FRANCIS JOSEPH JOINS MY SAXON ENEMIES
Cuts me dead before whole family—Everybody talks over my head at dinner—I refuse to attend more court festivities—Husband protests because I won't stand for insult from Emperor—I give rein to my contempt for his family—Hypocrites, despoilers, gamblers, religious maniacs, brutes—Benign lords to the people, tyrants at home—I cry for my children like a she-dog whose young were drowned.
Dresden, November 2, 1901.
Great family concourse to look my new baby over, dear Marie Alix, born at Wachwitz, September 27.
Emperor Francis Joseph was first to arrive, the Majesty who is forever posing as the family's good genius, as upholder of peace and amity among his countless cousins and nieces, and the many uncles and aunts and other relatives of his grand-children.
Behold how he lived up to this reputation!
I had been commanded to attend the reception in the Queen's salon, and made my bow to him. He bowed all around, looking at each present, but managed to overlook me.
Then he commenced a long and weary conversation with the Queen, at whose elbow I sat, and when his stock of platitudes was exhausted, turned to fat Mathilde, congratulating her on the possession of the Stern Kreuz decoration, an Austrian order which I likewise wore at my corsage. It was none other than the late Empress Elizabeth who pinned it on me.
Presently dinner was announced. The Emperor took in Her Majesty, the King, nolens, volens, had to conduct me, but gave me neither word nor look. Nor did the others. I couldn't have been more isolated on a desert island, than at this royal board.
They talked and cracked their silly jokes, and paid compliments to each other and were careful not to let their tongues run away with their intriguing minds, but all went above my head. No one spoke to me but the lackeys: "If it please Your Imperial Highness——"
Frederick Augustus tore into my bedroom some little time after I had retired. Picture of the offended gentleman, if you please. I got no more than I deserve, but it "reflected on him, h-i-m, HIM." Though it was a "family dinner," he, the Crown Prince of Saxony, was "publicly" disgraced. The Emperor had treated the Crown Princess as air. He had not deigned to address a single word to her. The Crown Princess was a trollop in the Imperial eyes—it was enough to drive the Crown Prince to drink.
"Drink yourself to death then," I shrieked.
During the night I speculated what to do: ask a private audience of the Emperor, state my side of the case and beg his forgiveness and protection, beg, especially, for better treatment at his hands?
And if he refused?
Francis Joseph is a good deal of a Jesuit. When he hates, he never lets it come to a break; when he loves, he never attaches himself.
If I stooped to humiliate myself, he might choose to debase me still more. It was entirely probable that he would betray my confidences to the King and Prince George.
I will defy him and—all of them!
"Her Imperial Highness regrets——" my Court Marshal wrote in answer to all invitations or rather "commands" for the next three days. When I refused to participate in the "grand leave-taking," Frederick Augustus came post-haste to expostulate with me.
"You must. It would be an affront without precedent."
"Take leave of a man who didn't say good-day to me on his arrival, and who probably intends to slight me in similar fashion on going away——"
In lieu of argument the Prince Royal abused me like a pick-pocket; I had waited for it and now I let loose.
"You are like the rest of your family," I shouted: "ignorant, thoughtless, brutal en venerie, sanctimonious in dotage. I know few people for whom I have so great a detestation as for the Royal Saxons. Look at your father, there is no more jesuitical a Jesuit, the inward man as hideous as the outward. He would be an insolent lackey, if he didn't happen to be a prince.
"And Johann George—a shameless inheritance-chaser, despoiler of pupillary funds, gambler at the bourse, who whines like a whipped dog when he loses.
"The royal Bernhardt, companion of street-walkers!
"Prince Max, who talks theology, but keeps his eye on Therese.
"Your Queen, a victim of religious madness, your King and his system—organized selfishness. Chicanery for those dependent upon him, ruin for all more gifted than the average Wettiner.
"While living here I have learned to look upon my father's discrowning as a stroke of good luck for, since kings can no longer indulge their brutalities against their subjects, they turned tyrants at home.
"If your father did to the humblest of his subjects what he did to me, he would be chased from home and country. The people, the parliament, his own creatures would rise against him and blot his name from the royal roster.
"In the palace, in boudoirs, in the nurseries, he plays the prince—extortioner—executioner. To the public he is the benign lord, whining for paltry huzzas."
Frederick Augustus was so dumfounded, he could only grind his teeth.
I continued: "You prate of respect due the Majesty. There's nothing to induce feelings of that sort. Round me there is naught but weakness, hypocrisy, pettiness. I see shame and thievery stalking side by side in these gilded halls—gilded for show, but pregnant with woe.
"Fie on you, Prince Royal, who allows his wife to be dogged by spies. Thieves, paid by your father, steal my souvenirs; a burglar's kit hidden in their clothes, they besiege my writing table. Jailers stand between me and my children.
"My children!
"Like a she-dog,[7] whose young were drowned, I cry for my babies—I, the Crown Princess of Saxony, who saved your family from dying out, a degenerate, depraved, demoralized, decadent race."
When I had said this and more I fell down and was seized by crying convulsions.