"Louise," she said, "that is no way to treat servants. You should always try to be kind and considerate with them."
"I am, thanks, Your Majesty," I replied. "All the officials and servants love me, but I have very good reasons for treating the Tisch as I do."
Of course, George will hear of this, and the Tisch will be reprimanded by him as well. Spies that compromise themselves, compromise their masters.
The same evening I said to the Tisch in the presence of the nurses:
"My dear Baroness, I wish you would display a little more tact. Listen at my doors as much as you like, but whatever you do, don't spy on Her Majesty in my house." She exuded a flood of tears and I sent her to her room. "Don't come back until you can show a pleasant face. I want to see none other around me."
Loschwitz, August 2, 1899.
Ferdinand received a medical report from ——r. My first private advices regarding Marie's death were correct, but the additional details given are too horrible to contemplate.
The poor Duchess was brutally murdered. She died cursing her crowned murderer.
The manner in which she was put to death can only be likened to that of the lover in Heinrich von Kleist's poetically sublime, but morally atrocious, tragedy, Penthesilcia, except that, in poor Marie's case, the woman suffered from the awful frenzy of the male, in whom the "gentlest passion" degenerated in Saturnalia of revolting cruelty. The Duke killed Marie because doing so gave him the most damnable pleasure,—her the most excruciating pain.