The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) by Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
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Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy >> The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)
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The so-called "spiel-cour" still keeps its name, implying card
playing, although, as a matter of fact, cards are never played at
court now. In former times they constituted a very important feature
of court entertainment, and the "spiel-cour," or "le jeu de leurs
majestes," was the function to which those whom the anointed of the
Lord desired to honor were most frequently bidden. In earlier days,
as soon as the guests had made their bows to the sovereign and to the
princes and princesses of the blood, card-tables were set out, and
gambling commenced, those to whom their majesties wished to accord
special distinction and honor receiving royal commands, through the
chamberlains-in-waiting to take their places at the card-tables of the
king, or of the queen, as the case might be.
It was these royal games of cards at the Court of Versailles which
contributed in no small measure to the downfall of the old French
monarchy, and to the outbreak of the great revolution in Paris a
hundred years ago. The ill-fated Queen Marie-Antoinette of France
became an inveterate gambler. It was her craze for high play that
led her to admit not only to her court, but also to her card-table,
parvenus of doubtful reputation and of questionable antecedents, such
as the infamous Cagliostro, _soi-disant_ Count of St. Germain, and
others of his class, whose only merit in her eyes was that they were
rich and willing to lose their money without counting it. Indeed,
the celebrated diamond necklace scandal, which compromised to such a
terrible degree the reputation of this French queen, and precipitated
the overthrow of the throne, would have been impossible had it not
been for her gambling propensities.
[Illustration: IN THE WHITE HALL
_After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo_]
The "spiel-cour" only takes place on the eve of the wedding of a
member of the Hohenzollern family. It is held in the _weisse-saal_ of
the Berlin _schloss_, or palace. The kaiser and the kaiserin, with the
bridal pair, seat themselves at a card table under a canopy of gold
brocade, adorned with the imperial arms. The other royal personages
sit at card-tables lower down on the dais on each side. The invited
guests then pass before their majesties, precisely as at the
"defiler-cour."
The "sprech-cour" is, as its name signifies, a kind of
_conversazione_. The persons invited are partitioned off, according
to their ranks, in different rooms, through which their majesties
promenade. Those not personally known to the emperor and empress are
introduced by the masters of ceremonies in attendance, and others with
whom their majesties are already acquainted are honored by a short
conversation.
"Trauer-cours," or mourning levees, are held immediately after the
death of the reigning sovereign, and are exceedingly impressive,
mainly by reason of the flowing robes and peculiar sable-hued attire
which the ladies of the royal family of Prussia and of their courts
are compelled by tradition and etiquette to adopt. Moreover, all the
apartments are draped in black, the gilded ornaments being shrouded
in crape. The last of these mourning courts was held by Empress
Frederick, in the place of her dying husband, on the demise of old
Emperor William, and so painful and depressing was this occasion, that
at her urgent request, no ceremony of the kind was held when "_Unser
Fritz_" in his turn, was gathered to his fathers.
Very stately are the court balls, of which a number are given in
the early part of each year, between the First of January and the
beginning of Lent. In fact, court balls at Berlin are infinitely
less amusing, at any rate to young people, than are analogous
entertainments at the Hofburg, at Vienna, or at Buckingham Palace, in
London. This is due partly to the fact that Hohenzollern tradition and
etiquette require that the proceedings should be inaugurated with the
Polonaise, and furthermore, because the waltz has, for nearly
forty years, been denied a place in the programme of terpsichorean
entertainments at court.
In fact, waltzes have been forbidden ever since an accident which
happened to Empress Frederick at a court ball not long after her
marriage. She was waltzing with a young nobleman, when suddenly she
was tripped up inadvertently by her partner, and precipitated to the
floor at the very feet of old Empress Augusta, her mother-in-law. The
latter, who was a terrible despot on the score of etiquette, could
not bear the idea of a dance which could have the effect of placing a
princess of the blood in such an undignified position, and turning
a deaf ear to all arguments about the mishap being due to the
awkwardness of the dancers, rather than to the dance itself, she
vetoed the inclusion of waltzes thenceforth in all programmes of court
balls.
Fortunately, no such regulation prevails at the Court of Vienna, where
Strauss's waltzes invariably form the most attractive feature of the
so-called "hofball" and "ball-bei-hof." There is a great difference
in the character of these two state balls at Vienna. To the first,
all sorts of people are commanded who are entitled solely by virtue of
their official position to appear at court. The second, and far more
brilliant one, is restricted to what is known as the court circle, or
the _elite_,--the old blue-blooded aristocracy,--alone.
So far Emperor William has resisted all the pressure brought to bear
upon him by the princesses and ladies of his court to revive the
waltz, taking the ground that it is more conducive than any other
dance to ridiculous mishaps on the highly polished and parqueted
floors of the royal and imperial palaces. Even with the polka,
the schottische and the mazurka, to which the round dances are now
limited, there are so many accidents that some time ago the kaiser
summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and
around Berlin, and instructed them to direct those officers who were
not able to dance properly, to abstain from attempting to do so at the
imperial entertainments. The result is that young officers are now put
through their paces by their seniors, and have to display a certain
proficiency in dances around the billiard or mess table before they
are allowed to dance at court.
I remember on one occasion at a court ball at Berlin when a young
subaltern incurred the anger of the late Prince Frederick-Charles by
tripping up his partner. The Red Prince assailed the young officer so
bitterly that the crown prince was obliged to intervene.
At a Viennese court ball I once saw the young secretary of a
foreign embassy fall so unfortunately while dancing with one of the
archduchesses that he actually came down in a sitting position on her
face, and caused her nose to bleed. It need scarcely be added that he
left Vienna the next day, and a week later obtained his transfer to
another post.
A short time before the tragedy of Mayerling, Crown Princess Stephanie
had a very nasty fall, owing to the gaucherie of a cavalry officer
with whom she was waltzing. The emperor was terribly annoyed, and
Crown Prince Rudolph spoke his mind in no measured tones to the
offender.
Far more polite was Emperor Napoleon III. when at a Tuileries ball
a middle-aged officer and his fair partner came to grief. As the
mortified warrior scrambled to his feet, the emperor extended a hand
to help him, and turning to the lady, remarked:
"_Madame, c'est la deuxieme fois que j'ai vu tomber monsieur le
colonel. La premiere fois c'etait sur le champ de bataille de
Magenta_." (Madame, this is the second time I have seen the colonel
fall. The first time was on the battlefield of Magenta.)
In order to see the Polonaise danced in all its glory, it must be
witnessed on the occasion of the wedding of some princess of the
reigning house of Prussia, when the dance is headed by a procession of
cabinet ministers, bearing candles or torches, whence it is styled the
"Fackel-tanz," (Torch-dance).
On such an occasion the emperor, the empress and the royal guests
having taken up their places on the dais, under the baldaquin, and
immediately in front of the throne, the less exalted guests ranging
themselves to the right and left of the great white hall, according
to rank and precedence, the court marshal receives orders from his
majesty for the dance to begin. The count thereupon approaches the
royal bride and bridegroom, and bowing low to them, invites them
to take part in the dance. The bridegroom extends his hand to his
consort, and to the sound of a very slow and stately march conducts
her around the hall, preceded by the twelve ministers of state,
walking two by two, those highest in rank coming last. Each, minister
bears in his hand a lighted torch of white perfumed wax. When the
procession returns to the point from which it started, in front of the
throne, the bride approaches the emperor, and with a curtsy invites
his majesty to take part in the dance, and is conducted around the
room by him, the bridegroom going through the same formality with the
empress. As soon as these first three rounds are concluded, the twelve
ministers hand over their wax torches to twelve pages of honor, each
lad being of noble birth, and the bridegroom then similarly invites
the remaining princesses of the blood, two at a time, leading one with
each hand, while the bride goes through the same procedure with two
princes of the blood, until the total list of royal personages has
been exhausted. When the number of royal guests is very large this
dance sometimes lasts nearly two hours.
On ordinary cases, of course, the torches are dispensed with, and the
polonaise only continues long enough to enable the emperor and
empress to march once round, the hall with those guests whom they
wish particularly to honor. On such occasions they are preceded by the
court marshal bearing the wand of grand marshal, by several masters of
the ceremonies, and by picturesquely attired pages of honor.
Court ceremonies have been few and far between during the last ten
or twelve years at Vienna owing to the circumstance that the imperial
family have been almost uninterruptedly in mourning, consequent upon
the successive deaths of Crown Prince Rudolph, Archduke Charles-Louis
and Empress Elizabeth, in addition to a number of less important
members of the imperial family. The ceremonial is very different
from that which prevails at Berlin, and it must be confessed that the
guests are more select, since the Court of Vienna is infinitely
more exclusive than that of Berlin, and requires much more stringent
genealogical qualifications on the part of women admitted to the honor
of presentation. Indeed, there Is no court in Europe more exclusive
than that of Emperor Francis-Joseph, and the threshold of the Hofburg
may be regarded as barred without hope of admission to any lady who is
not endowed with the necessary ancestry, free from all plebeian strain
for at least eight generations on both the father's and the mother's
side.
The presentation of debutantes and of brides ordinarily takes place
prior to the commencement of court balls, and there are no such things
as state concerts or "defiler-cours," as at Berlin, and in England, at
which latter court guests receive their invitations to state balls
by means of large lithographed cards emblazoned with the royal or
imperial arms, on which it is stated that the grand-master of the
Court at Berlin, or the lord chamberlain in London, has been directed
by their majesties, or her majesty, as the case may be, to "command"
the attendance of such and such a person to a ball at court. These
commands are usually sent out about a week or more in advance: but
in Vienna, where it is taken for granted that all the people having
a right to invitations belong to the same intimate circle, cards are
dispensed with, and on the day before the entertainment, sometimes on
the very morning on which it is given, one of the court messengers, or
so-called Hofcouriers, calls at the residence of invited guests with
a long sheet of paper, on which is inscribed the list of _invites._ On
this list, opposite his or her name, the invited person writes yes
or no, indicating thereby acceptance of the imperial command or
prevention by some grave event.
The guests are already assembled in the Hall of Ceremonies before the
imperial party makes its appearance. The ladies all wear court trains,
and in almost every case the bodice of their dress is adorned with
the insignia of the "Sternkreutz" [star cross], an order restricted
exclusively to women, of which the late empress was grand-mistress,
and to possess which even still greater ancestral qualifications are
needed than for presentation at court. The men are all in uniform,
either civilian, military or naval. Indeed it is impossible to find
in Austria any man that has the right to appear at court who does
not possess some sort of uniform. If he happens to be a Hungarian, he
wears the picturesque dress of the great Magyar kingdom, bordered with
priceless furs, adorned with jewels and composed of costly velvets and
silks.
Shortly before the arrival of the imperial procession the grand-master
of ceremonies taps on the floor with his ivory wand of office to
attract attention, and the guests thereupon range themselves along the
two sides of the hall, the ladies to the right and the gentlemen to
the left. Suddenly the folding-doors at the further end of the hall
are flung open, and to the sound of the most inspiriting march that
the conductor of the court orchestra, Edouard Strauss, can devise, the
imperial cortege makes its appearance, preceded by Count Hunyadi, in
his uniform of a cavalry general, and Prince Rudolph Leichtenstein,
each armed with a wand of office. Since the disappearance of the
empress from court life--a disappearance which may be said to have
preceded her death by several years--the emperor has been in the habit
on these occasions of offering his arm to the Duchess of Cumberland,
daughter of King Christian of Denmark, and _de jure_ sovereign duchess
of Brunswick, as the principal foreign royal lady present. Immediately
after him follows the archduke next in the line of succession, now
Francis-Ferdinand, or, failing him, Otto, leading the archduchess
designated to take the place of the first lady of the land, and who at
the present time is Archduchess Maria-Josepha, wife of Archduke Otto.
The imperial procession, consisting of all the archdukes and
archduchesses--there are nearly one hundred of them--and of the
principal members of their households, marches along the avenue thus
formed by the guests, and are welcomed by low curtsies on the part of
the women, and by profound bows on the part of the men. The brilliant
pageant then disappears in the room set apart for the imperial party,
and thereupon the emperor and Archduchess Maria-Josepha return, and
while the emperor passes along in front of the male guests, preceded
by one of the principal dignitaries of his court, either Count
Kalman Hunyadi or Prince Montenuovo, the archduchess, escorted by the
grand-mistress of her court, makes her way along the front rank of the
ladies, bowing to some, extending her hand to be kissed by others, and
chatting familiarly to those who are old friends.
As soon as the emperor and the archduchess reach the end of the line
the emperor passes over to the ladies' side, while the archduchess in
her turn passes along the front rank of the men. The archduchess then
proceeds to the so-called "Rittersaal," and taking her seat on a
sofa, sends her ladies-in-waiting and her chamberlains to bring to her
presence ladies who have presentations to make. With each debutante
the archduchess converses for a few seconds before dismissing her, the
wives of the foreign ambassadors being on these occasions invited to
take a seat beside the archduchess on her sofa while presenting their
countrywomen.
Meanwhile the ball has commenced in the Hall of Ceremonies, and is
usually opened with a waltz. While the dancing is in progress the
emperor strolls about, talking from time to time to some guest.
Foreign ambassadors and envoys usually avail themselves of this
opportunity to present their countrymen to his majesty.
Of course no one is permitted to invite any of the archduchesses or
foreign princesses of the blood who may happen to be present to dance.
It is they who have the privilege of taking the first step in the
matter. Whenever they desire to dance with any man they cause him
to be notified of their wish by their chamberlain in attendance. The
cavalier thus honored is obliged to consider this intimation in the
nature of a command, and all engagements with fair partners of a less
exalted rank, are annulled thereby.
Refreshments are served for the ordinary guests in the "Pietra-Dura"
room, where a superb buffet is set, the tables glittering with gold
plate and Venetian glass. For the imperial princes and princesses the
Hall of Mirrors is generally reserved, and there the scene is even
still more magnificent. By midnight all is over. The court has retired
with the same ceremonial that marked its arrival, and the guests are
looking for their wraps and cloaks. All court entertainments at Vienna
begin early and end early, so as not to interfere unduly with the
emperor's practice of rising at about five o'clock in the morning.
One of the features of the great court functions at Berlin, as well as
at Vienna, which excites the greatest surprise of Americans visiting
Europe for the first time, is that particular form of homage accorded
to royalty which consists in the kissing of the hand or "handkuss."
Not only the hands of the royal and imperial ladies are required
by etiquette to be kissed when offered to gentlemen, but it is also
considered necessary for both men and women to kiss the hand of the
sovereign when he condescends to extend it for the purpose. This
seems, perhaps, less odd at Vienna, as the emperor is a septuagenarian
with snow-white hair and a sad and kindly face, inspiring feelings of
sympathy and loyal affection. Indeed there is nothing out of the way
in a young girl, and even a man of mature years, kissing the hand of a
veteran of the age of Francis-Joseph, just as if he were their father.
But it certainly does appear strange to those from across the Atlantic
who are obtaining their first insight into European court life, to see
not only grey-haired generals, and white-whiskered statesmen, but also
venerable ladies,--grandmothers perhaps--and belonging to the highest
ranks of the nobility kissing the hand of Emperor William.
It has always seemed to me that William must have realized for the
first time his altered rank when old Field-Marshal Moltke, and the
late Prince Bismarck, on hailing him as emperor within a few hours
after his father's death, bent down to kiss his hand. This took place
more or less in private. But shortly afterwards, when he opened the
imperial parliament for the first time as emperor, in the presence of
most of the German sovereigns who had come to Berlin for the purpose,
and had finished reading his speech, and handed it to the chancellor
of the empire, old Bismarck, as he took it, bent almost double to kiss
the hand that was tendering the document to him, in the presence of
the princes and representatives of the entire German empire.
Kissing, it may be added, forms a great feature of court etiquette
in Germany and Austria. It is, for instance, _de rigueur_ that two
sovereigns of equal rank visiting each other, should embrace at least
thrice, no matter how deeply they may detest each other privately!
A petty sovereign will have to content himself with being embraced
merely twice by a monarch such as Francis-Joseph or Emperor William,
while a crown prince or heir apparent will receive only one hug.
Mere princes of the blood receive no kisses at all, but only a hearty
hand-shake, with which they have to be satisfied, and which is, after
all, perhaps the most sensible fashion of greeting.
CHAPTER XV
All royal and imperial people are more or less superstitious,
and neither Emperor William nor his brother monarch at Vienna are
exceptions to the rule. Striking evidence thereof is furnished by the
presence of a large horseshoe cemented into the wall just outside
the fourth window of the first story of Empress Frederick's palace
at Berlin. One day, some time before his accession to the throne, and
before his father was seized with that terrible malady to which he
eventually succumbed, William was invited to dine with his parents.
Finding that he was very late, and knowing the strictness of his
father and mother on the score of punctuality, William directed his
coachman to drive as fast as he could, and the carriage positively
raced up the incline to the portal.
Suddenly one of the big Mecklenburg horses lost his shoe, which in
some extraordinary manner, flew up into the air, dashed through the
first-story window and fell upon the dinner table, right in front
of Frederick and the then crown princess, who, declining to wait
any longer, had just sat down to table. The shoe is reported to have
grazed the nose of the late emperor. At any rate, the fact that it
should have failed to seriously injure anyone is a miracle. It was so
regarded by Frederick, his wife and his children, who deemed the queer
advent of the shoe, and the escape of everybody from injury, as an
indication of good luck. At the suggestion of the present kaiser, it
was thereupon cemented into the wall just outside the window through
which it had come, and was fastened upside down, in order to prevent
the luck from dropping out.
It is not altogether astonishing that royal personages should be prone
to superstition, for in almost every case they are compelled to make
their homes in palaces and castles that have been stained with the
blood of one or more of their ancestors. Ordinary people experience an
uncanny feeling when forced by circumstances to live in houses which
have been the scene of suicide or murder, even when the victims of
the tragedy, or the perpetrators thereof are in no way, even the
most remotely, connected with them. What wonder, then, that royal and
imperial personages should entertain the same kind of superstition and
sentiments with regard to their palaces, when it is borne in mind that
the participants in the drama have been members of their own families!
For months prior to the assassination of Empress Elizabeth,
forebodings of an impending catastrophe were prevalent at the Court
of Vienna, and so imbued was Emperor Francis-Joseph with ominous
presentiments, that he repeatedly exclaimed in the hearing of his
entourage: "Oh, if only this year were at an end!"
These apprehensions on the part of the monarch and his court were due
to an incident which took place on the night of April 24, 1898, and
which was of sufficient importance to be comprised in the regular
report made on the following morning to his military superiors by the
officer of the guard at the Hofburg. It seems that the sentinel posted
in the corridor or hall leading to the chapel was startled almost out
of his senses by seeing the form of a white-clad woman approaching
him, soon after one o'clock in the morning. He at once challenged her,
whereupon the figure turned round, and passed back into the chapel,
where the soldier then observed a light. Hastily summoning assistance,
a strict search was instituted, but the chapel was explored without
any result.
The sentinel in question was a stolid, rather dull-minded Styrian
peasant, who was possessed of but little power of imagination or of
education, and who was entirely ignorant, therefore, of the tradition
according to which a woman in white makes her appearance by night
in the Hofburg at Vienna, either in the chapel or in the adjoining
corridors and halls, whenever any misfortune is about to overtake the
imperial house of Hapsburg.
On each occasion, this spectral appearance to the sentinel on duty
has been described in the report of the officer of the guard on the
following morning, and is absolutely a matter of official record. The
previous visitations of the "white lady" had taken place on the eve
of the shocking tragedy of Mayerling; a few weeks previous to the
shooting of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; and prior to the burning to
death of the daughter of old Archduke Albert, at Schoenbrunn; while
the very fact that there should have been no supernatural appearance
of this kind at the time when Archduke John vanished from human ken,
leads the imperial family and the Court of Austria to still doubt the
story, according to which he perished at sea while on his way round
Cape Horn, from La Plata to Valparaiso.
I do not know the origin of the "white lady" tradition at Vienna,
nor have I ever been able to ascertain anything definite about her
history, but there is plenty of documentary evidence, as well as
a wonderful array of records concerning "the white lady of the
Hohenzollerns," who makes her appearance in the old palace at Berlin
whenever death is about to overtake a member of the reigning house of
Prussia. The late Emperor Frederick--the most matter-of-fact and least
imaginative prince of his line--was particularly interested in the
matter, and collected all the evidence that he could upon the subject,
for the purpose of depositing it in the archives of his family.
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