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

M >> 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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Perhaps the most important testimony in this connection are the sworn
statements signed by Prince Frederick of Prussia, and a number of his
fellow officers, to all of whom the "White Lady" is declared to have
appeared as they sat together on the eve of the prince's death at the
battle of Saalfeld in 1806.

Moreover, Thomas Carlyle went to no little trouble to procure evidence
when writing the history of Frederick the Great, that the "White Lady"
had appeared to that famous monarch on the eve of his death. The king,
it is asserted, was on the high road to recovery from his illness,
when suddenly one morning he declared that he had seen the white-clad
spectre during the night, that his hour had come, and that it was
useless to ward off death any longer. So he refused to take any
further medicine or nourishment, turned his face to the wall, and
died.

The "White Lady" is considered sufficiently real by the hard-headed
matter-of-fact commanders of the Prussian army, to lead to their
adopting special measures whenever her appearance is reported. The
moment she is seen, the sentinels within and around the royal palace
are at once doubled. The object of this is not so much to protect the
royal family from harm, as to prevent the sentinels themselves from
following the example of the two who shot themselves while on guard
at the palace in the year 1888, one, shortly before the death of old
Emperor William, the other, a few days before the demise of Emperor
Frederick, the men in each case declaring before they expired that
they had seen the "White Lady," their story being in a measure
borne out by the fact that their faces even after death seemed to be
distorted with terror.

The appearances of the "White Lady" are kept as quiet as possible,
the matter is never mentioned at court, save in whispers, and nothing
concerning her is ever permitted to appear in print in the Berlin
papers.

This dread apparition that forebodes evil to the reigning house of
Prussia, is supposed to be the spectre of Countess Agnes Orlamunde,
who murdered her first husband, as well as her two children, who
constituted an obstacle to her marriage with, one of the ancestors of
the kaiser.

The palace in which the spectre of this historic murderess appears
is a huge and massive structure of grey stone, the walls of which
are pierced by over one thousand windows, and which contains over six
hundred rooms. Commenced four hundred and fifty years ago by one of
the earliest electors of Brandenburg, it has been added to by
each sovereign in turn, until it has attained its present enormous
dimensions.

There is probably no structure of the kind in the world the building
of which has cost so many lives. Indeed the very mortar used in its
construction may be said to have been mixed with blood. The people of
Berlin, who from time immemorial have been noted for their democracy
and their spirit of independence, have opposed from the very outset
the erection of this building in their midst as calculated to endanger
their liberty, and many were the attempts that they made to arrest
the undertaking, and to destroy the work already accomplished. Bloody
fights took place between the mob and the troops appointed to protect
the workmen, and on two occasions the populace even went so far as to
cut the dams, and destroy the flood gates, deluging the foundations
with the waters of the River Spree, and drowning each time many
hundreds of workmen.

Even at the present moment Emperor William is engaged in an angry
fight with, the people of Berlin in connection with this palace.
He wishes to surround it with a terrace and a garden, which will
naturally add to its beauty. At present the windows look onto the
public streets, a fact which, in these days of bombs and dynamite
outrages, renders it difficult to protect with any degree of
efficiency. The municipality and people of Berlin, however, absolutely
decline to consent to the expropriations necessary in order to enable
the destruction and removal of the existing houses and buildings which
interfere with the execution of his majesty's project.

Like his uncle, the Prince of Wales, the kaiser is very superstitious
on the subject of the number thirteen in the case of any
entertainment, and more than once has a mere subaltern who happened to
be on duty at the palace as an officer of the guard, been commanded at
a moment's notice to join the imperial party in order to avoid there
being thirteen at the table.

This superstition is perhaps partly due to the fact that the emperor
is aware of the old Scandinavian custom, from which it originates, and
which still subsists among the peasantry of the west coast of France.
In the Pagan days of Scandinavia, the hardy Norsemen were accustomed
at all their banquets to invite the spirit of the last of their male
relatives or friends to participate in the feast, and the food that he
would have eaten and the mead that he would have drunk was cast into
the fire, the supposed resting-place of the soul. When the Norsemen
embraced Christianity, on ceremonious occasions they sat down to
the banquet in parties of twelve, doing this in honor of the twelve
Apostles; but unable entirely to disassociate themselves from their
old heathen custom of inviting the spirit of a dead relative or
friend, they constituted him,--the spectre,--the thirteenth guest at
table, and his health was always drunk in solemn silence. In course
of time people came to forget the traditional custom of considering
a spectre to be the thirteenth guest. He was, however, associated in
their minds with the notion of death, and thus the belief has grown
that though a thirteenth person at table is no longer a corpse, one of
the party is destined, at any rate, to speedily become one.

Throughout Brittany on the eve of the day sacred to the memory of the
dead "La Toussaint," the family all sit down to a festive repast, and
there is invariably a place laid at table, the plate filled with the
choicest viands, and the glass filled with the finest wine or cider,
for the one or more members of the family who have died during the
previous twelve months. The peasantry are convinced that the spirits
of their dear ones take part in this repast at one time or another
during the course of the night. It is for this reason that they
consider it their duty to sit up till daybreak, the women chiefly
praying, the men talking in undertones about the qualities and the
characteristics of the mourned ones. Wearied with watching, imbued
with the most fervent and devout faith, blended with a belief in
old-time legends, what wonder is it that towards dawn both the men
and the women, especially the latter, should imagine that they see
the spirits of their dead glide into the room, take their place at the
family board, and then, after a brief sojourn in their midst, vanish
with the light of the breaking day. It is a pretty and a touching
idea, which is not combated by the clergy, and of which, indeed, no
one possessed of any heart would seek to disabuse the minds of the
poor, simple-minded peasant folks.

Of course Emperor Francis-Joseph and Emperor William are imbued with
all the old superstitions peculiar to Nimrods. As an instance, they
will give up an entire day's shooting, no matter how elaborate the
arrangements made for it, if a hare is seen to cross their path, for
this is always looked upon as being a very bad omen.

Both emperors also attach much importance to dreams, and claim to have
been furnished by them with premonitions of each misfortune that has
overtaken them, and regard Friday as the most unlucky day of the week.

There is no colder, more unemotional and level-headed woman in
the-world than the young Empress of Russia, who is a German princess
by birth, and a first cousin of Emperor William, yet she too believes
in dreams, since the following incident, which enjoys the fullest
degree of credence on the part of the emperors of Germany and Austria.
It seems that during the coronation festivities she was resting one
afternoon, and had dropped off into a doze, when she suddenly found
herself awakened by one of her ladies who had been frightened by the
manner in which she moaned and even wailed in her sleep. The empress
then related that her slumbers had been disturbed by a bad dream.
An old gray-haired Moujik, or peasant, all covered with blood, had
appeared to her, and had exclaimed:

"I have come all the way from Siberia, czaritza, to see your day of
honor, and now your Cossacks have killed me."

The vision had been so real that the empress hastened to her husband
to inquire if any misfortune had happened. Nicholas laughed at his
wife's fears, but to soothe her, telephoned to the minister of the
imperial household, asking whether anything untoward had occurred,
and only then learnt of the terrible disaster that had taken place in
connection with the open-air banquet, where over two thousand lives
were lost, through a panic that had seized upon the vast concourse of
people, the terrible catastrophe being aggravated by the unfortunate
attempts of large bodies of mounted Cossacks to restore order by
riding into the crowd and using their whips and even their swords
against the terrified masses of penned-up Moujiks.

It must be borne in mind that the entire monarchial system of the old
world is largely based on legend and superstition, and that a belief
in the supernatural, therefore, is to be expected in such personages
as the anointed of the Lord, who are firmly convinced that there is a
considerable amount of the supernatural in their authority and in the
origin of their power.

Another manner in which Emperor William displays his superstition, is
his absolute refusal to permit any steps to be taken to clear up the
mystery which has existed throughout this entire century in connection
with the hunting chateau of Gruenewald, which, like the great palace
at Berlin, is popularly believed to be haunted. Indeed, it is regarded
with considerable misgiving by the peasantry of the surrounding
district. It is an old castle, built almost two centuries ago, by the
father of the first King of Prussia, and has been the scene of several
tragedies.

The one which is supposed to have led to the haunting of the palace
is the murder by one of the princes of the house of Hohenzollern, in a
fit of passion, of a Prussian nobleman who was his guest at the time.
The prince is reported to have run the nobleman through the back with
his sword while following him down one of the staircases from the
upper story to the ground floor.

Endeavors have repeatedly been made to obtain permission from the
sovereign to tear down the brick wall so as to give access to this
staircase, not only for the sake of convenience, but also with the
object of setting at rest forever the popular superstitions and rumors
on the subject. Neither King Frederick-William IV., nor the late
Emperor William would ever hear of such a thing, and the late Emperor
Frederick, who was the least superstitious and most matter-of-fact
of men, grew grave and silent, when it was suggested to him that he
should give the desired permission. As for the present emperor, he
has sternly forbidden that the matter should even be mentioned in his
presence. This extraordinary reluctance displayed by both the kaiser
and his predecessors to discover what there is behind that brick wall
leads to the conviction that the mouldering remains of the victim
of the treacherous hospitality of a prince of Prussia lie concealed
there.

CHAPTER XVI

It is among the crowned heads and princes of the blood in the Old
World that St. Hubert, the patron of the chase, finds his most fervent
devotees, and nowhere is his cult followed with a greater degree
of pomp and ceremoniousness, and, I might almost add, religious
sentiment, than at the Courts of Berlin and Vienna.

The foremost Nimrod of Europe is undoubtedly old Emperor
Francis-Joseph, who finds his only relaxation from the cares of state
in stalking the chamois, and who is celebrated in the annals of sport
as the most successful and fearless hunter of that excessively shy and
difficult quarry.

No man living possesses a larger collection of gemsbock beards, which
constitute the hunter's trophy of this form of the chase. They
number nearly three thousand, and the only person whose score at all
approximates the emperor's is his intimate friend and crony, the
aged King Albert of Saxony. Both monarchs are now old men, with hair,
whiskers and moustache, of a snowy white, but neither their years,
nor their sorrows, which have contributed so much towards aging them
prematurely, have been permitted until now to interfere with their
chamois-hunting expeditions in the Styrian Alps. On these occasions
the two sovereigns make their headquarters at Francis-Joseph's
picturesque shooting-lodge, or rather chateau, at Muerzsteg. They are
usually accompanied by the emperor's eldest son-in-law, Prince Leopold
of Bavaria, Archduke Francis-Ferdinand, heir apparent to the throne,
some younger members of the imperial family, and a few of the
dignitaries of the court who have been the longest attached to the
service of his majesty, prominent among whom is Baron Gudemus, grand
huntsman of the empire. The latter, by virtue of his office, holds a
seat in the privy council, ranks higher than the cabinet ministers,
has under his control all the game preserves, the hunting equipages,
and the shooting lodges of the crown in the various parts of the
empire, and is the generalissimo of the army of game-keepers, and
jaegers, many thousands in number, who wear the livery of the house of
Hapsburg.

Usually, the first three or four days of the stay at Muerzsteg
are devoted to stalking the chamois, the two sovereigns generally
remaining together, attended only by the grand huntsman, and by a
few jaegers and guides, while the other members of the shooting party
follow their individual devices. The start is made each morning about
an hour before dawn, so as to enable the sportsmen to be well up on
the mountain side by daybreak, that being the time when it is least
difficult to get within range of a chamois.

All day long the two old sovereigns, Alpenstock in hand, and short,
stocky rifles slung over the shoulder, go toiling up and down the
mountains, along the edges of great precipices, tracing their steps
along paths that to the uninitiated would seem to afford no foothold
to any living thing, save a goat or a chamois. Sometimes they are
overtaken by snowstorms while up in the mountains, and are unable
to see their way, or to move either backwards or forwards, for whole
hours together, while at other times they are forced to lie down flat
on their stomachs and to cling with hand and foot to any friendly
piece of projecting rock in order to avoid being blown down the
precipices, or into the deep crevasses, by the terrible winds which
without warning suddenly sweep through the Alpine gorges and valleys,
with a force that can only be described as cyclonic.

All the party, emperor, king, princes, and attendants, down to the
humblest jaeger, wear the same kind of Styrian dress, consisting of a
sort of Yoppe, or Austrian jacket of grey homespun, with green collar
and facings, and buttons of rough stag-horn, homespun breeches, cut
off above the knees, which are left entirely uncovered, thick woollen
stockings rolled below the knee, and heavy, hob-nailed, laced boots.
The head gear is that known in this country as the Tyrolese hat,
adorned by a chamois beard, which is inserted between the ribbon and
the felt.

By nightfall, which comes early in the mountains, everybody is back
at the "jagdschloss," and dinner is served at five, in a room panelled
with wood and decorated with trophies. The emperor and the king sit
next to each other, while Baron Gudemus, as grand huntsman, faces them
on the opposite table. The attendants are not liveried footmen, but
jaegers and game-keepers. On arising from the table the party as a rule
descends into the courtyard, where all the game killed during the
day is laid out on a layer of pine branches, the jaegers forming three
sides of a square, lighting up the scene with great pine torches,
while the huntsmen sound the _curee-chaude_ on their hunting horns. By
eight or nine o'clock, everybody is in bed, and the whole chateau is
wrapped in slumber.

During the last three or four days of the stay, the so-called
"Treibjagds," or "Battues" take the place of stalking. They are
far more ceremonious, but infinitely less fatiguing and interesting
affairs, and as they begin between eight and nine, and last till four,
they do not involve getting out of bed at the unearthly hour of three
or four in the morning. They necessitate, however, an enormous amount
of preparation and organization on the part of the grand huntsman. For
at least forty-eight hours previously, a vast corps of "treibers,"
or Styrian mountaineers engaged for the purpose have been employed in
surrounding a district of mountain and valley many miles in area.
The circle is gradually narrowed down until the whole of the game is
driven from the heights into the valley, where the emperor and his
guests have taken up their positions.

The selection of the positions of the party is regarded as a matter of
the utmost importance, and on the evening before, the grand huntsman
submits to the emperor a carefully drawn up plan of the locality. His
majesty thereupon designates with his own hand the spot where each
of his guests is to take up his position on the following morning. He
himself and the King of Saxony generally await the game in the lowest
part of the valley, the remaining guests and officials being spread up
the mountain side on each hand according to their degree of rank and
the imperial favor, those who enjoy the greatest share of the latter
being the nearest to the sovereign down the valley, while those of
less importance are posted higher up on the mountain side. By nine
o'clock, every member of the party must be in the place assigned to
him on the plan, and the beaters, who have kept the game carefully
within the circle of their lines, now proceed to drive it down towards
the shooting party.

Usually, great nets are stretched a hundred yards to the rear of the
two monarchs, with the object of forcing the game which may have got
past their majesties to retrace its steps, and to face the royal and
imperial sportsmen once more.

Sometimes curious scenes result in connection with these nets. On one
occasion a magnificent gemsbock had managed to get past the King of
Saxony, and finding a net in the way, charged it full tilt with a
flying leap. Its horns got entangled in the meshes, seven or eight
feet high, and there it remained hanging and kicking until a couple of
jaegers in attendance on the king disentangled it and carefully
placed it on the ground. For a moment it stood as if transfixed
with amazement, gazing steadfastly at the net, and then deliberately
charged head down, and with a tremendous bound, at the obstacle once
more, with the same result, of course. Again the jaegers disengaged
it, but in its struggles to recover its liberty the gemsbock left its
beard torn out by the very roots in the hand of one of the men who had
grabbed it for the purpose of holding the animal fast. A third time
the gallant buck charged the net, and cleared it in magnificent style
and made good its escape. The beard which it left behind it figures
to this day on the Alpine hat of King Albert, who is probably the only
man living who can boast of wearing the beard of a chamois that may
still be roaming over the Styrian Alps.

Emperor William's favorite form of sport is wild-boar hunting.
This species of game abounds in the imperial preserves of
Koenigs-Wusterhausen, Letzlingen, Gohrde and Springe, the latter being
quite near to the ancient city of Hamelin, celebrated in legendary
lore for its "_pied-piper_" and for its rats!

The preserves at Gohrde are liked best by the kaiser, as they were by
his grandfather, the old emperor, for they are alive with wild boars.
Persons invited for the first time to these imperial shooting parties
have to go through a regular form of initiation, somewhat akin to that
practised in the case of people crossing the line for the first time
at sea.

On the eve of the day on which the hunt is to begin, and when the
party are assembled in the smoking and card-rooms of the jagdschloss,
after dinner, the great oak table in the dining-room is cleared and
ornamented with several lines of chalk; thereupon, the deputy grand
huntsman, Baron Heintze Weissenrode, after receiving the emperor's
final instructions, selects a dozen members of the party, and conducts
them to the dining-room, where they take their places around the
table, each armed with a wooden spoon of a different size from those
of his neighbors.

At a given signal the huntsman in charge of the imperial pack of
boar-hounds, who has been stationed at the entrance leading into the
dining-room, sounds the "view-halloo!" on his horn, and immediately
every one of the wooden spoons is rubbed up and down the oaken table
in a manner that produces a sound similar to that of the noise made
by a pack in full pursuit. The person about to be initiated is then
seized and blindfolded, after which the doors are thrown open, and he
is carried into the dining-room, and laid upon the table athwart the
chalk lines. The emperor immediately draws his short hunting-knife,
and after making several mystic passes with it in the air, strikes the
prostrate body of the neophyte a smart blow with the flat of the broad
blade. The huntsman toots forth the signal of "dead! dead!" which is
used to call the pack off the quarry, and the new-fledged "weide-man"
is permitted to struggle off the table and onto the ground.

I may add that the emperor's blow with the hunting-knife is not the
only one which the neophyte receives while stretched on the table on
his face, nor does it constitute the sum total of the initiation, but
only the conclusion thereof. Indeed, there is sometimes a good deal
of rough horse-play on these occasions, in which the emperor, who
delights therein, takes a prominent part.

The boar hunt on the following day partakes of the nature of the
chamois drives already described, the only difference being that the
beaters are assisted in their work by a carefully trained pack of
boar-hounds, which are accustomed to obey the horn signals of the
huntsman in charge, and are of much service in driving the quarry from
its lair in the dense brush and underwood.

Another difference is that the shooting parties, instead of firing in
the direction of the drivers, are under the strictest orders only
to fire away from them; that is to say, the hunters are practically
forced to wait until the wild boar rushes past before their rifles may
be levelled. Of course, it sometimes happens that the boar, instead
of charging past, charges directly at some member of the party in the
fiercest and most dangerous manner, and it is in order to be prepared
for an assault of this kind, that each of them is provided with a kind
of pike, or lance, which goes by the euphonious name of "sowpen."

The costume worn on these occasions is an exceptionally hideous
uniform, specially invented and devised by the present emperor.
It consists of a double-breasted frock coat of grey cloth, with
grass-green lapels and collar, green striped pantaloons, high boots,
and a grey Tyrolese hat, with a wide green band. In the emperor's case
it is further adorned by the ribbon and badge of a Hohenzollern family
order known as that of the "White Hart."

At these shooting parties the emperor is accustomed to wind up the day
with a most extraordinary kind of drink, of which he himself is very
fond, and of which he insists upon everybody's partaking, assuring
them that it will help them to sleep. It consists of the following
ingredients: White beer, sugar, citron peel, ginger spices, the yolks
of at least a dozen eggs, Rhine wine, Madeira, and old Santa Cruz rum.
All this, after being thoroughly stirred, is placed on the fire
and slowly heated, several large pats of butter being added to the
concoction while it is warm.

It need scarcely be said that it requires a stomach as strong as that
of the emperor to be able to absorb several glasses of such a drink
before retiring, and it is asserted at the Court of Berlin that there
are many of his subjects of high rank who feign illness when
commanded to join the imperial hunting parties, solely because of the
apprehensions they entertain of being called upon by the kaiser to
drink this extraordinary brew.

For shooting wild-fowl, hares and other small game, William uses a
very dainty and extremely light fowling-piece, specially constructed
for him, which he raises to his shoulder with one hand, and with
extraordinary rapidity takes a remarkably sure aim; but when it comes
to hunting the wild boar, stag, elk, bear and big game in general,
the killing of which requires a heavier gun, he is naturally forced
to adopt other devices. His crippled left arm being useless to support
the weapon, his body jaeger, specially trained for this particular
duty, steps forward and offers either his arm or his shoulder for the
support of his master's rifle. This, _bien entendu_, when his majesty
is engaged in stalking. In cases where the chase takes the form of a
"battue," a species of horizontal bar is affixed at right angles to
the tree beside which the emperor stands, and it is on this support
that the kaiser rests his gun when shooting at the driven game.

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