PRIENCESS' OWN STORY.

Manawatu Times, Volume XII, Issue 1807, 4 May 1921, Page 8

PRIENCESS' OWN STORY.

WEDDING NIGHT FLIGHT.

“VICTIM OF FALSE MODESTY.”

BURGLAR TSAR’S “DEVIL WORSHIP.”

I’T have survived the European tempest, and 1 have seen all those who disowned and crushed

me beaten and punished.”]

In the above triumphant tone Princess Louise of Belgium, the eldest daughter of Leopold 11., gives her ver. sion—"My Own Affairs,” published last month —of all those adventures and vicissitudes, her divorce and detention in an asylum, which have been the lively topic of gossip for a generation, says the "Daily Mail.”

Trouble began with her early marriage to Prince Philip of Saxc-Co-burg:

"I am not, I am sure, the first woman who, after having lived in the ‘clouds during her engagement, has been as suddenly hurled to the ground on her marriage night, and who, bruised and mangled in her soul, has fled from humanity in tears. lam not the first woman who has been the vie. tim of false modesty and excessive reserve, attributable perhaps to the hope that the delicacy of a husband, combined with natural instincts, would arrange all for her, but who was told nothing by her mother of what happens when the lover’s hour is struck. However, the fact remains that on the evening of my marriage at the' Chateau of Laeken, while all Brussels was dancing amid a blaze of lights and illuminations, I fell from my heaven of love to what was for me a bed 1 of rock and a mattress of thorns. , Psyche, who was more to blame, was better treated than myself. "The day was scarcely breaking when, taking advantage of a moment when I was alone in the nuptial chamber, I fled across the park with my bare feet thrust into slippers, and, wrapped in a cloak thrown over my nightgown, I went —to hide my shame in the Orangery. I found sanctuary in the midst of the camellias "I ■was scarcely 17 years old; my husband had completed his 31st year. .1 had become his ‘goods and chattels.’ One can see, alas! how he has treated me.” RUDOLPH’S "SUICIDE.” Unhappily married to Princess Louise’s sister, Stephanie, the Crown Prince Rlidolph ot Austria confided to his sister-in-law his- obsessing passion for Mary Vetsera, which ended n tihe "bloody enigma” of Meyer, ling: “Let us, once and for all, finish with the legends of Meyerling where at the Crown Prince’s hunting-box Rudolph and Mary were found dead), and as far as it is possible have done with the lies connected with it. Rudolph of Hapsbux-g committed suicide! "There was in the love of the hereditary Archduke for Mary Vetsera either a lurid fatality or a sinister influence. . . Impetuous but enslav. ed 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. “ She is there,’ the Crown Prince whispered to his confidante at a soiree. ‘Ah, if somebody would only deliver me from her!’ An instant later he heturned and murmured: T simply cannot tear myself away from her.’ "After theitragedy the Princess says she found her widowed sister ‘holding in her hand a letter whose secret must now be given to history.’ It was from Rudolph. It announced his death and showed that he had already resolves on this course before leaving Vienna for Meyerling. . , Rudolph died of sheer disgust.’ ” "INCREDIBLE” FERDINAND. i Of her husband’s brother, the exTsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Princess Louise says, “everything both in the public and private life of Ferdinand of Coburg was incredible: "He must have been possessed of 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. “In our palace at Vienna Ferdinand would sometimes ask me to play for 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 sol. emnly, his features drawn and contracted. “As the clock Surtck twelve 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. , . . After these seances 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.”

Although Ferdinand was married (to Marie Louise of Parma) he laid strong siege to his sister-in-law. ‘At one dinner, which I remember as if it were yesterday, he said in low tones, so that my husband could not hear: ‘You see everything here? Ah, well! All is my kingdom; I lay it, myself included, at your feet.’ 1 tried to reply as if I treated the remark as a joke. “The same evening he came to me and, taking me away from the danc. ers, led me to another room, where a French window was open to the Oriental night and the stillness of the little park, and enquired 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 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 (her husband), still young, handsome, and full of power. But the image of Marie Louise (his wife) passed before my eyes, and also the vision of the Queen (her mother). . . I shook my head and murmured a frightened ‘No.’ ”