Memories of the Kaiser's Court

by Anne Topham

Of all possible marriages, that which the Kaiser’s daughter eventually made was the last that any one would have dared to prophesy, so utterly improbable did it appear. The Duke of Cumberland, father of the bridegroom, had from childhood been the implacable enemy of the Prussian Royal House and Government. All attempts of the Emperor to bring about a reconciliation had failed.

With almost monotonous regularity the newspapers would announce from time to time the approaching meeting of the Emperor with the Duke, and with equal certainty a paragraph would appear next day announcing the latter’s departure from the scene of the projected rendezvous “a few hours before His Majesty’s arrival.” The name of “The Vanishing Duke” became peculiarly appropriate, and the feud appeared to have settled down into that hopeless state where every effort at reconciliation has been exhausted, and nothing remains to be done.

Many brilliant statesmen and crowned heads had to retire baffled after frequent praiseworthy but ineffective efforts, until at last those two great factors in the affairs of the world, Death and Love, intervened.

The Duke’s eldest son, travelling in his motor-car through Germany on his way to the funeral of his uncle the King of Denmark, met his death by an accident in a lonely part of the road, lay for a time unrecognized, and then, his identity becoming known, the Emperor sent off his son, Prince Eitel Fritz, with instructions to render all possible help in the distressing circumstances. The body of the young prince for two nights remained in the little village church near the place where the accident happened, guarded by Prussian soldiers and the two sons of the Kaiser—for the Crown Prince, whose wife’s brother is married to a daughter of the Duke, was also sent by the Emperor to do what he could to soften the sad tragedy. They watched all night by the coffin and escorted it on its way to burial.

A few weeks afterwards, Ernest Augustus, the second son of the Duke, by his brother’s death become heir to the family feud, came on his father’s behalf to thank the Emperor for his sympathy and aid in their sorrow. For the first time in their lives he and the Kaiser’s daughter met, spent an hour or so in each other’s company, and then, his mission fulfilled, he departed again. But a new element had been introduced into the quarrel: so strong was the mutual attraction felt by the two young people for each other that, in spite of the short time of their meeting, in spite of the tremendous prejudices and difficulties in the way, they at last wore down the opposition and conquered the accumulated hate of years. What the most practised diplomats failed to achieve, this boy and girl accomplished, and at last, through many troubles, delays, and vexations, won their way to their hearts’ desire.

On the evening of the wedding of the Princess with Prince Ernest of Cumberland, now Duke of Brunswick, at the beginning of the historic Torch Dance which concludes the ceremonies, the radiant bride, taking her father by one hand and the Duke of Cumberland by the other, walked between them round the hall to the sound of the stately bridal music.

It was a happy symbol, the erstwhile enemies linked together by the Kaiser’s daughter, a visible sign of the alleviation, if not quite the ending, of a situation which had for long years galled and irritated the German people.

Now, with the departure of his youngest child, the last one left at home, the private life of the Kaiser’s Court has grown in these later days somewhat still and a trifle lonely. There is as yet no little girl among the children of the Crown Prince to take even partially the place of the one who has gone away, the one who was her father’s particular companion and pride.

The Bauern Haus is closed, the Prinzen Wohnung shut up.

“It is really quite sad,” wrote recently a lady of the Court, “to see all those apartments deserted and locked up, the curtains drawn across the windows, no movement or life where formerly there was so much. Christmas was strange indeed without our Princess. We all felt it like a shadow over the festivities. We seemed to feel that we were getting old.”