When Prince Christian and his wife go out to dinner in Berlin, he is given his rank at the table as a member of a royal house, but his wife is treated on a parity with the wives of all officers holding commissions of equal grade with her husband in the army. As her husband is a Lieutenant, she ranks merely as a Lieutenant's wife. On the same day that Miss Rogers and Prince Christian were wedded, Miss Cecilia May of Baltimore married Lieutenant Vom Rath. I acted as one of Miss May's witnesses at the Standesamt, where the civil marriage was performed, while the religious marriage took place in our Embassy. Lieutenant Vom Rath is the son of one of the proprietors of the great dye works manufactories known as Lucius-Meister-Farbewerke at Hoehst, near Frankfurt a. M., where salvarsan and many other medicines used in America are manufactured, as well as dyestuffs and chemicals.
In my earlier book I described presentations at the Royal Prussian Court in Berlin, especially the great court called the "Schleppencour," because of the long trains or Schleppe worn by the women. All the little kingdoms and principalities of the German Empire have somewhat the same ceremonies. In Dresden, the capital of Saxony, a peculiar custom is followed. The King and Queen sit at a table at one end of the room playing cards and the members of the court and distinguished strangers file into the room, pass by the card table in single file and drop deep courtesies and make bows to the seated royalties, who, as a rule, do not even take the trouble to glance at those engaged in this servile tribute to small royalty. I suppose that the excuse for this is that it is an old custom. But so is serfdom!
There are in Germany many so-called mediatised families, so-called because at one time they possessed royal rank and rights over small bits of territory before Napoleon changed the map of Europe and wiped out so many small principalities.
At the Congress of Vienna these families who lost their right of rule, in part compensation, were given the right to marry either royalties or commoners; so that the marriage of a Prince of Prussia with a daughter of one of these mediatised houses would not be morganatic. The girl would take the full rank of her husband and the children would inherit any rights, including the rights to the throne possessed by him.
Thus the beautiful young Countess Platen, shortly before we left Berlin, was married to von Stumm, the very able Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. While she became on her marriage Baroness von Stumm, nevertheless, if she had married the son of the Kaiser, she would have taken his rank and her children would have inherited all rights and titles possessed by their father. This is because the Platens, although bearing only the title of Counts, are a mediatised family.
It is noteworthy that in Berlin women of that blonde type with regular features, which we believe is the German type, are very rare. This type is to be found perfected in Scandinavia, although a few specimens exist in Germany. Looking over a Berlin theatre I have often noticed the predominance of brown and black hair.
There is always some one higher up to whom German women must curtsy. All women, whatever their husband's rank, must curtsy to a Royal Prince. Unmarried girls curtsy to married women and kiss their hands. Men, on meeting women, always kiss their hands.
Berlin is certainly the gossip headquarters of the world. Some years ago the whole town was invaded by a mania for anonymous letter writing, and when the smoke had cleared away few were left with unriddled reputations.
It is the fashion of the present court, however, to be very puritanical. No such little affairs are going on publicly, as have occurred in the annals of the Hohenzollern family. For even the old Emperor William, grandfather of the present Kaiser, had numerous love affairs. The tree is still pointed out near the Tiergarten where he met Princess Radziwill every day.
And the Chancellor's palace was once the home of another royal "friend."