CHAPTER II
While Emperor Francis-Joseph is justly reputed to have played sad havoc with the hearts of the fair sex in his dominions, especially in his younger days, having inherited that frivolity with regard to women which is a traditional characteristic of the illustrious House of Hapsburg, he has never at any moment during his long reign permitted his susceptibility to feminine charms to go to the length of influencing his political conduct, or the action of his government.
Emperor William, on the other hand, whose married life has been, from a domestic point of view, singularly blameless, and who has been an exceptionally faithful husband, has, in at least two instances, permitted himself to be swayed in his rôle of sovereign by ladies, who for a time figured as his "Egerias." One of them was a woman of extraordinary cleverness, and an American by birth, who while she has long since ceased to exercise any influence upon him, has retained the affection and the regard of both his consort and himself. She is the Countess Waldersee, daughter of the late David Lee, a wholesale grocer of New York, and who at the time that she became the wife of Field-marshal Count Waldersee, was the widow of the present German empress's uncle, Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein. The latter abandoned his royal rank and titles, and assumed the merely nobiliary status of a Prince of Noer, in order to make her his consort.
The countess is treated as an aunt by both William and the kaiserin, and she may be said to have swayed her imperial nephew by her cleverness and intellectual brilliancy, rather than by her looks, for she is a woman already well-advanced in years.
Different in this respect was the influence of the emperor's other Egeria, namely, the Polish baroness, Jenny Koscielska, a woman of rare elegance and beauty, whose political importance during the time she reigned supreme at the Court of Berlin, was attributable to her personal fascination rather than to her sagacity or statecraft. She is the wife of that Baron Kosciol-Koscielski, who was one of the most celebrated leaders of the Polish party in the Russian House of Lords, and perhaps, also, the most popular of all modern Polish poets and playwrights.
It would be going too far to assert that William was infatuated by her loveliness. Yet there Is no doubt that as long as she figured at the Court of Berlin, he not only paid her the most marked attention, but likewise allowed himself to be advised by her in political matters. It was during the so-called "reign of the baroness" that the kaiser showed such an extraordinary degree of favor to his Polish subjects as to excite the jealousy and ill-will of the people in many other parts of his dominions. He reestablished the Polish language in the schools and churches of Posen, that is of Prussian-Poland, nominated a Polish ecclesiastic to the archbishopric of that province, and conferred so many court dignities, government offices, and decorations upon the compatriots of the fair Jenny, as to give rise to the remark that the best road to imperial preferment at Berlin was to add the Polish and feminine termination of "ska" to one's name. Old Prince Bismarck, who was at the time at daggers-drawn with his young sovereign, at length gave public utterance to the popular ill-will, excited by the rôle of Egeria, which the baroness was accused of playing to the "Numa Pompilius" of Emperor William. For, in the course of an address delivered by the old ex-chancellor at Friedrichsrüh, and reproduced in extenso in the press, he declared among other things that: "The Polish influence in political affairs increases always in the measure that some Polish family obtains of more or less influence at Court. I need not allude here to the rôle formerly played by the princely house of Radziwill. To-day we have exactly the same state of affairs, which is to be deplored!" Bismarck's allusion to the Radziwills was an ungenerous reference to the romantic attachment of old Emperor William for that Princess Elize Radziwill, whom he was so determined to marry that he offered his father to abandon his rights of succession to the throne on her account. This King Frederick-William would not permit, and William was compelled to wed Goethe's pupil, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar. A loveless match in every sense of the word, for he remained until the day of Princess Elize's death her most devoted friend and admirer, seeking her advice in many a difficulty, to the great annoyance of Prince Bismarck, who detested her, and after her death the old emperor continued to show the utmost favor and good-will to the members of her family in honor of her memory. Of course this speech of Prince Bismarck created no end of a sensation throughout the empire, as well as abroad, the press being encouraged thereby to print in cold type what had until that time been merely whispered in official and court circles. It is possible that the young emperor might have remained indifferent to popular clamor about the matter, had not two other incidents occurred about the same time to cool his liking for the fair Jenny.
In the first place, she felt herself so much encouraged by the influence which she believed that she exercised over the emperor, that when during the annual army manoeuvres Field Marshal Prince George of Saxony, and other Prussian and foreign royalties were quartered under her roof, she absolutely declined to hoist either the German flag, or the Royal Saxon standard, but insisted upon flying the national colors of Poland from the flag staff that surmounted the turret of her château. Naturally, Prince George and his fellow royal guests complained of this breach of etiquette to the kaiser, and protested strongly against it.
Almost at the same time, her husband, the baron, having been invited to attend the opening of a provincial exhibition in the neighboring Empire of Austria, was so carried away by enthusiasm, due to the kindness with which the Poles present were treated by Emperor Francis-Joseph, that forgetting all he owed to Emperor William, he publicly hailed Francis-Joseph as "sole sovereign of all Polish hearts," and as "Poland's future king!" About this time too, the empress paid a couple of rather mysterious visits to her mother-in-law at Friedrichkron. Court gossip ascribed these hurried trips to the fact that the empress had been prompted by her jealousy of the baroness to invoke the intervention of the strong-minded widow of Frederick the Noble. But it is far more likely that the empress visited the Dowager Kaiserin in order that she should call the attention of her son to the harm which the association of the name of the baroness with his own was doing him in a political sense both at home and abroad.
Whatever the cause of these consultations between the two empresses may have been, the fact remains that almost immediately afterwards Baron and Baroness Koscielski received from the Grand-Master-of-the-Court, Count Eulenburg, an official intimation that their presence at court was not desired in highest quarters until further notice, and that under the circumstances they would do well to remain at their country seat. In fact they were virtually banished, and when both husband and wife travelled all the way to Berlin with the object of asking for an explanation from the emperor, he declined to receive either the one or the other. He had apparently come to the conclusion that the game was not worth the candle, and that in view of the fact that his intimacy with the baroness had never gone beyond platonic friendship and mild flirtation, it was ridiculous to incur the ill-will of his subjects and expose himself to slanderous stories concocted by his enemies on her account.
The influence of the American born Countess Waldersee was of a far more lasting character, and may be said to have been inaugurated very shortly after his marriage. Prior to becoming a benedict, Prince William was as gay as his very limited financial means would permit. In fact, he was charged with playing the rôle of Don Juan to at least half a dozen beauties of the Prussian Court, while at Vienna he became involved in a scandal of a feminine character, from which he was only extricated with the utmost difficulty by the then German Ambassador to the Austrian Court, namely, Prince Reuss. The presumption is that he had allowed himself to become the prey of an adventuress, and with the object of avoiding publicity he was practically compelled to provide for the welfare and future of a child which may or may not have been his offspring. But as soon as he married, he turned over a new leaf, and became the very model of husbands.
It has always been my conviction that this was due in part to the influence of the Countess Waldersee, and largely also to the unkindly treatment which his consort received during the early years of her marriage at the hands of his family. Although a nice and gentle-looking girl, Augusta-Victoria was far from shining either by her beauty or her elegance at a court which is one of the most cruelly critical and satirical in all Europe. Moreover, she labored under the disadvantage of being the daughter of the Duchess of Augustenburg, who is not credited with a robust intellect, and, in fact has passed the greater part of her life in retirement, and of the Duke of Augustenburg, who was famed thirty years ago for the dullness of his mind. In fact, after Prussia had undertaken in his behalf the conquest of the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, to which he was entitled by right of inheritance, and which had been unlawfully seized by Denmark, Prince Bismarck refused to permit the duke to assume the sovereignty thereof, on the publicly expressed ground that it would be an act of the most outrageous tyranny to subject any state to the rule of so intensely stupid a man as the duke.
This utterance on the part of Bismarck, which may be found in most of the German histories printed prior to the accession of the present Emperor, was naturally recalled to mind at the Court of Berlin, when the daughter of the duke became the bride of Prince William, and the widespread belief in her inherited dullness of intellect was further increased by the mingled impatience and pity which characterized the behavior of her husband's mother and sisters towards her.
There is much that is chivalrous in the nature of the present German emperor, and it was precisely the unkindness and slights to which his bride was subjected that had the effect of drawing him more closely to her. He did not conceal the fact that he strongly resented the attitude of his family towards her, and his friendship with Countess Waldersee owes its origin to the motherly way in which she behaved to his wife, acting as her mentor, as her adviser and guide in the intricate maze of Berlin society, and of court life. Debarred from all intimacy with her sisters-in-law, who were ever ready to scoff at, and to make fun of her, Augusta-Victoria was wont to have recourse to the countess in all her difficulties, and inasmuch as Count Waldersee himself is the most brilliant soldier of the German army, and was designated at the time by the great Moltke as his successor and his principal lieutenant, Prince William and his wife ended by becoming very intimate indeed with the Waldersees, and almost daily visitors at their house.
The countess is of a deeply religious turn of mind, with a strong disposition towards evangelism, and already before the marriage of Prince William, she had become conspicuous as one of the most influential leaders of the anti-Semite party in Prussia. It was in her salons at Berlin that the great Jew-baiter Stoecker was wont to hold his politico-religious meetings, denouncing the Jews, and it was through her influence, too, that he obtained appointment as court chaplain, in spite of the opposition of the father and the mother of Prince William. It was also under the roof of the Countess Waldersee that the present emperor became imbued with that very religious,—one might almost say pietist—disposition, which has since been so marked a feature of his character.
True, the hereditary tendency of the sovereign house of Prussia is distinctly religious, leaning in fact towards fanaticism, and King Frederick-William III., his son Frederick-William IV., and likewise old Emperor William, entertained the most extraordinary ideas on the subject of Providence, with which they believed themselves to be in constant communion, as well as its principal agent here on earth. In fact, there is hardly a public utterance of any of these three sovereigns, which is not marked throughout by a deep religious tone, and by a degree of familiarity with the Almighty which would be blasphemous were it not so manifestly sincere. This hereditary tendency towards religion was, to a certain extent, obliterated by the education which William received, and which was of a nature to dispose him to be both a materialist and a free-thinker. He may be said in fact to have been brought up in an atmosphere of Renan-ism and Strauss-ism, for which his extraordinary and mercilessly clever mother, Empress Frederick, was largely responsible, and at the moment of his marriage it looked as if he were destined to figure in history as quite as much of a philosopher, and even atheist, as Frederick the Great, for whom he professed the most profound veneration.
It was Countess Waldersee who revived all the inherited and latent religious tendencies of his character.
Up to the time when he ascended the throne, Prince William and his consort were constant and devout attendants at the prayer-meetings held in the salons of the countess, and if he remains to this day a remarkably religious man, with a sufficient regard for scriptural commands to have shown himself a more faithful husband than any other prince of his house, either living or dead—if, to-day, piety is fashionable at the court of Berlin instead of being bad form, if the building or endowment of a church, or of a charitable institution, is regarded as the surest road to imperial favor, it is due to the influence of William's American aunt, the daughter of that New York grocer, the first Princess Noer, and who is to-day Countess of Waldersee.
It is natural that the influence exercised over William and his wife by the countess should have given rise to the utmost jealousy, especially on the part of his mother, Empress Frederick, and during the hundred days' reign of her lamented husband, she availed herself of her brief spell of power to secure the virtual banishment of the count and the countess from Berlin, by causing the field marshal to be transferred from the chieftaincy of the headquarter staff to the command of the army stationed in Altona. Moreover, she did not hesitate to denounce the influence of the Waldersees as disastrous, as illiberal, and in every sense of the word reactionary, and if her husband, Emperor Frederick, was led to share her views concerning them, it was because of his disapproval of the movement against the Jews in which the countess had figured so conspicuously. It is a peculiar fact that although Emperor William has always remained on the most affectionate terms with the Waldersees, and never loses any opportunity of manifesting the warmth of his affection for them, he has never repealed the decree of banishment to which they were virtually subjected during his father's reign. He has transferred the field marshal from one post to another, but he has never appointed him to one which would admit of his coming back to live in Berlin. I cannot help thinking that the emperor resented the imputation that he was subject to the sway of his wife's aunt, and was offended by the articles which appeared at one moment both in the German and foreign press intimating that she was the power behind the throne. He is sufficiently jealous of his dignity to object to be considered as subject to the influence of anyone, be it man or woman, and one of the chief causes of the dismissal of old Prince Bismarck was precisely because so long as he remained in office there was a disposition to regard the kaiser as a mere puppet in the hands of the old statesman.
It is this aversion to being considered as swayed by any other influence than his own that has led the emperor on so many occasions to adopt a course diametrically opposed to that urged upon him by his clever and masterful mother, a woman with the most powerful intellect and the least tact to be found in all Old World royalties. It was this, too, that led the emperor to banish, just a trifle unjustly, the pretty and dashing Countess Hohenau from his court. She had been guilty of no indiscretion with regard to him. She had done nothing wrong, and she was not only a brilliant ornament of the imperial entourage, but likewise a relative of the family. But he banished both her husband and herself almost at a moment's notice, owing to the fact that in the anonymous letters circulated at the time of the so-called Kotze scandal, he was mentioned as altogether infatuated and subjugated by her beauty.
Count Hohenau is the half-brother of that Prince Albert of Prussia, who is now Regent of the Grand Duchy of Brunswick. Old Prince Albert of Prussia, his father, was married to the eccentric and half-crazy Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. Not long after the birth of the present Prince Albert, she lost her heart to such an extent to a chamberlain in her household that her husband was compelled to divorce her, whereupon she contracted a morganatic marriage with the gentleman in question, and lived and died at an advanced age only about twelve years ago.
Prince Albert, the elder, thereupon married morganatically a young girl of noble birth of the name of Baroness Rauch, whose family had for more than one hundred and fifty years occupied leading positions at the Court of Berlin. On the occasion of her marriage to the prince, she received from the Prussian Crown the title of Countess of Hohenau, and the children whom she bore to Prince Albert the elder are now known as Counts and Countesses of Hohenau. The elder of these Counts Hohenau bears the name of Fritz, and his wife, before their banishment from the capital, was one of the most dashing and brilliant figures in the ultra-aristocratic society of Berlin. No entertainment was regarded as complete without her presence, and in every social enterprise, no matter whether it was a flower corso, a charity fair, a hunt, a picnic, or amateur theatricals, she was always to the fore, besides being the leader in every new fashion, and in every new extravagance. Although eccentric—she was the first member of her sex to show herself astride on horseback in the Thiergarten—and in spite of her being famed as a thorough-paced coquette, and as a flirt, yet no one ventured to impugn her good name, until the disgraceful anonymous letter scandal; and both her husband and herself naturally resent most keenly that without any hearing or explanation they should have been banished from the court, and sent to live, first at Hanover, then at Dresden, but always away from Berlin and Potsdam, solely on account of an anonymous letter.
The sympathy of society in the affair was all with the Hohenaus, who although absent from Berlin, may be said to have taken the leading part in that great controversy which is known to this day as "the anonymous letter scandal," and which not only divided all Berlin society into separate hostile camps, but led to innumerable duels, some of them with fatal results; to the imprisonment of some great personages; to the ruin of others, and in one word to one of the most talked of court scandals of the present century. In fact, the anonymous letter affair, many of the features of which remain shrouded in mystery to this day, played so important a part in the history of the Court of Berlin during the first decade of the present emperor's reign, that it deserves a chapter to itself.
What, however, I wish specially to impress upon my readers is that in spite of the many scurrilous stories that have been circulated on both sides of the ocean concerning the alleged intrigues of Emperor William with the fair sex, since his marriage, nearly eighteen years ago, his wedded life has been singularly free from storms, and exceptionally happy. In fact, there are few more thoroughly-devoted couples than William and Augusta-Victoria, who is to-day far more comely as a woman than she was as a young girl. So domestic, indeed, are the tastes of the kaiser, so excellent is he both as a husband and a father, that his home life may be said to atone for many of his political errors and shortcomings as a monarch. His loyalty towards his consort is all the more to his credit, as the Anointed of the Lord in the Old World are exposed to feminine temptations in a degree of which no conception can be formed in this country. In most of the capitals of Europe it is in the power of the sovereign to make or mar the social position of any man, and of any woman. Social ambitions coupled with an exaggerated degree of loyalty will lead many a beautiful woman to cross that border line which separates mere indiscretion from something worse, all the more that the reputation of being the fair favorite of a monarch, and able to influence his conduct, is regarded as a title to prestige, and has the effect of converting the fair one into one of the acknowledged powers of the land.
For an ambitious woman it is something to be treated by statesmen and the representatives of foreign governments, as the power behind the throne, and provided this power is wisely exercised, the intimacy of the lady with the monarch is regarded by high and low with something more than mere indulgence.
History has given so lofty a pedestal to Madame de Maintenon, that there are many women who are eager to emulate her rôle in present times, and to likewise figure in history. That is why royal personages, and especially kings and emperors, are exposed to such extraordinary temptations.
Most women put forth all their charms and powers of fascination to captivate the attention, and, if possible, the heart of their sovereign, who is, after all, but human. That is why Emperor William deserves so much credit for having remained true to his wife, and why Emperor Francis-Joseph of Austria merits so much indulgence in connection with the indiscretions which had the effect of keeping him for so many years parted and estranged from his lovely consort, the late Empress Elizabeth.
While on this subject, it should be stated that for many years past, probably for the last decade, the life of Francis-Joseph has been free from affairs of this kind, for it is hardly possible to treat in the light of a scandal his association with that now elderly actress, Mlle. Schratt, since it is virtually tolerated, accepted and, so to speak, recognized both by the imperial family and by the Austrian people. Indeed the only persons who have ever taken exception to this intimacy have been Herr Schoenerer, and some of his anti-Semite colleagues who, to the indignation of every one, gave vent three years ago to their spite against their kindly old sovereign by calling attention in the Reichsrath to the alleged questionable relations between the sovereign and the popular and veteran star-actress of the Burg Theatre.
Herr Schoenerer, who was formerly a baron, but who was deprived of his title by the emperor at the time when he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for a violent and unprovoked assault upon a Jewish newspaper proprietor, declared in the legislature, to which he had been elected on emerging from jail, that public opinion was becoming outraged by the impropriety of the conduct of the emperor. The scene which ensued defied description. Schoenerer was suspended, and had not steps been taken to assure his protection, would have been subjected to very violent treatment by the vast majority of the house, which is intensely loyal to the emperor, and the members of which resented criticism of his majesty's twenty years' friendship with old Frau Schratt Even the late empress herself did not regard as serious or dangerous her husband's association with the actress. This is shown by the fact that on two separate occasions she honored Frau Schratt with a visit at the actress's villa near Ischl. At the Austrian Court it is generally understood that whatever may have been the nature of the intimacy of the monarch and the actress in the past, it is now nothing more than a platonic affection between two old friends, the emperor being accustomed to spend half an hour or so with this witty and amiable lady nearly every day. The actress is a great favorite with the people at large, on account of her devotion to the emperor, and for her tact in declining to take any undue advantage of the favor which he accords to her. Indeed, the degree of indulgence with which Austrian society, as well as the masses, look upon this intimacy maybe gathered from the fact that one of the most—popular photographs on exhibition in the windows of the leading picture-shops at Vienna, and at Pesth, is a snapshot, showing the kindly-faced old emperor and the sunny-tempered old actress seated in the most domestic fashion opposite one another at a breakfast table with the actress's pet dog on a chair midway between stage and throne.