The discussion took place before the Princess Clémentine, who always drank milk in her coffee. But her affectionate kindness could not overcome the stubbornness of my stomach. I could see that I was offending her. Her son became furious to the extent of saying most painful and unpleasant things, and I answered him in like manner. The princess, although deaf, felt that something was the matter, and we restrained ourselves on her account, but the blow had fallen; henceforth we both had café-au-lait on the brain!
I relate little episodes like this because life is a mosaic of small things which cement great desires or high sentiments, and which of themselves express the daily necessities to which we are slaves. Human existence is a tragedy or a comedy in two acts which take place in the drawing-room and the bedroom. The rest is only accessory.
What a bungle nearly all people of exalted rank make in fulfilling the obligations of appearing to live! We forget the words of Franklin: "Time is the material of which life is made."
I reproach myself bitterly to-day for having led such an empty life, for having lived such an existence of anguish of mind. I have not sufficiently known the true life, which is that of the soul; if I had realized this, with what distinguished personages I might have associated, with what authors, scholars and artists have surrounded myself!
But could I really have done so?
My highest desires were criticized, contradicted and repulsed.
The prince, my husband, from the standpoint of his superior age, instructed me in everything.
People were afterwards astonished at my expenditure—at my numerous gowns....
Oh, God! I nearly became mad through the force of this continual restraint. One fine day I burst my bonds!
Oh! this palace of Coburg, this residence where the slightest frivolous fancy, the smallest evidence of Parisian taste imported from Brussels, provoked harsh words; this soupçon of a décolletage which caused jealousy; this desire to live a little for myself, without being submissive to the rigorous routine of a barracks which aroused such storms. Mon Dieu! when I think of all this—the stuffed birds, the unhealthy books, the dirty jokes, and the daily miseries of my life—I am at a loss to know how I endured it. I ask myself how I could have resisted so long? It was worse in the long run than being shut up in the madhouse. The crime is sometimes less horrible than the criminal. There are moral deformities which constitute an offence at every turn, and in the end one becomes exasperated with them. I do not know to what extremes I should have gone if this life had continued. I have always looked upon the strength which permitted me, at the age of twenty, to break away from my princely cage as a direct help from Heaven. Even had I been able to foresee to what excess hatred and fury would reach, I would still have broken away. A palace can become a hell, and the worst hell is that where one suffocates behind gilded windows. Titles count for nothing—a bad household is a bad household. Two people are united, the same chain holds them irrevocably together. Certain couples manage to get on, others cannot. It is a question of temper and conditions. Neither the prince nor I could accustom ourselves to the differences which separated us. This permanent conflict, which was at first latent and which afterwards became open war, daily widened the abyss between us into which so much finally disappeared.