THE CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY WITH PRINCESS CECILIE AS FIANCÉS
for us, which performance I greatly enjoyed, especially the sword dance. Their horses seem to possess quite a special intelligence and to have been circus trained. I took photographs of the company in their Peterhof barracks and later sent a copy to each member.
Grand Duchess Anastasia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Grand Duke Michael-Michaelovitch, was also spending her summer at Michaelovka. She often invited my aunt to dinner, but these invitations to help to amuse “Satanasia”—as she is nicknamed in Germany—were sometimes a doubtful pleasure even to my aunt, as the task must have been a difficult one at times.
Grand Duchess Anastasia was no longer what is called a “young” woman, but she had a beautiful figure and was very striking-looking. She, too, affected the wearing of sailor-hats—and thick white veils!
Princess Cecilie, her daughter, was very attached to my young cousin Olga and often came to tea with us. The German Crown Prince and she had met at the same house previously and had become almost secretly engaged, as there were difficulties in the way of their union. The Kaiser was against the marriage, but the young people met again the following winter at Cannes—this, in spite of furious messages from the War Lord recalling his son to Germany, but the Crown Prince paid no heed to them, so it is related. It is also told by people who met the fiancés on the Riviera that their eyes were sometimes swollen by tears shed because of the Emperor’s resistance, which was caused by his dislike of Grand Duchess Anastasia, whom he always refused to receive at Court since the marriage.
Although Princess Cecilie is not as handsome as her mother, yet she is tall and graceful and most attractive.
The vision of a throne must have had a great deal to do with her choice, I fancy; and she was reputed to have said that she would only consent to marry a “throne”!
At the Russian Court it was rather expected that she might have married the Tzar’s brother, but he never paid her any attention, and she declared to her lady-in-waiting that there were too many bombs in Russia and that she no longer wished to remain there!
One of the favourite games of Grand Duke Michael-Alexandrovitch, the Tzar’s brother and at that time his heir, was to place a potato in a pail of water and then get his friends down on all fours to lean over the pail and with their mouths try to extract the wretched thing—usually with such results as might be imagined, some clumsy jaws sinking so deep into the water as almost to cause their owner’s death by drowning, while the potato seemed to take pleasure in their discomfiture by rising and sinking at every touch to a most alarming degree.