My first recollection of something amiss in my rôle of Princess of Coburg is, that every evening at our formal banquets my husband took care that I should be served abundantly with good wines. I ultimately became capable of distinguishing a Volney from a Chambertin, a Voslaver from a Villanyi, and one champagne from another.
The body thus trained to the practice of something more or less akin to gluttony, the soul of necessity followed its example. I extended my range of literature, and I became familiar with books which the Queen and the Princess Clémentine would not have believed could have been given me by the person by whom they were put into my hands.
In the days of my open rebellion people were scandalized by certain liberties of speech and manner which I wilfully exaggerated. But who first taught me them? And, once again, where should I have gone and what would have become of me if God had not put in my way the incomparable man who alone had the courage to say to me: "Madame, you are a King's daughter. You are about to go astray. A Christian woman revenges herself on infamy by rising above it and not by descending to its level."
And so, stunned and intoxicated in every way, I reviewed the family of Coburg and their various palaces and castles. Finally I found the palace in Vienna which was destined to be my principal residence.
I positively turned cold on entering it. The palace certainly looks imposing from the outside, but the interior is most gloomy, especially the staircase. I only like the salon in "point de Beauvais" originally intended for Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting.
My room made me shudder. What? Was this really the setting which had been prepared to receive the freshness of my seventeen years! A student of Bonn, where the prince had graduated, might have liked it, but a girl, who had only recently become a young woman!... Impossible. Try, then, to imagine a fairly large room, the walls fitted half-way up with small cupboards of dark wood with glass doors, and blue curtains behind which I never wished to look! Certain pieces of furniture were Gothic in style. In the centre of this paradise stood an immense glass case full of souvenirs of the prince's travels; stuffed birds with long beaks, armour, bronzes, ivories, Buddhas and pagodas; my heart sickened at the sight. And, worse than all, there was no private entrance or annexe, only a narrow dark corridor, which was used by the servants. To get to my room I had to pass through that of the prince, which was approached through a kind of salon; all the rooms communicated and showed not a vestige of taste. Massive old furniture upholstered in rep a century old was offered to the eyes of youth! All was old, ordinary, sombre. Hardly a flower, nothing comfortable, nothing matching. As to a bathroom, there was not a sign of one. There were only two baths in the whole palace; they were far away from each other, and of positively archaic construction. And, as for the rest—it is better left unsaid!
My first active objection was to this anti-hygienic organization, and the lack of necessities for my immediate use. This state of things almost broke my heart. I was told, however, that the illustrious grandparents were quite content with what had been given me.
One knows that use is a second nature. Princess Clémentine did not notice the things which troubled me, and even the glass case with the stuffed birds charmed her. She admired her son's collection, fortunately without knowing or understanding all that it contained, as in our palace of Budapest I saw some very unique pieces; souvenirs of Yoshivara which a young woman could not look at without blushing, even after an expert hand had lifted the veil from her inexperienced eyes.
What a school! However, thanks to the Bacchic régime organized by my husband, things went on indifferently well after the storm of our début in domesticity.
Our fundamental incompatibility first appeared at the Coburg Palace in the presence of the Princess Clémentine, over a cup of café-au-lait. On our honeymoon the prince had told me that a well-born person should never drink black coffee. Such is the German conviction. Germany can no more imagine coffee without milk than she can imagine the sun without the moon. However, ever since I ceased to take nature's nourishment I have never been able to drink milk, I have never drunk it, and I never do. My husband took it into his head that he would make me drink milk, especially in coffee, as, if he failed, the traditions, the constitutions, and the foundations of all that was German would be shattered.