CHAPTER XV
All royal and imperial people are more or less superstitious, and neither Emperor William nor his brother monarch at Vienna are exceptions to the rule. Striking evidence thereof is furnished by the presence of a large horseshoe cemented into the wall just outside the fourth window of the first story of Empress Frederick's palace at Berlin. One day, some time before his accession to the throne, and before his father was seized with that terrible malady to which he eventually succumbed, William was invited to dine with his parents. Finding that he was very late, and knowing the strictness of his father and mother on the score of punctuality, William directed his coachman to drive as fast as he could, and the carriage positively raced up the incline to the portal.
Suddenly one of the big Mecklenburg horses lost his shoe, which in some extraordinary manner, flew up into the air, dashed through the first-story window and fell upon the dinner table, right in front of Frederick and the then crown princess, who, declining to wait any longer, had just sat down to table. The shoe is reported to have grazed the nose of the late emperor. At any rate, the fact that it should have failed to seriously injure anyone is a miracle. It was so regarded by Frederick, his wife and his children, who deemed the queer advent of the shoe, and the escape of everybody from injury, as an indication of good luck. At the suggestion of the present kaiser, it was thereupon cemented into the wall just outside the window through which it had come, and was fastened upside down, in order to prevent the luck from dropping out.
It is not altogether astonishing that royal personages should be prone to superstition, for in almost every case they are compelled to make their homes in palaces and castles that have been stained with the blood of one or more of their ancestors. Ordinary people experience an uncanny feeling when forced by circumstances to live in houses which have been the scene of suicide or murder, even when the victims of the tragedy, or the perpetrators thereof are in no way, even the most remotely, connected with them. What wonder, then, that royal and imperial personages should entertain the same kind of superstition and sentiments with regard to their palaces, when it is borne in mind that the participants in the drama have been members of their own families!
For months prior to the assassination of Empress Elizabeth, forebodings of an impending catastrophe were prevalent at the Court of Vienna, and so imbued was Emperor Francis-Joseph with ominous presentiments, that he repeatedly exclaimed in the hearing of his entourage: "Oh, if only this year were at an end!"
These apprehensions on the part of the monarch and his court were due to an incident which took place on the night of April 24, 1898, and which was of sufficient importance to be comprised in the regular report made on the following morning to his military superiors by the officer of the guard at the Hofburg. It seems that the sentinel posted in the corridor or hall leading to the chapel was startled almost out of his senses by seeing the form of a white-clad woman approaching him, soon after one o'clock in the morning. He at once challenged her, whereupon the figure turned round, and passed back into the chapel, where the soldier then observed a light. Hastily summoning assistance, a strict search was instituted, but the chapel was explored without any result.
The sentinel in question was a stolid, rather dull-minded Styrian peasant, who was possessed of but little power of imagination or of education, and who was entirely ignorant, therefore, of the tradition according to which a woman in white makes her appearance by night in the Hofburg at Vienna, either in the chapel or in the adjoining corridors and halls, whenever any misfortune is about to overtake the imperial house of Hapsburg.
On each occasion, this spectral appearance to the sentinel on duty has been described in the report of the officer of the guard on the following morning, and is absolutely a matter of official record. The previous visitations of the "white lady" had taken place on the eve of the shocking tragedy of Mayerling; a few weeks previous to the shooting of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; and prior to the burning to death of the daughter of old Archduke Albert, at Schoenbrunn; while the very fact that there should have been no supernatural appearance of this kind at the time when Archduke John vanished from human ken, leads the imperial family and the Court of Austria to still doubt the story, according to which he perished at sea while on his way round Cape Horn, from La Plata to Valparaiso.
I do not know the origin of the "white lady" tradition at Vienna, nor have I ever been able to ascertain anything definite about her history, but there is plenty of documentary evidence, as well as a wonderful array of records concerning "the white lady of the Hohenzollerns," who makes her appearance in the old palace at Berlin whenever death is about to overtake a member of the reigning house of Prussia. The late Emperor Frederick—the most matter-of-fact and least imaginative prince of his line—was particularly interested in the matter, and collected all the evidence that he could upon the subject, for the purpose of depositing it in the archives of his family.
Perhaps the most important testimony in this connection are the sworn statements signed by Prince Frederick of Prussia, and a number of his fellow officers, to all of whom the "White Lady" is declared to have appeared as they sat together on the eve of the prince's death at the battle of Saalfeld in 1806.
Moreover, Thomas Carlyle went to no little trouble to procure evidence when writing the history of Frederick the Great, that the "White Lady" had appeared to that famous monarch on the eve of his death. The king, it is asserted, was on the high road to recovery from his illness, when suddenly one morning he declared that he had seen the white-clad spectre during the night, that his hour had come, and that it was useless to ward off death any longer. So he refused to take any further medicine or nourishment, turned his face to the wall, and died.
The "White Lady" is considered sufficiently real by the hard-headed matter-of-fact commanders of the Prussian army, to lead to their adopting special measures whenever her appearance is reported. The moment she is seen, the sentinels within and around the royal palace are at once doubled. The object of this is not so much to protect the royal family from harm, as to prevent the sentinels themselves from following the example of the two who shot themselves while on guard at the palace in the year 1888, one, shortly before the death of old Emperor William, the other, a few days before the demise of Emperor Frederick, the men in each case declaring before they expired that they had seen the "White Lady," their story being in a measure borne out by the fact that their faces even after death seemed to be distorted with terror.
The appearances of the "White Lady" are kept as quiet as possible, the matter is never mentioned at court, save in whispers, and nothing concerning her is ever permitted to appear in print in the Berlin papers.
This dread apparition that forebodes evil to the reigning house of Prussia, is supposed to be the spectre of Countess Agnes Orlamunde, who murdered her first husband, as well as her two children, who constituted an obstacle to her marriage with, one of the ancestors of the kaiser.
The palace in which the spectre of this historic murderess appears is a huge and massive structure of grey stone, the walls of which are pierced by over one thousand windows, and which contains over six hundred rooms. Commenced four hundred and fifty years ago by one of the earliest electors of Brandenburg, it has been added to by each sovereign in turn, until it has attained its present enormous dimensions.
There is probably no structure of the kind in the world the building of which has cost so many lives. Indeed the very mortar used in its construction may be said to have been mixed with blood. The people of Berlin, who from time immemorial have been noted for their democracy and their spirit of independence, have opposed from the very outset the erection of this building in their midst as calculated to endanger their liberty, and many were the attempts that they made to arrest the undertaking, and to destroy the work already accomplished. Bloody fights took place between the mob and the troops appointed to protect the workmen, and on two occasions the populace even went so far as to cut the dams, and destroy the flood gates, deluging the foundations with the waters of the River Spree, and drowning each time many hundreds of workmen.
Even at the present moment Emperor William is engaged in an angry fight with, the people of Berlin in connection with this palace. He wishes to surround it with a terrace and a garden, which will naturally add to its beauty. At present the windows look onto the public streets, a fact which, in these days of bombs and dynamite outrages, renders it difficult to protect with any degree of efficiency. The municipality and people of Berlin, however, absolutely decline to consent to the expropriations necessary in order to enable the destruction and removal of the existing houses and buildings which interfere with the execution of his majesty's project.
Like his uncle, the Prince of Wales, the kaiser is very superstitious on the subject of the number thirteen in the case of any entertainment, and more than once has a mere subaltern who happened to be on duty at the palace as an officer of the guard, been commanded at a moment's notice to join the imperial party in order to avoid there being thirteen at the table.
This superstition is perhaps partly due to the fact that the emperor is aware of the old Scandinavian custom, from which it originates, and which still subsists among the peasantry of the west coast of France. In the Pagan days of Scandinavia, the hardy Norsemen were accustomed at all their banquets to invite the spirit of the last of their male relatives or friends to participate in the feast, and the food that he would have eaten and the mead that he would have drunk was cast into the fire, the supposed resting-place of the soul. When the Norsemen embraced Christianity, on ceremonious occasions they sat down to the banquet in parties of twelve, doing this in honor of the twelve Apostles; but unable entirely to disassociate themselves from their old heathen custom of inviting the spirit of a dead relative or friend, they constituted him,—the spectre,—the thirteenth guest at table, and his health was always drunk in solemn silence. In course of time people came to forget the traditional custom of considering a spectre to be the thirteenth guest. He was, however, associated in their minds with the notion of death, and thus the belief has grown that though a thirteenth person at table is no longer a corpse, one of the party is destined, at any rate, to speedily become one.
Throughout Brittany on the eve of the day sacred to the memory of the dead "La Toussaint," the family all sit down to a festive repast, and there is invariably a place laid at table, the plate filled with the choicest viands, and the glass filled with the finest wine or cider, for the one or more members of the family who have died during the previous twelve months. The peasantry are convinced that the spirits of their dear ones take part in this repast at one time or another during the course of the night. It is for this reason that they consider it their duty to sit up till daybreak, the women chiefly praying, the men talking in undertones about the qualities and the characteristics of the mourned ones. Wearied with watching, imbued with the most fervent and devout faith, blended with a belief in old-time legends, what wonder is it that towards dawn both the men and the women, especially the latter, should imagine that they see the spirits of their dead glide into the room, take their place at the family board, and then, after a brief sojourn in their midst, vanish with the light of the breaking day. It is a pretty and a touching idea, which is not combated by the clergy, and of which, indeed, no one possessed of any heart would seek to disabuse the minds of the poor, simple-minded peasant folks.
Of course Emperor Francis-Joseph and Emperor William are imbued with all the old superstitions peculiar to Nimrods. As an instance, they will give up an entire day's shooting, no matter how elaborate the arrangements made for it, if a hare is seen to cross their path, for this is always looked upon as being a very bad omen.
Both emperors also attach much importance to dreams, and claim to have been furnished by them with premonitions of each misfortune that has overtaken them, and regard Friday as the most unlucky day of the week.
There is no colder, more unemotional and level-headed woman in the-world than the young Empress of Russia, who is a German princess by birth, and a first cousin of Emperor William, yet she too believes in dreams, since the following incident, which enjoys the fullest degree of credence on the part of the emperors of Germany and Austria. It seems that during the coronation festivities she was resting one afternoon, and had dropped off into a doze, when she suddenly found herself awakened by one of her ladies who had been frightened by the manner in which she moaned and even wailed in her sleep. The empress then related that her slumbers had been disturbed by a bad dream. An old gray-haired Moujik, or peasant, all covered with blood, had appeared to her, and had exclaimed:
"I have come all the way from Siberia, czaritza, to see your day of honor, and now your Cossacks have killed me."
The vision had been so real that the empress hastened to her husband to inquire if any misfortune had happened. Nicholas laughed at his wife's fears, but to soothe her, telephoned to the minister of the imperial household, asking whether anything untoward had occurred, and only then learnt of the terrible disaster that had taken place in connection with the open-air banquet, where over two thousand lives were lost, through a panic that had seized upon the vast concourse of people, the terrible catastrophe being aggravated by the unfortunate attempts of large bodies of mounted Cossacks to restore order by riding into the crowd and using their whips and even their swords against the terrified masses of penned-up Moujiks.
It must be borne in mind that the entire monarchial system of the old world is largely based on legend and superstition, and that a belief in the supernatural, therefore, is to be expected in such personages as the anointed of the Lord, who are firmly convinced that there is a considerable amount of the supernatural in their authority and in the origin of their power.
Another manner in which Emperor William displays his superstition, is his absolute refusal to permit any steps to be taken to clear up the mystery which has existed throughout this entire century in connection with the hunting château of Grünewald, which, like the great palace at Berlin, is popularly believed to be haunted. Indeed, it is regarded with considerable misgiving by the peasantry of the surrounding district. It is an old castle, built almost two centuries ago, by the father of the first King of Prussia, and has been the scene of several tragedies.
The one which is supposed to have led to the haunting of the palace is the murder by one of the princes of the house of Hohenzollern, in a fit of passion, of a Prussian nobleman who was his guest at the time. The prince is reported to have run the nobleman through the back with his sword while following him down one of the staircases from the upper story to the ground floor.
Endeavors have repeatedly been made to obtain permission from the sovereign to tear down the brick wall so as to give access to this staircase, not only for the sake of convenience, but also with the object of setting at rest forever the popular superstitions and rumors on the subject. Neither King Frederick-William IV., nor the late Emperor William would ever hear of such a thing, and the late Emperor Frederick, who was the least superstitious and most matter-of-fact of men, grew grave and silent, when it was suggested to him that he should give the desired permission. As for the present emperor, he has sternly forbidden that the matter should even be mentioned in his presence. This extraordinary reluctance displayed by both the kaiser and his predecessors to discover what there is behind that brick wall leads to the conviction that the mouldering remains of the victim of the treacherous hospitality of a prince of Prussia lie concealed there.