The following September the Crown Prince announced, in a series of laconic telegrams to his friends, his own engagement to the young Duchess Cécile of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
“We are engaged.—William and Cécile,” was the message sent by the happy Braut-paar.
The Crown Prince had from early youth been frequently in love with various pretty young girls within the range of his acquaintanceship. But these harmless little love-affairs, so frank, so delightfully obvious, and so soon dispersed into thin air by the advent of some new and equally ineligible charmer, culminated at last in his meeting with the young Duchess Cécile, a dark-eyed, clear-complexioned, tall, slim maiden, just out of the schoolroom.
Any one seeing the happy pair together need not have troubled to ask if they were in love with each other. It was palpably the case, and they had not the least desire to conceal the fact. When the young Braut came to stay at the Neues Palais after her engagement, a very small party—just the ladies-in-waiting and the two young Princesses—were dining together in the Apollo-Saal, for the Emperor and Empress were absent for the day. Suddenly a great clattering was heard outside the window overlooking the terrace, and the Crown Prince appeared on horseback, having ridden up the stone steps. His young Braut was charmed at his daring, and they sat down at table side by side, obviously absorbed in each other, while the ladies talked about the weather and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. They were as genuinely and whole-heartedly attracted, as palpably all-in-all to each other, as the poorest young couple who bravely face the world together. Nothing but personal liking entered into their marriage.
It is a pity that people are so sceptical as to any royal alliance being founded on any other than political considerations. Yet politics are rarely either forwarded or hindered nowadays by matrimonial arrangements; and if propinquity, as most people believe, is the chief factor in bringing about the usual love-affair, then it is obviously most natural for a prince to be attracted towards the pretty girl—for many princesses are remarkably pretty—whom he meets on equal terms, with whom there is no consciousness of difference of rank, the girl who has been brought up in the same atmosphere as himself, with whom familiarity has bred a certain contempt for court ceremonies and court traditions, who is related, perhaps, like himself, to various crowned heads whom they both call “Uncle,” one with whom he has a common ground of interest, bonds of relationship and mutual knowledge.
As soon as the announcement of this engagement became public, the postcard shops of Berlin, whose name is legion, became mere picture-galleries for the illustration of every possible moment of the life and movements of the young couple. A whole army of photographers must have been employed to lie in wait and photograph them under almost every conceivable circumstance of their lives. Certainly German royalties are very good-natured in this respect.
First there was the official photograph of the Braut-Paar sitting hand-in-hand, as is the orthodox photographic pose in Germany for all newly engaged couples. Then there was a card called “The First Congratulations”: rows and rows of little schoolboys and girls of Schwerin, each with a bouquet of wilted flowers in the hand, and the girls with wreaths entwined in their hair, presented in turn their offerings to the smiling young Duchess, while the Crown Prince stood by, helping things along to the best of his ability. “The First Drive” pictured them both in a sort of dog-cart, duly chaperoned, taking the air together, and there were dozens more cards portraying them at tennis, drinking tea in the garden, or nursing the dogs. One felt that one knew how every moment of their time was employed.
Although they were engaged in the month of September, their marriage did not take place until the beginning of the following June. Ordinary weddings usually mean a time of considerable stress to every one concerned, but they are epochs of honeyed leisure as compared with the multiple ceremonies attendant on royal functions of the same kind.
For weeks beforehand no one dared to let their thoughts wander from the impending event. A few days before the State entry of the bride into the town, we all had to leave the New Palace and migrate to Berlin.
A State entry means, for the bride, not only an entry in State carriages but in State attire, wearing semievening dress and a long train.