My Own Affairs

by Princess of Belgium Louise

"She might get a divorce," he thought to himself. "She might marry again."

I had thought of divorce. This might well have to come much later. But if I could not help freeing myself from a promise to a man who had destroyed the reasons which were the basis of the spoken vow, I hesitated about freeing myself from my vows to an invisible and silent God, who does not corrupt, deceive or persecute.

The indissolubility of marriage is one thing; the severance of the ties of the flesh is another. The longer I live the more I have become convinced that divorce is a scourge. We must have courage to admit that individual cases ought to be considered of no account, the interest of the community must alone be considered. The higher the value that is set on marriage the better will society become. The marriage tie has become something excessively fragile, and as a result society possesses no solidity. The Church is right. But who among us does not stumble, and which of us does not disregard the fact that Divine law is essentially a human law?

The count received at Nice the seconds of the Prince of Coburg, to whom the Court of Francis Joseph had relegated this duty. The duel brought the two adversaries face to face in the Cavalry Riding School at Vienna in February, 1898. The lieutenant fired twice in the air, and twice the general fired at the lieutenant. They were then handed swords. The lieutenant continued to treat the general with respect and touched him lightly on the right hand.

He thus added to the feelings of hatred which the prince already had towards him. Three weeks later he was implicated in that abominable story of the forged bills of exchange which was entirely an invention, and to which, later, the Reichsrath accorded full justice.

The impossible judgment which pretended to dishonour one of the most noble of men would never have been pronounced if I had been called as a witness.

But my enemies hastened to have me incarcerated. My evidence was suppressed and the count was condemned.

A man still lives, silent and hidden, who, if I reckon rightly, must be seventy-five years old. I write these lines hoping that he will be able to read them before he disappears finally from the world.

Now, when my memory invokes him, I see him standing at the threshold of the madhouse into which his hatred had caused me to be thrown, and I see him at the gate of the prison where he had caused Count Geza Mattachich to be confined. But I should like him to know that his victims have pardoned him. They could, to-day, demand satisfaction from Austrian justice, now freed from the constraints of former years. His victims will spare him. Let Him who will judge us all, judge this old man. I do not even know who were the instruments of his vengeance.

Not long since in Vienna a poor creature three-parts blind and with one foot in the grave was pointed out to me, and I heard the name of the Jewish lawyer, now repudiated by all that is estimable in Jewry in Austria, who was the agent, the instigator, and the counsellor of the implacable hatred which determined on my destruction.