It is generally believed that Princess Charlotte's missing diary is to-day in the possession of the emperor, after having been seized by the police among the correspondence of Duke Ernest-Gunther's fair friend; for the former very warm affection manifested by William for his eldest sister, arising from the belief that she had been subjected to as harsh treatment as he imagined himself to have received at the hands of their mother, the imperious, masterful and immensely clever Empress Frederick, appears since the anonymous letter episode to have given way to feelings of distrust, and even dislike. Princess Charlotte and her husband have been ever since that time virtually banished from the Court of Berlin, at which they are rarely if ever seen. Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen, was transferred to the command of the troops at Breslau, although he has but little taste for a military career, and is far more devoted to art, literature, music, and the drama, than to soldiering. At Berlin his duties as a general were more or less titular, and he had all the leisure which he required for the researches into the affairs of modern and ancient Greece, which have won for him celebrity as one of the most erudite Hellenists of the present time. He was surrounded by a congenial circle of friends possessed of the same disposition as himself, and had access to some of the finest libraries and museums in the world, while his still charming wife was the most conspicuous figure in a circle composed of all that was most elegant, witty, brilliant and clever in the so-called "Athens on the Spree" Indeed, her palace in the Thiergarten was the centre of everything that was eclectic and brilliant, and her salons were the rendezvous of all that was best in Berlin society.
Imagine, therefore, a prince and princess with tastes and dispositions such as these compelled to close up their lovely home, to bid adieu to all their friends, and to take up their residence in the dullest, most uninteresting and provincial of cities, situated in the least picturesque portion of the empire; where the only society consists of bureaucrats of the most starchy description, with no ideas beyond their office, or of impoverished landowners, belonging to the district, whose nobiliary pretensions can only be compared with the paucity of their resources, and whose conversation and even intellect is restricted to mangelwurzels, potatoes, and the different grades of fertilizers.
Breslau, to say the whole truth, is a city utterly without any attractions, either social or intellectual; the only other royal personage in the place is an eccentric Wurtemberg princess, a cousin of the now reigning King of Wurtemberg. This lady sacrificed her royal rank and prerogatives in order to marry a physician of the name of Dr. Willim, who had attended her father in his last illness. She could not, however, bring herself to descend to the social level of her husband, who is of plebeian origin, and a mere commoner, but thought that she had done enough in that direction when she contented herself with the name and title of Baroness Kirchbach, which she now bears. Of late years she has become a convert to socialism, much to the dismay and distress of her eminently respectable husband, and at the last Socialist Congress held at Breslau, took a very prominent part in the proceedings, arrayed in a blouse of flaming red.
I am very sorry to have to destroy the romance by which the name of this Princess Wilhelmina of Wurtemberg has until now been surrounded, especially that portion thereof which represents her as a lovely and interesting woman. The truth is that she is fearfully homely, both in face and figure, while her eccentricities are such that in America, for instance, she would be described as a "crank." Thus she distinguishes herself through her inordinate fondness for cats, goats and rabbits; escorted by whole herds of which she is wont to wander through the gloomy streets of Breslau. Her costumes are invariably as queer as the one in which she appeared on the platform of the Socialist Congress. Compare this strange figure so utterly unfeminine in its lack of all elegance, with the dainty, spirituelle Princess Charlotte! Yet Baroness von Kirchbach is the only lady of sufficiently lofty birth either in Breslau or in the vicinity to associate with Princess Charlotte on terms of any thing like equality!
It is probable that Princess Charlotte and her husband will be kept at Breslau, virtually exiled from the Court of Berlin, until the accession of Prince Bernhardt to the throne of Saxe-Meiningen, through the death of his aged father. It is naturally surprising that Prince Bernhardt, as heir to his father's crown, should not take up his residence in the capital of the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, instead of being condemned to vegetate at Breslau. The fact of the matter is, however, that the atmosphere of the Saxe-Meiningen capital is even less congenial than that of Breslau to Prince Bernhardt and Princess Charlotte, for the old duke is morganatically married to an actress of the local theatre, upon whom he has conferred the title of Baroness Helburg, and the princess finds it difficult to associate with this person.
How unrelenting William remains with regard to his sister, may be gathered from the fact that when her only daughter, Princess Fedora, was married the other day at Breslau, he himself, and the empress, pointedly avoided being present at the ceremony, although they were within a couple of hours' distance of Breslau at the time, spending the day in shooting. The slight thus placed upon Princess Charlotte and her husband was all the more marked, as not only were all the other members of the reigning house of Prussia present, but even the aged King of Saxony, the King of Wurtemberg and the Grand Duke of Hesse, had all three taken the trouble to come from long distances in order to attend the wedding, at which Queen Victoria was represented by several members of her family, who had travelled from England for the purpose. The sensation created, not only over all Germany, but even throughout Europe by the absence of the emperor and empress from the wedding of the only child of the hereditary Prince and Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, when they were actually in the neighborhood, was so great that it can only be assumed that the emperor intended to give a public manifestation of his continued ill-will towards his sister; and that his so kind-hearted and good-natured consort should have thus joined him in this act of public discourtesy, can be explained by a story current at Berlin to the effect that she, too, feels that she can neither forget nor forgive the mingled ridicule, satire and even downright contempt expressed not only about herself, but about the emperor, her sisters, and her mother in the missing diary of Princess Charlotte.
Another reason why Princess Charlotte and her husband are forced to conform themselves to the command, by means of which the sovereign keeps them almost permanently at Breslau, is that Prince Bernhardt has little or no money at all, as long as his father lives, and that the couple are, therefore, almost entirely dependent upon the allowance which the princess receives as a member of the reigning house of Prussia. Now it is the kaiser who, as chief of the family of Hohenzollern, controls all its vast private possessions, and, if at any time, a member of the House of Prussia declines to yield obedience to his orders, he is empowered by the statutes of the Hohenzollern family to suspend the allowances of those guilty of such insubordination. Thus it is greatly because they are so poor that the prince and princess invariably travel incognito when they go abroad, although it has been asserted that the kaiser carries his irritation against his sister to the extent of declining to permit her to leave Germany, save on the understanding that neither she nor her husband will anywhere exact, or receive the honors due to their royal rank.
At the time of the visit of the Emperor and Empress of Germany to Rome, during the silver-wedding festivities of King Humbert and Queen Marguerite of Italy, Prince Bernhardt and Princess Charlotte were in the Eternal City, entirely ignored by the Italian court, as well as by all the foreign royalties present. Indeed, while the emperor, and even the pettiest foreign princelets invited for the occasion, were driving about the streets and parks in royal equipages, the kaiser's sister and brother-in-law had to content themselves with the dingiest of hack cabs, and also with the rôle of ordinary sight-seers.
Those who imagine that Princess Charlotte prefers an incognito rôle to that of a royal princess are singularly mistaken. No one is fonder than she is of the prerogatives of rank, and like all clever and pretty women, she is ever eager to be the centre of attraction, and the object of much homage. She cannot, therefore, be said to relish the treatment and neglect to which she is subjected through her brother's displeasure.
In the Berlin great world the princess has always been popular, not merely by reason of her devotion to society, but because a certain amount of sympathy was felt for her in connection with the treatment which she had received at the hands of her mother. For some strange reason or other, Princess Charlotte was never appreciated by her mother, who showed her preference for her younger daughters in a very marked manner. Charlotte was always treated with a far greater degree of strictness than any of the other girls, in spite of her being vastly superior to them in intellect and in looks. Princess Charlotte is still a very charming woman, and was in her younger days a singularly attractive girl, one of the fairest indeed of all Queen Victoria's numerous descendants, but her sisters are inclined to be homely, absolutely deficient in feminine elegance or chic, and, while accomplished, are extremely dull, and not a bit sparkling or witty.