First of all, there was the official notification of her departure. It said nothing about the peril of the lunatic asylum from which she had escaped, but simply charged her with having “ignored all her family ties and proceeded abroad.” Then came the Court Chaplain, who, similarly avoiding all reference to the essential fact, invited the prayers of the congregation for the Princess’s return to “virtuous courses.” He must have known that she could only return to those courses at the peril of her liberty; but he may be assumed to have taken the view that it is the function of a Court Chaplain to pray as he is told. Next followed the intimation that the Crown Prince of Saxony was considering by what means he could obtain the divorce to which, according to the law of his Church, he clearly was not entitled; and there also came a telegram from Grand Duke Ferdinand—“Nous avons d’autres enfants, nous ne pouvons nous occuper de toi”—and finally Francis Joseph himself took the steps which he considered incumbent on him. The following notice appeared in the Wiener Zeitung on January 28, 1903:—
“We learn that the Emperor, in virtue of the powers vested in him as Head of the Reigning House, has considered it incumbent on him to direct that all the rights, honours, and privileges hitherto appertaining to the Consort of the Crown Prince of Saxony as an Archduchess of Austria by birth shall be suspended, and that this suspension shall also be maintained in the event of the impending divorce proceedings leading to the results provided for in paragraph 1577 of the Civil Code for the Empire; that the Princess shall again receive her original family names, and that she shall accordingly be prohibited henceforth from making use of the title of Imperial Princess, Archduchess, or Royal Princess of Hungary, etc., and from using her ancestral archducal arms with the archducal emblems. Furthermore, she shall no longer have any claim to the title of Imperial and Royal Highness, and all rights connected with such title shall in future be relinquished by her.”
What does it all amount to?
On cold analysis it amounts to this: that, if Princess Louisa could have been caught, she would have been placed in an asylum on the assumption that she was mad, and that, as she could not be caught, she was to be punished, in contumaciam, on the assumption that she was sane. Whether she was actually sane or mad may be a point which it is beyond the province of Francis Joseph’s biographer to settle; but he may, at least, permit himself to point out that she cannot have been, at one and the same time, both responsible and irresponsible for her actions, and that the readiness of the heads of both her own and her adopted family to pass from the one assumption to the other, to suit their convenience, betokens a shiftiness incompatible with the doctrine that Kings, Princes, and Emperors are necessarily upright, honest, or honourable men.
We will let that point go, however, and turn back to follow the fortunes of the members of the Romantic Quadruple Alliance in Switzerland, where their war against the House of Habsburg was witnessed by innumerable war correspondents from two hemispheres.
CHAPTER XXXI
The romantic Quadruple Alliance—The jarring notes—Princess Louisa’s objections to her brother’s companion Fräulein Adamovics—The sentimental life of the Archduke Leopold—He becomes “Herr Wulfling,” and marries Fräulein Adamovics—Herr and Frau Wulfling run wild in woods—Herr Wulfling divorces his wife and marries again—His confidences to Signor Toselli—Princess Louisa’s conception of the Simple Life—Her manners shock the Swiss—She dismisses M. Giron—Her marriage to Signor Toselli.
There were wheels within wheels; and the members of the Romantic Quadruple Alliance were not absolutely united. They could hold together in the presence of alarums and excursions; but intimacy and reflection discovered weak points in the combination. The dissidence was not quite so sudden or pronounced as in the case of those Balkan States which temporarily made common cause against Turkey; but lines of cleavage were nevertheless soon revealed, impairing the solidity of the entente, and introducing an appearance of comedy, not to say farce, into what should have been a drama of sustained and purely serious interest.
The first jarring note was struck when Princess Louisa made the acquaintance of Wilhelmina Adamovics. The ex-actress ran into the bedroom of the ex-Archduchess at Zurich, bursting with affection, and eager to take a new sister to her arms; but the ex-Archduchess was not so democratic as all that. Though she had bicycled with the dentist and made assignations with the tutor, she could not forget that she was a Habsburg, but retained enough family pride to feel that it should have been left to her to take the initiative in emotional demonstration. “The newcomer,” she tells us, “was obviously not of my world”; and she continues:—
“I was taken aback. I had not expected this, and I did not want it. I knew, indeed, that Leopold had fallen in love with a beautiful girl of the people, but it never crossed my mind that he intended to marry her, and I felt instinctively that her arrival in our midst would upset all our plans.