It was these royal games of cards at the Court of Versailles which contributed in no small measure to the downfall of the old French monarchy, and to the outbreak of the great revolution in Paris a hundred years ago. The ill-fated Queen Marie-Antoinette of France became an inveterate gambler. It was her craze for high play that led her to admit not only to her court, but also to her card-table, parvenus of doubtful reputation and of questionable antecedents, such as the infamous Cagliostro, soi-disant Count of St. Germain, and others of his class, whose only merit in her eyes was that they were rich and willing to lose their money without counting it. Indeed, the celebrated diamond necklace scandal, which compromised to such a terrible degree the reputation of this French queen, and precipitated the overthrow of the throne, would have been impossible had it not been for her gambling propensities.
[Illustration: IN THE WHITE HALL After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo]
The "spiel-cour" only takes place on the eve of the wedding of a member of the Hohenzollern family. It is held in the weisse-saal of the Berlin schloss, or palace. The kaiser and the kaiserin, with the bridal pair, seat themselves at a card table under a canopy of gold brocade, adorned with the imperial arms. The other royal personages sit at card-tables lower down on the dais on each side. The invited guests then pass before their majesties, precisely as at the "défiler-cour."
The "sprech-cour" is, as its name signifies, a kind of conversazione. The persons invited are partitioned off, according to their ranks, in different rooms, through which their majesties promenade. Those not personally known to the emperor and empress are introduced by the masters of ceremonies in attendance, and others with whom their majesties are already acquainted are honored by a short conversation.
"Trauer-cours," or mourning levées, are held immediately after the death of the reigning sovereign, and are exceedingly impressive, mainly by reason of the flowing robes and peculiar sable-hued attire which the ladies of the royal family of Prussia and of their courts are compelled by tradition and etiquette to adopt. Moreover, all the apartments are draped in black, the gilded ornaments being shrouded in crape. The last of these mourning courts was held by Empress Frederick, in the place of her dying husband, on the demise of old Emperor William, and so painful and depressing was this occasion, that at her urgent request, no ceremony of the kind was held when "Unser Fritz" in his turn, was gathered to his fathers.
Very stately are the court balls, of which a number are given in the early part of each year, between the First of January and the beginning of Lent. In fact, court balls at Berlin are infinitely less amusing, at any rate to young people, than are analogous entertainments at the Hofburg, at Vienna, or at Buckingham Palace, in London. This is due partly to the fact that Hohenzollern tradition and etiquette require that the proceedings should be inaugurated with the Polonaise, and furthermore, because the waltz has, for nearly forty years, been denied a place in the programme of terpsichorean entertainments at court.
In fact, waltzes have been forbidden ever since an accident which happened to Empress Frederick at a court ball not long after her marriage. She was waltzing with a young nobleman, when suddenly she was tripped up inadvertently by her partner, and precipitated to the floor at the very feet of old Empress Augusta, her mother-in-law. The latter, who was a terrible despot on the score of etiquette, could not bear the idea of a dance which could have the effect of placing a princess of the blood in such an undignified position, and turning a deaf ear to all arguments about the mishap being due to the awkwardness of the dancers, rather than to the dance itself, she vetoed the inclusion of waltzes thenceforth in all programmes of court balls.
Fortunately, no such regulation prevails at the Court of Vienna, where Strauss's waltzes invariably form the most attractive feature of the so-called "hofball" and "ball-bei-hof." There is a great difference in the character of these two state balls at Vienna. To the first, all sorts of people are commanded who are entitled solely by virtue of their official position to appear at court. The second, and far more brilliant one, is restricted to what is known as the court circle, or the elite,—the old blue-blooded aristocracy,—alone.
So far Emperor William has resisted all the pressure brought to bear upon him by the princesses and ladies of his court to revive the waltz, taking the ground that it is more conducive than any other dance to ridiculous mishaps on the highly polished and parqueted floors of the royal and imperial palaces. Even with the polka, the schottische and the mazurka, to which the round dances are now limited, there are so many accidents that some time ago the kaiser summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and around Berlin, and instructed them to direct those officers who were not able to dance properly, to abstain from attempting to do so at the imperial entertainments. The result is that young officers are now put through their paces by their seniors, and have to display a certain proficiency in dances around the billiard or mess table before they are allowed to dance at court.
I remember on one occasion at a court ball at Berlin when a young subaltern incurred the anger of the late Prince Frederick-Charles by tripping up his partner. The Red Prince assailed the young officer so bitterly that the crown prince was obliged to intervene.