PRINCES AND PRINCESSES DANCE TO THE TUNE OF THE WHIP
The result shows in the character of rulers—Why English kings and princes are superior to the Continental kind—Leopold's awful revenge—Mother acts the tigress—Her mailed fist—"I forbid Your Imperial Highness to see that dog."
Castle Wachwitz, April 21, 1893.
If my Diary ever fell into plebeian hands, I suppose such stories as the above would be branded as rank exaggerations.
A Queen endangering life and health of her children by a form of punishment otherwise known only in the prize ring.
An Imperial Highness using her diamonds to graft scars on the cheeks of a little girl!
Royal children beaten worse than dogs, deprived of sleep, subjected to cold and damp and, withal, given over, bound hand and foot, so to speak, to the tender mercies of low-minded, unworthy, and even dangerous persons without manners or education.
And, to cap the climax, a Royal maid in the first blush of budding womanhood grossly repulsed and physically attacked when she appeals to her mother for protection; that child locked in a room with her would-be ravisher and obliged to defend her honor by a threat of murder.
Only the uninitiated—men and women living outside the pale of royal courts—will deem such things impossible. Let me tell these happy ignoramuses that all through the nineteenth century the princes and princesses of Europe were brought up to the tune of the whip and of physical and mental humiliation. It was the fashion.
The only eminent monarch of the immediate past—Frederick the Great—was all but flayed alive by his father when a boy and young man,—emulate the second King of Prussia's brutalities and your offspring will be destined for greatness, argued princes.