Goethe is my favourite author; he is the friend and companion whom I love at all times. I am familiar with the great French authors, but none of them, in my opinion, attains the mental serenity of Goethe or gives me so much repose of mind.
I have a penchant for the works of Chateaubriand which dates from my youth. The character of René will always appeal to the hearts of women.
With regard to modern books.... But in speaking of literary men and artists it is always necessary to exclude those who are living, so I will say nothing about modern authors. I will only say that of all theatrical plays (Shakespeare, like God in Heaven, alone excepted) the French repertory, in my opinion, is the most varied and the most interesting, and through the facilities which I have had of hearing plays in the principal European languages, I think I am able to judge. I am speaking now of the dramatic theatre. The works and the representations of the lyric theatre appear generally more remarkable, and the companies are more conscientious in Germany and Austria and even in Italy, than in France.
Outside Paris and Monte Carlo it is difficult to find, even in the most charming countries, what all unimportant German towns possess—a comfortable theatre, good music, good singers.
How strange are different temperaments: this one is more musical, that one is more learned, this one is more philosophical, that one is more imaginative; it seems as though Providence, in creating diversities in races and characters, had wished to instil into men's hearts the necessity of amalgamating their different talents, in order to be happy in this world. But Providence, whilst endowing men with genius, has neglected to make them less foolish and less wicked.
CHAPTER III
The Queen
The Queen was the daughter of Joseph Antoine Jean, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria (the last Palatin, greatly venerated by the Hungarians), and his third wife, Marie Dorothée Guillemine Caroline, Princess of Wurtemburg.
Affianced to Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, heir to the throne of Belgium, Marie Henriette of Austria married him by proxy at Schönbrunn on August 10, 1853, and in person, according to the Almanach de Gotha, in Brussels on the 22nd of the same month.
By this marriage the Royal House of Belgium, already connected with those of France, Spain, England and Prussia, became allied to the reigning families of Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, etc.
The young queen was the daughter of a good and simple mother, herself a model of virtue. Her brothers were the Archduke Joseph, a gallant soldier who had three horses killed under him at Sadowa, and the Archduke Stephen, the idol of my childhood, who was banished from the Court of Vienna because he was too popular. He ended his days in exile at the Château of Schaumbourg in Germany.