REVOLVER IN HAND, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION
An insolent Grand Mistress, but of wonderful courage—Imprisonment, threats to kill have no effect on her—Disregards my titles—My lover's souvenir and endearing words—How she caused Henry to leave me—My paroxysms of rage—Henry's complete betrayal of me.
Pillnitz, May 26, 1901.
This morning I awoke a mental and physical wreck, but determined to solve those vexatious questions: "What do the King and Prince George know?" "What have they found out?"
I slipped on a dressing-gown, fetched my small revolver from its hiding-place in the boudoir and rang for the Tisch.
I received her politely enough. I was quiet, cold, calculating. She gave a start as she observed my stony countenance.
"Baroness," I said, motioning her to come nearer, "explain the attitude assumed by His Majesty, Prince George and the rest."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I want to know. Do you hear, Grand Mistress? I command you to speak," I cried.
A sneer of contempt hovered about her lips. She is a viper, this woman, but has the courage of the rattle-snake in action.
I turned the keys in the several doors and threw them under the bed. From under the pillow I drew my revolver.
I showed her the weapon and calmly announced, accentuating each word: "You won't leave this room alive until the question I put to you is answered to my satisfaction. I want the whole truth. You needn't excuse your own part in the business. As Henri Quatre said to the lover of Diane de Poitiers, secreted under her bed, as he threw him half a cold bird: 'We all want to live, some honestly, some dishonestly.' You choose the dishonest road. Be it so.
"But I want you to state what you accuse me of. Hurry," I added menacingly.
The Tisch was unmoved. Either she thinks me a horrible dastard or is brave to madness. She looked at me fearlessly and smiled. She seemed to enjoy my rage.
"Answer or I will shoot you like the dog you are."
And then her cold and fearless voice rang out: "Put your revolver away. I am not afraid to tell you, and that thing might go off. Is it possible," she continued sarcastically, "you have to ask?"
This woman dared to address me "you." "Tisch," I thundered, "my title reads Your Imperial Highness."
Another contemptuous smile curled her thin lips as she answered insolently: "At your commands. But if you want me to talk, put away the weapon. I won't open my head while threatened."
I threw the revolver into a drawer of my chiffonier and the Tisch approached me. "Do you know this?" she hissed, whipping from her desert bosom the golden Portebonheur, Henry's present.
I had missed it for two days. Fear seized my throat.
"Do you know this?" repeated the Tisch, pushing the button and disclosing Henry's miniature with the legend "To my sweetest Louise."
"Where did you get it?" I asked, half-dead with shame and fear.
"Never mind. It's the last piece of evidence that fell into my hands. The real facts I have known for a long while."
"And sold that knowledge?"
"I did my duty."
"Report, then."
And she told the story of her infamy—or mine?
My true relations with Henry were discovered by her at Loschwitz. He is a distant relative of hers and she an intimate friend of his mother. Hence she took care not to compromise the young man. The entire blame was put on me.
"Her Imperial Highness is indulging in a dangerous flirtation with Baron Bergen," she advised the King. "They must be separated at once lest that exemplary young man fall victim to her seductive wiles. I beseech Your Majesty to order the Crown Princess to Pillnitz and put a stop to her most reprehensible conduct."
Hence the royal command to proceed to Pillnitz without a moment's delay. "The King and Prince George deem your honor unsafe unless you are under their watchful eyes," she had the effrontery to tell me.
She drew a key from her pocket and opened one of the bedroom doors.
With her hand on the knob, she said, bowing formally:
"By Your Imperial Highness's leave, I will keep the Portebonheur to use in case you are ever tempted again 'to throw me out of doors like a thieving lackey!'"
A low bow, a sarcastic smile,—my executioner was gone. And I broke some priceless bric-a-brac, stamped my foot on the pearl necklace Frederick Augustus had given me, tore three or four lace handkerchiefs and stuffed the rags in my mouth to prevent me from crying aloud.
Pillnitz, May 27, 1901.
Lucretia finished the Tisch's report. The good soul hadn't had the courage to tell me before, but now that the Grand Mistress had spoken, considerations of delicacy no longer stood in the way.
What a judge of character I am, to be sure: Henry, whom I raised from obscurity, whom I befriended, loved, advanced, rescued from the hands of usurers—a traitor, pshaw, worse,—I cannot write down the word, but it's in my mind.
Henry, who hadn't the time to take leave from me, devoted an hour to the Tisch before he went away with the Vitzthums.
He told her all and gave her his word of honor—the honor of a man who accepted money from the woman weak enough to love him—that, first, he would never see me again of his own accord and would reject both my entreaties and commands; secondly, that he would petition to be transferred to a distant garrison to be out of the path of temptation; thirdly, that he would burn my letters.
The Tisch, on her part, promised to tell the King only half the truth—not for my sake, of course, but to shield her dear, seduced young relative.