Love affairs of the Courts of Europe

by Thornton Hall

Such were the dazzling and mysterious words spoken by the gipsy woman in the Russian forest, a year or more before Natalie first saw the Prince who was destined to make them true. But it was not at Nice that opportunity came to Milan. It was an accidental meeting in Paris, some months later, that made his path clear. During a visit to the French capital he met a young Servian officer, a distant kinsman, one Alexander Konstantinovitch, who confided to him, over their wine and cigarettes, the story of his infatuation for the daughter of a Russian colonel, who at the time was staying with her aunt, the Princess Murussi. He raved of her beauty and her charm, and concluded by asking the Prince to accompany him that he might make the acquaintance of the Lieutenant's bride-to-be.

Arrived at their destination, the Prince and his companion were graciously received by the Princess Murussi, but Milan had no eyes for the dignified lady who gave him such a flattering reception; they were drawn as by a magnet to the girl by her side—"a child with a woman's grace and an angel's soul smiling in her eyes"; the incarnation of his dreams, the very girl whose beauty, though he had caught but one passing glimpse of it, had so intoxicated his brain a few months earlier at Nice.

"Allow me," said the Lieutenant, "to introduce to Your Highness Natalie Ketschko, my affianced wife." Milan's face flushed with surprise and anger at the words. What was this trick that had been played on him? Had Konstantinovitch then brought him here only to humiliate him? But before he could recover from his indignation and astonishment, the Princess said chillingly, "Pardon me, Monsieur Konstantinovitch, you are not speaking the truth. My niece, Colonel Ketschko's daughter, is not your affianced wife. You are too premature."

Thus rebuffed, the Lieutenant was not encouraged to prolong his stay; and Milan was left, reassured, to bask in the smiles of the Princess and her lovely niece, and to pursue his wooing under the most favourable auspices. This first visit was quickly followed by others; and before a week had passed the Prince had won the prize on which his heart was set, and with it a dower of five million roubles. Now followed halcyon days for the young lovers—long hours of sweet communion, of anticipation of the happy years that stretched in such a golden vista before them. It was a love-idyll such as delighted the romantic heart of Paris; and congratulations and presents poured on the young couple; "the very beggars in the streets," we are told, "blessing them as they drove by."

"Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing," and Milan's wooing was as brief as it was blissful. He was all impatience to possess fully the prize he had won; preparations for the nuptials were hastened, but, before the crowning day dawned, once more the voice of warning spoke.

A few days before the wedding, as Milan was leaving the Murussi Palace, he was accosted by a woman, who craved permission to speak to him, a favour which was smilingly accorded. "I know you," said the woman, thus permitted to speak, "although you do not know me. You are the Prince of Servia; I am a servant in the household of the Princess Murussi. Your Highness, listen! I love Natalie. I have known and loved her since she was a child; and I beg of you not to marry her. Such a union is doomed to unhappiness. You love to rule, to command. So does Natalie; and it is she who will be the ruler. You are utterly unsuited for each other, and nothing but great unhappiness can possibly come from your union."

To this warning Milan turned a smiling face and a deaf ear, as Natalie had done to the voice of the gipsy. A fig for such gloomy prophecy! They were ideally happy in the present, and the future should be equally bright, however ravens might croak. Thus, one October day in 1875, Vienna held high holiday for the nuptials of the handsome Prince and his beautiful bride; and it was through avenues densely packed with cheering onlookers that Natalie made her triumphal progress to the altar, in her flower-garlanded dress of white satin, a tiara of diamonds flashing from the blackness of her hair, no brighter than the brilliance of her eyes, her face irradiated with happiness.

That no Royalty graced their wedding was a matter of no moment to Milan and Natalie, whose happiness was thus crowned; and when at the subsequent banquet Milan said, "I wish from my very heart that every one of my subjects, as well as everybody I know, could be always as happy as I am this moment," none who heard him could doubt the sincerity of his words, or see any but a golden future for so ideal a union of hearts.

By Servia her young Princess was received with open arms of welcome. "Her reception," we are told, "was beyond description. The festivities lasted three days, and during that time the love of the people for their Prince, and their admiration of the beauty and charm of his bride, were beyond words to describe." Never did Royal wedded life open more full of bright promise, and never did consort make more immediate conquest of the affections of her husband's subjects. "No one could have believed that this marriage, which was contracted from love and love alone, would have ended in so tragic a manner, or that hate could so quickly have taken the place of love."

But the serpent was quick to show his head in Natalie's new paradise. Before she had been many weeks a wife, stories came to her ears of her husband's many infidelities. Now the story was of one lady of her Court, now of another, until the horrified Princess knew not whom to trust or to respect. Strange tales, too, came to her (mostly anonymously) of Milan's amours in Paris, in Vienna, and half a dozen of his other haunts of pleasure, until her love, poisoned at its very springing, turned to suspicion and distrust of the man to whom she had given her heart.