Tonight I told Frederick Augustus of my interview with Bernhardt, not mentioning the five hundred, of course.
He laughed. "He's no worse than the rest of us used to be," he said. "I did exactly like him, and father and uncle and brothers and cousins, ditto. Behold—your husband-locksmith! Max spent all his time reading the Lives of the Popes. That made him the dried-up mummy he is. But, believe me, I gave the girls many a treat. All the money I could beg, borrow or steal went for girls."
Which explains Frederick Augustus's bedroom manners—sometime transplanted to the parlor.
Dresden, January 1, 1897.
I gave Saxony a third prince on December 9, and really I wasn't quite in condition to be scolded at today's family dinner. But since, with three boys growing up, the succession is more than guaranteed, the season for insults is again open.
His Majesty, our most gracious, sublime, etc., sovereign, sulks. Consequently the family looks glum, down in the mouth, utterly unhappy.
Max gets up to make a speech and one could fairly see the lies wriggle out of his mouth full of defective teeth: exemplary family life; traditional friendship of all members for each other; perfect unity; the King and all the princes brave as lions; the Queen and all the princesses paragons of virtue. And the fatherly love with which the King embraces us all; his more than royal generosity; his mildness, his Christian virtues!
The Queen is a goose. Max's lying commonplaces make her forget her many years of misery spent at this court, and she grows as sentimental as a kitten. Fat Mathilda, Isabelle and Johann George applaud Max despite their better understanding, and now the King rises to make his usual New Year's address.