ROYALTY NOT PRETTY, AND WHY
Fecundity royal women's greatest charm—How to have beautiful children.
Dresden, February 25, 1894.
Behold the mother of two boys in a twelve-month! Frederick came just in the nick of time, Sylvester Eve (December 31, 1893), to gain me a little brief renown, for royalty likes its women to be rabbits and, in the reigning houses at least, we are esteemed in proportion to our fecundity.
"January 15—December 31," not half bad! Even Prince George had to admit that. And the Kaiser remarked: "Louise, if she keeps it up, bids fair to break de Villeneuve's record. Let me see, Sophie's first child was born January 9—a girl" (with a sneer); "her next, the Hereditary Count, on December 28th of the same year."
The "de Villeneuve" is Sophie, Countess of Schlitz. Wilhelm made her celebrated by his gallantries and Lenbach by the great portrait he painted of her wondrous loveliness. If I ever have a daughter, I will have a copy of the Lenbach canvas placed in baby's room. Come to think of it, I will have one made right away to hang in my own boudoir.
As stated, I believe in prenatal influence, and am more than convinced that the portraits of Saxon and Prussian princesses frowning from the walls of our palaces are calculated neither to promote beauty nor gentleness.
If I had my way, I would send the whole lot to the store-room and fill the space they occupy with the present store-room treasures, old time portraits of August the Physical Strong's favorites, Aurora von Königsmark, Countess Cosel, Princess Lubomirska, Fatime, the Circassian, the Orselska and—who can remember their names?
As a rule, queens and princesses are conspicuous for lack of beauty, while kings and princes cut most ordinary figures in mufti. Only their uniforms, the ribands and decorations, the mise-en-scène render them tolerable imitations of the average military man.
Why?
Because their mothers and fathers, their sisters, cousins and aunts see nothing but painted and photographed and sculptured frights and grotesques. So much ugliness of the past must needs cause ugliness of the present and future.
In a century the thrones of Europe have known but two beauties, both plebeians, the Empress Josephine and the Empress Eugenie. My aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, is only good-looking, the German Empress was just an ordinary German Frau even in her salad-days.
Well, my little girls, if I have any, shall profit by the lessons of the past. As expectant mothers in ancient Greece were wont to walk in the temple of Athene Parthenos, filled with the greatest sculptures the world has ever seen (ruins of them I admired in the British Museum), so I intend to have a gallery of my own for beauty's sake, even if every female figure be a harlot's likeness.