Royalties amongst whom the Princess moved were of the type still existing in many subordinate States on the Continent, where the King has no longer any particular function to perform except to keep up the sitate of rayalty when the duties of it have long ago been passed on to the big central working Kings like the Kaiser, the Czar, the Emp’ror of Austria, anil the King of Italy. FERDIN AN I)'S PROPOSA L.

I Of the life of the petty out-of- ! work Continental Royalties the Prini cess gives a highly interesting, but not very edifying, picture. It is im- | possible to judge of the accuracy of | it. because one has not heard of most |of thi> people. But this is how the I Princess describes the process by | which her parents hunted round folia husband for her. Her lather, she • savs. interviewed the Princess CleI merit ine. who was the mother ot an | eligible Prince, Prince Ferdinand, i now King of Bulgaria. Princess Clej inenlini* was very deal, and used an i ear trumpet, and so was dubbed ! Aunt Coffee Mill. The following is | the account given of the interview: I ■ Thev commenced what I can only I describe as a shrieking duet. Papa I shouted his hopes and plans about ini* into the ear-trumpet, and Aunt if 'lenient ine shrieked aloud her ! mat rimonial designs for l erdinand, land in this amusing wav I heard I their best laid schemes." | Li due time Ferdinand i-ame to I propose. This is how she describes i it :

“I always think that in him the theatrical world has lost a fine comic opera king. When he wooed me Ferdinand was most elaborately attired in a light grey suit with an ultra chic Panama hat. He constantly waved his well-manicured hands, and displayed the costly rings which glittered on his fingers. He attitudinised like a Narcissus, and kept on posing until he thought, doubtless, I was sufficiently impressed by his fine figure, his rings, and last, but not least, his smart yellow boots.” It was in a castle garden that Ferdinand proposed. The Princess told him she could never love him. ‘■lt is the first time a woman has told me that.” he exclaimed. ’Be I wise, Louisa : think of all that it lies in my power to give you.” The Princess retorted that he only wanted her rank, and that he must have promised his Ministers to marry her. I "And I turned and left him looking the picture of despair.” Even now I can see Ferdinand, faced with explanations to his Ministers, standing ■in that sunny garden among the roses wringing his large white hands, anil exclaiming. ’Oh. mon Dieu! Mon Dieu ! The Princess Louisa was a granddaughter of the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, who. since he was a Habsburg and third cousin of the German Emperor, was given a refuge in the old Palace of Salsburg when driven out of Florence. She describes her ! life in the castle as follows.- No •outsider can imagine how uneventful [ mv life was as a child and a young 'girl. Salsburg itself is a dull town, but the palace was duller than a j week of English Sundays. No light • literature was allowed : we saw no I newspapers except Catholic ones ; we ! were never allowed to visit picture i exhibitions, and only at rare interj vals were we taken to concerts or to la theatre. It v.-as an absolutely conI ventual existence, and its similarity *to such a life was enhanced by the [perpetual presence of the priestly element within our gates, whilst our i collection of rosaries am! prayerbooks would have done credit to an ecclesiastical museum. A GOOD HUSBAND. Of her husbat-.d the Crown Prince now the King of Saxony, the Prin-l.-ess never speaks with anything (except affection. It is quite evident that there, such as it is. is the t.ag'edy of an admittedly misdirected life. ■‘Looking back v.ith matured judgment.” she says. I can see that I was entirely misguided in my method of defying fate.” "Whether her explanations will in every eis? •quire stand, it is no place here jjudge. Anyway, here they are. I Louisa married the Crown Prince • >f Saxony. She found him a tn < d (husband. She speaks enthu«i-i- t i>-_ lallv of h>s good looks and his kn'- 1 blue ey.s. She that his g <d Lp-alitic's wire his Worst enemies ibecaii'c his inr.atr nobility made n>i'ii''pi<-i'-us ,f the machmat i<m> ! whi, h in tlu- <nd iot< ■ J her. in ~rd.r t.. try t- .-ate h.-rse’f f..-m hitler rum. to "inflict hh-l.mg Hit- ; feline 0.1 Illi.- bt-sl of Li)-b;ind-. ’

The famous Habsburg temperament soon showed itself in the Court at Dresden. The Princess sei about at once ” to discover where ,v,.-tdd be the be:st way for rue to lead my life." She jnust have come as something of a shock to ‘lie ot.l King. She was a handsome .voting woman, who rather attracted th* popular applause to herself, who looked up her husband's relations as frumps. and important State o!fi-,-r rs as dressed up (Mis, and who Went to the gallery of tl:-? opera in disguise, and "smiled as site thought 'now the audience would have stared had they known who she was.’ Here are her comments on the Court :-

The Cour* at Dresden during the whole time I lived in Saxony w.-’.s composed of the most narrow minded. evil-speaking. and conceited collection of human beings -t is possible to imagine. I nicknamed it the Noah's Ark. and. indeed, seine of the people with whom I came into contact might almost have Li en described as antediluvian. . .

The Saxon a ristoi-racy have the rooted idea that their mission in life is to keep up appearances,, and 1 think they really believe that God created them solely to show an admiring world what it is possible for paragons of perfection to be. Their pi ide of birth and rank is nauseating to anyone who is intellectual and broadminded, and under the pretext of .safeguarding their own virtue, they pry even by subterranean methods into affairs wbicit dnet concern them in the least. They live and move and have the’.: b< ing merely as automata, and they are as stiff and expressionless ar the Dutch dolls of our chil.L

Whilst Crown Princess of Saxony she visited the Kaiser at Berlin. The Kaiser himself courteously showed her to her rooms in the palace. "When we reached the suite apportioned to me the Emperor remarked as he showed me the communicating bathroom double, ‘J know you will appreciate a good bathroom.'

" ‘Oil. yes.' T assented, ‘a bath moans a great deal to me.” And (hen I added impulsively. 'You have made a great impression on me, and I think both you- anti the bathroom -are perfectly charming.’ "Tlie Emperor smiled kindle, and seemed rather amused at me n.nee remark." THE FLIGHT. The Princess's career in baxon.e camo to an abrupt end with her flight to Switzerland. Perhaps the onl.v really new assertion in the book is the explanation she gives of the reasons for this flight, and of her relations with her son’s tutor. Her account is that her husband’s family conceived a maligant hatred of her, and that finally the old King, her husband's father, threatened to have her shut up in a lunatic asylum. It was m dread of tins, she says, that she appealed to her brother, and he took her to Switzerland. After a few days there, however, he became anxious to bring the escapade to an end. and persuaded her that she wan'd eventually be enticed back to Dresden, and there put in -an asvlum. The Princess says that in order to frustrate this she resolved to compromise herself with her sons' tutor, "who had already suffered through his friendship with me. . . I was perfectly aware that, once the step was taken it could not be retraced."