The etiquette of Versailles in the time of Louis XVI. could hardly be more exasperating to a modern woman than that of Berlin in the twentieth century. Before luncheon and dinner processions converge from all parts of the castle, conducting members of the Imperial family and royal guests to the drawing-room.
“The Kaiser will be in the drawing-room in ten minutes,” was the regular warning I used to receive from a lady-in-waiting, fearful that I should be late, and knowing the value the Kaiser sets on punctuality. In point of fact, I never was late, and, indeed, punctuality almost ceases to be a virtue at the Schloss, where one lives under a hard-and-fast code of rules.
On the way from the drawing-room to the dining-room the Kaiser and Kaiserin and their guests pass through the apartment in which the ladies and gentlemen in attendance have been discarded. They stand in a great circle, and it is the invariable custom to make the tour of the circle with the usual smile and the usual banal remarks. That duty performed, the royal personages go into the dining-room, and the suites retire to eat in another room. In Madrid the persons in attendance on the royal family dine with them. When I first went to Berlin the Kaiser’s children were young, and, although they lunched with us, they were not permitted to speak unless first spoken to. After the meal the royal party returns to the drawing-room, but it must not be thought that when alone royal persons unbend and behave naturally. The daily discipline of relentless etiquette has its effect on them; they cannot forget that they are royal, and therefore obliged to mask their feelings more rigorously than is necessary for ordinary people; indeed, most princesses I know are reduced by this inexorable discipline to nonentities whose mouths are twisted in an eternal smile. At Berlin we conversed politely for the regulation time, and, after making the circle of the suites again, were conducted back to our apartments in half a dozen processions.
Back in one’s rooms, it is impossible to emerge without a repetition of wearisome ceremonies. To go out for half an hour’s walk by oneself is a relaxation the poorest can enjoy; it is forbidden to a palace prisoner. The etiquette of Berlin requires a princess to be accompanied by a lady-in-waiting. And usually the lady-in-waiting cannot walk fast, so that the enjoyment of a little vigorous exercise in the open air is impossible. Moreover, people about courts are usually uninteresting companions. Obviously, intelligent persons would not consent to lead such aimless lives and to conform to such an inexorable code. How inexorable is that code may be judged from the fact that one of the Court ladies in Berlin was confined to her room for three days as a punishment for walking across the courtyard in an indecorous manner, that is to say with one hand ungloved.
The Emperor William’s insistence on law and order even extends to details of house-keeping. For instance, he knows that I like to begin the day with something more substantial than the coffee and rolls most Continentals take in the morning. Accordingly, whenever I have stayed at the Schloss he has himself given orders that an English breakfast should be served in my apartments, and I have always been indulged with the eggs and bacon and marmalade I am accustomed to. At first sight it may seem a little odd that an Emperor should be at the pains to arrange the menu of a guest’s breakfast. The Kaiser evidently knows as well as I do that a princess in a palace is less happily situated than a visitor in an English country-house, who gives his orders and gets what he likes served in his room. It would never occur to me to ask for a boiled egg at breakfast in a palace where people are not accustomed to have boiled eggs for breakfast, because the order would pass through so many persons before it reached the kitchen that my egg would probably be an omelette au surprise or a terrine of foie-gras before it arrived in my dining-room.
Above and beyond the Kaiser’s love of seeing that things work smoothly in his home is his love of his capital. To him Berlin is a daughter, whom he likes to see beautiful and well turned-out, just as he likes to see the Kaiserin and the Duchess of Brunswick charmingly dressed.
“It has been raining hard,” he said, coming into my room one morning, “and it has just stopped. I want you to come out with me, because I have something interesting to show you.”
I put on my hat at once and we went down to a carriage which was waiting and drove away. I was wondering what interesting sight I was going to see and what surprise the Kaiser had in store for me.
“Look!” he cried suddenly, “look at the streets! There have been torrents of rain and the weather only cleared up a few minutes ago, but do you see that there is not a speck of mud on the road?”
It was true. The streets were surprisingly and absolutely clean.