AN UNFORTUNATE PRINCESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2413, 31 May 1900, Page 55

AN UNFORTUNATE PRINCESS.

In a shabby pavilion at Lindenhof, near Dresden, attended by a single abigail, the unfortunate Princess Louise of Coburg is kept in close confinement. Legally dead, she is but a number in the economics of the Vast establishment that makes a specialty of morphine and opium fiends and of victims of love's madness (writes a Lady of the Berlin Court). It is a house for incurables, and those entering leave hope behind. With the exception of her doctor and of Fraulein yon Debauer, her lady of honour in happier days, who refused to leave her mistress, this granddaughter of Louis Philippe is not allowed to see a .sane person, .and her days are spent in endless ennui. " Take my word for it, they will yet render her demented,"' said a lady of the Dresden Court, whom Queen Caroline of iSaxony sent to Lindenhof, the other day, to watch her relative from a distance, to me. Her ladyship continued: "It's a cheap house, and the unfortunates confined there, while not exactly paupers, are small people, whose lack of manners is aggravated, of course, by their mental condition. True, the Princess lives by herself in a three-room garden cottage, frut she cannot help seeing her companions and of mixing witb them at meal time. " The fare, too, is coarse, and the restrictions against the use of ordinary table necessaries must be particularly odious to a woman of taste and refinement such as Louise is known to be. In short, it looks as if her Highness's relatives placed her in Lindenhof with the fixed intention of wiecking her intellect." I have read several letters written by Louise since her arrival in Lindenhof. How she smuggled them beyond the walls of her prison I don't know ; maybe the address of the exalted personage for ' whom they were intended saved them. The poor woman prays to be allowed to forego her rank and submit her case to the ordinary courts of law, at the same time promising never to interfere with Prince Philip's affairs after the divorce she craves for is granted. In one of those letters she says : " Your Majesty, as well as my parents, knew tens of years ago that my married life was a hell." Louise was united to the grandson of Louis Philippe when scarcely 17 years old, and almost from her wedding day was forced to witness most shameless conduct- on the part of her husband. At last she could bear no more, and beseeched her mother to persuade the King to allow her to obtain a divorce, but Queen Marie, herself a terribly abused woman in her married life, could do nothing for her. King Leopold would not hear of it, and took his son-in-law's part. So it went on, kicks and cuffs from tie Prince, cold refusals to protect his daughter from Leopold; jugti] iuialjj; iouisg

threatened to go before the Belgian Chambers unless a family council was called to sit on her case. The family council assembled at Laeken. under the presidency of the King, all C.obnrg Princes and Princesses attending. But they were evidently dominated by Leopold, and after long deliberations decided against a divorce. Louise was told to return to her wife-beater husband without delay.

From that fatal day the life of Princess Philip of Coburg changed. The sad and pious woman of yore became the gayest of the gay, appearing on all public occasions in the most risque toilets and seeking the company of her husband's roue friends, whom she had once abhorred.

Here is Louise's oA\n version of the scandal that led up to her disgrace: — " Determined to force my husband to dissolve our union," she writes to her royal Mend, " I encouraged Count Keglevicli in his attentions to me, and one fine . day went to his apartments in the palace, at the same time sending for the Prince. The Prince maltreated me then and there, and challenged Keglevich, but said that my plan for divorce had again failed, as he could prove that it was all a 'put-up job. After that I went to live with my sister, Stephanie, in Carlsbad, the count attending us as Master of the Household. We (Stephanie and myself) both tried every possible way to get Philip to consent to a divorce, and when all hope of realising my sincerest wish failed I lost my head and, in a moment of weakness, threw myself in X.'s arms. The rest you know."