WHAT I FOUND OUT IN THE HOUSE OF A GERMAN PRINCE
Stories of Intimate Talks with the Hohenzollerns
Told by an English-American Governess
These true stories reveal for the first time the "inside workings" of the German Court. They are told by a woman who overheard conversations between the members of the House of Hohenzollern and the military and diplomatic castes. She was governess in a German princely house at the outbreak of the war, having secured her position through Prince Henry of Prussia, whom she met in Washington, during his visit to the United States. Her grandfather was an admiral in the United States Navy. She tells frankly of her conversations with the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, General von Bernhardi, the Krupps, Count Zeppelin, General von Kluck, Herr Dernburg, and important secret service people, who took her into their confidences. These revelations (which have been published by Frederick A. Stokes Co., of New York) are most absorbing reading. Here we are necessarily limited to a selection of but six anecdotes from the hundreds of entrancing stories in her book. The book is a valuable record of her experiences as governess of two young princes at their game, "destroying London before supper," to her final escape in disguise after the war began.
By a coincidence, it was five years ago, on the day of my internment in a German castle last August (1914), that I undertook to teach English and other things to the children of that castle's owner. During four of those years I did my duty to my three little charges as well as I knew how. For the rest of the time, up to two days before the declaration of war between France and Germany, my conduct may have been questionable: but that was because I put duty to my country ahead of duty to the family of a German prince. They were my employers; they trusted me, and I am not sure whether I decided rightly or wrongly. All I know is that I would do the same if I had to live through the experience again....
As for the most important men who visited them, it is different. I owe those persons nothing, and see no reason for disguising their names. Most of them have now, of their own accord, thrown off their peace-masks, and revealed themselves as enemies of England, if not of humanity, outside German "kultur." What I have to tell will but show how long they have held their present sentiments....
[1] I—A CONVERSATION WITH THE KAISER
My two Princes and their cousin were having an English lesson with me in a summer-house close to their earthworks. It had been raining.
I was reading aloud a boys' book by George Henty which I had brought among others from England for that purpose, and stopping at exciting parts to get the children to criticize it in English. We were having an animated discussion, and all three were clamoring for me to "go on—go on!" when I heard footsteps crunching on the gravel path which led to the summer-house. I did not look up, because I thought it might be Lieutenant von X—— who was coming, and my charges were too much excited to pay attention. But presently I realized that the crunching had ceased, close to us. My back was half turned to the doorway, and before beginning to read again, I looked round rather impatiently.