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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Whatever the cause of these consultations between the two
empresses may have been, the fact remains that almost immediately
afterwards Baron and Baroness Koscielski received from the
Grand-Master-of-the-Court, Count Eulenburg, an official intimation
that their presence at court was not desired in highest quarters until
further notice, and that under the circumstances they would do well
to remain at their country seat. In fact they were virtually banished,
and when both husband and wife travelled all the way to Berlin with
the object of asking for an explanation from the emperor, he declined
to receive either the one or the other. He had apparently come to the
conclusion that the game was not worth the candle, and that in view
of the fact that his intimacy with the baroness had never gone beyond
platonic friendship and mild flirtation, it was ridiculous to incur
the ill-will of his subjects and expose himself to slanderous stories
concocted by his enemies on her account.

The influence of the American born Countess Waldersee was of a far
more lasting character, and may be said to have been inaugurated
very shortly after his marriage. Prior to becoming a benedict, Prince
William was as gay as his very limited financial means would permit.
In fact, he was charged with playing the role of Don Juan to at least
half a dozen beauties of the Prussian Court, while at Vienna he became
involved in a scandal of a feminine character, from which he was only
extricated with the utmost difficulty by the then German Ambassador to
the Austrian Court, namely, Prince Reuss. The presumption is that he
had allowed himself to become the prey of an adventuress, and with the
object of avoiding publicity he was practically compelled to provide
for the welfare and future of a child which may or may not have been
his offspring. But as soon as he married, he turned over a new leaf,
and became the very model of husbands.

It has always been my conviction that this was due in part to the
influence of the Countess Waldersee, and largely also to the unkindly
treatment which his consort received during the early years of
her marriage at the hands of his family. Although a nice and
gentle-looking girl, Augusta-Victoria was far from shining either by
her beauty or her elegance at a court which is one of the most cruelly
critical and satirical in all Europe. Moreover, she labored under the
disadvantage of being the daughter of the Duchess of Augustenburg, who
is not credited with a robust intellect, and, in fact has passed
the greater part of her life in retirement, and of the Duke of
Augustenburg, who was famed thirty years ago for the dullness of his
mind. In fact, after Prussia had undertaken in his behalf the conquest
of the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, to which he was entitled by right
of inheritance, and which had been unlawfully seized by Denmark,
Prince Bismarck refused to permit the duke to assume the sovereignty
thereof, on the publicly expressed ground that it would be an act of
the most outrageous tyranny to subject any state to the rule of so
intensely stupid a man as the duke.

This utterance on the part of Bismarck, which may be found in most
of the German histories printed prior to the accession of the present
Emperor, was naturally recalled to mind at the Court of Berlin, when
the daughter of the duke became the bride of Prince William, and the
widespread belief in her inherited dullness of intellect was further
increased by the mingled impatience and pity which characterized the
behavior of her husband's mother and sisters towards her.

There is much that is chivalrous in the nature of the present German
emperor, and it was precisely the unkindness and slights to which his
bride was subjected that had the effect of drawing him more closely
to her. He did not conceal the fact that he strongly resented the
attitude of his family towards her, and his friendship with Countess
Waldersee owes its origin to the motherly way in which she behaved
to his wife, acting as her mentor, as her adviser and guide in the
intricate maze of Berlin society, and of court life. Debarred from all
intimacy with her sisters-in-law, who were ever ready to scoff at, and
to make fun of her, Augusta-Victoria was wont to have recourse to
the countess in all her difficulties, and inasmuch as Count Waldersee
himself is the most brilliant soldier of the German army, and was
designated at the time by the great Moltke as his successor and his
principal lieutenant, Prince William and his wife ended by becoming
very intimate indeed with the Waldersees, and almost daily visitors at
their house.

The countess is of a deeply religious turn of mind, with a strong
disposition towards evangelism, and already before the marriage
of Prince William, she had become conspicuous as one of the most
influential leaders of the anti-Semite party in Prussia. It was in her
salons at Berlin that the great Jew-baiter Stoecker was wont to hold
his politico-religious meetings, denouncing the Jews, and it was
through her influence, too, that he obtained appointment as court
chaplain, in spite of the opposition of the father and the mother of
Prince William. It was also under the roof of the Countess Waldersee
that the present emperor became imbued with that very religious,--one
might almost say pietist--disposition, which has since been so marked
a feature of his character.

True, the hereditary tendency of the sovereign house of Prussia is
distinctly religious, leaning in fact towards fanaticism, and King
Frederick-William III., his son Frederick-William IV., and likewise
old Emperor William, entertained the most extraordinary ideas on the
subject of Providence, with which they believed themselves to be in
constant communion, as well as its principal agent here on earth.
In fact, there is hardly a public utterance of any of these three
sovereigns, which is not marked throughout by a deep religious tone,
and by a degree of familiarity with the Almighty which would be
blasphemous were it not so manifestly sincere. This hereditary
tendency towards religion was, to a certain extent, obliterated by the
education which William received, and which was of a nature to dispose
him to be both a materialist and a free-thinker. He may be said
in fact to have been brought up in an atmosphere of Renan-ism and
Strauss-ism, for which his extraordinary and mercilessly clever
mother, Empress Frederick, was largely responsible, and at the moment
of his marriage it looked as if he were destined to figure in history
as quite as much of a philosopher, and even atheist, as Frederick the
Great, for whom he professed the most profound veneration.

It was Countess Waldersee who revived all the inherited and latent
religious tendencies of his character.

Up to the time when he ascended the throne, Prince William and his
consort were constant and devout attendants at the prayer-meetings
held in the salons of the countess, and if he remains to this day
a remarkably religious man, with a sufficient regard for scriptural
commands to have shown himself a more faithful husband than any other
prince of his house, either living or dead--if, to-day, piety is
fashionable at the court of Berlin instead of being bad form, if the
building or endowment of a church, or of a charitable institution,
is regarded as the surest road to imperial favor, it is due to the
influence of William's American aunt, the daughter of that New
York grocer, the first Princess Noer, and who is to-day Countess of
Waldersee.

It is natural that the influence exercised over William and his
wife by the countess should have given rise to the utmost jealousy,
especially on the part of his mother, Empress Frederick, and during
the hundred days' reign of her lamented husband, she availed herself
of her brief spell of power to secure the virtual banishment of the
count and the countess from Berlin, by causing the field marshal to
be transferred from the chieftaincy of the headquarter staff to
the command of the army stationed in Altona. Moreover, she did not
hesitate to denounce the influence of the Waldersees as disastrous,
as illiberal, and in every sense of the word reactionary, and if her
husband, Emperor Frederick, was led to share her views concerning
them, it was because of his disapproval of the movement against the
Jews in which the countess had figured so conspicuously. It is a
peculiar fact that although Emperor William has always remained on
the most affectionate terms with the Waldersees, and never loses any
opportunity of manifesting the warmth of his affection for them,
he has never repealed the decree of banishment to which they were
virtually subjected during his father's reign. He has transferred the
field marshal from one post to another, but he has never appointed
him to one which would admit of his coming back to live in Berlin. I
cannot help thinking that the emperor resented the imputation that he
was subject to the sway of his wife's aunt, and was offended by the
articles which appeared at one moment both in the German and foreign
press intimating that she was the power behind the throne. He is
sufficiently jealous of his dignity to object to be considered as
subject to the influence of anyone, be it man or woman, and one of
the chief causes of the dismissal of old Prince Bismarck was precisely
because so long as he remained in office there was a disposition to
regard the kaiser as a mere puppet in the hands of the old statesman.

It is this aversion to being considered as swayed by any other
influence than his own that has led the emperor on so many occasions
to adopt a course diametrically opposed to that urged upon him by his
clever and masterful mother, a woman with the most powerful intellect
and the least tact to be found in all Old World royalties. It was
this, too, that led the emperor to banish, just a trifle unjustly,
the pretty and dashing Countess Hohenau from his court. She had been
guilty of no indiscretion with regard to him. She had done nothing
wrong, and she was not only a brilliant ornament of the imperial
_entourage_, but likewise a relative of the family. But he banished
both her husband and herself almost at a moment's notice, owing to
the fact that in the anonymous letters circulated at the time of the
so-called Kotze scandal, he was mentioned as altogether infatuated and
subjugated by her beauty.

Count Hohenau is the half-brother of that Prince Albert of Prussia,
who is now Regent of the Grand Duchy of Brunswick. Old Prince Albert
of Prussia, his father, was married to the eccentric and half-crazy
Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. Not long after the birth of
the present Prince Albert, she lost her heart to such an extent to a
chamberlain in her household that her husband was compelled to divorce
her, whereupon she contracted a morganatic marriage with the gentleman
in question, and lived and died at an advanced age only about twelve
years ago.

Prince Albert, the elder, thereupon married morganatically a young
girl of noble birth of the name of Baroness Rauch, whose family had
for more than one hundred and fifty years occupied leading positions
at the Court of Berlin. On the occasion of her marriage to the prince,
she received from the Prussian Crown the title of Countess of Hohenau,
and the children whom she bore to Prince Albert the elder are now
known as Counts and Countesses of Hohenau. The elder of these Counts
Hohenau bears the name of Fritz, and his wife, before their banishment
from the capital, was one of the most dashing and brilliant figures
in the ultra-aristocratic society of Berlin. No entertainment was
regarded as complete without her presence, and in every social
enterprise, no matter whether it was a flower corso, a charity fair,
a hunt, a picnic, or amateur theatricals, she was always to the
fore, besides being the leader in every new fashion, and in every new
extravagance. Although eccentric--she was the first member of her sex
to show herself astride on horseback in the Thiergarten--and in spite
of her being famed as a thorough-paced coquette, and as a flirt,
yet no one ventured to impugn her good name, until the disgraceful
anonymous letter scandal; and both her husband and herself naturally
resent most keenly that without any hearing or explanation they should
have been banished from the court, and sent to live, first at Hanover,
then at Dresden, but always away from Berlin and Potsdam, solely on
account of an anonymous letter.

The sympathy of society in the affair was all with the Hohenaus, who
although absent from Berlin, may be said to have taken the leading
part in that great controversy which is known to this day as "the
anonymous letter scandal," and which not only divided all Berlin
society into separate hostile camps, but led to innumerable duels,
some of them with fatal results; to the imprisonment of some great
personages; to the ruin of others, and in one word to one of the
most talked of court scandals of the present century. In fact, the
anonymous letter affair, many of the features of which remain shrouded
in mystery to this day, played so important a part in the history of
the Court of Berlin during the first decade of the present emperor's
reign, that it deserves a chapter to itself.

What, however, I wish specially to impress upon my readers is that in
spite of the many scurrilous stories that have been circulated on both
sides of the ocean concerning the alleged intrigues of Emperor William
with the fair sex, since his marriage, nearly eighteen years ago, his
wedded life has been singularly free from storms, and exceptionally
happy. In fact, there are few more thoroughly-devoted couples than
William and Augusta-Victoria, who is to-day far more comely as a woman
than she was as a young girl. So domestic, indeed, are the tastes of
the kaiser, so excellent is he both as a husband and a father, that
his home life may be said to atone for many of his political errors
and shortcomings as a monarch. His loyalty towards his consort is all
the more to his credit, as the Anointed of the Lord in the Old World
are exposed to feminine temptations in a degree of which no conception
can be formed in this country. In most of the capitals of Europe it
is in the power of the sovereign to make or mar the social position
of any man, and of any woman. Social ambitions coupled with an
exaggerated degree of loyalty will lead many a beautiful woman
to cross that border line which separates mere indiscretion from
something worse, all the more that the reputation of being the fair
favorite of a monarch, and able to influence his conduct, is regarded
as a title to prestige, and has the effect of converting the fair one
into one of the acknowledged powers of the land.

For an ambitious woman it is something to be treated by statesmen and
the representatives of foreign governments, as the power behind the
throne, and provided this power is wisely exercised, the intimacy of
the lady with the monarch is regarded by high and low with something
more than mere indulgence.

History has given so lofty a pedestal to Madame de Maintenon, that
there are many women who are eager to emulate her role in present
times, and to likewise figure in history. That is why royal
personages, and especially kings and emperors, are exposed to such
extraordinary temptations.

Most women put forth all their charms and powers of fascination
to captivate the attention, and, if possible, the heart of their
sovereign, who is, after all, but human. That is why Emperor William
deserves so much credit for having remained true to his wife, and
why Emperor Francis-Joseph of Austria merits so much indulgence in
connection with the indiscretions which had the effect of keeping him
for so many years parted and estranged from his lovely consort, the
late Empress Elizabeth.

While on this subject, it should be stated that for many years past,
probably for the last decade, the life of Francis-Joseph has been free
from affairs of this kind, for it is hardly possible to treat in the
light of a scandal his association with that now elderly actress,
Mlle. Schratt, since it is virtually tolerated, accepted and, so to
speak, recognized both by the imperial family and by the Austrian
people. Indeed the only persons who have ever taken exception to
this intimacy have been Herr Schoenerer, and some of his anti-Semite
colleagues who, to the indignation of every one, gave vent three
years ago to their spite against their kindly old sovereign by calling
attention in the Reichsrath to the alleged questionable relations
between the sovereign and the popular and veteran star-actress of the
Burg Theatre.

Herr Schoenerer, who was formerly a baron, but who was deprived of
his title by the emperor at the time when he was sentenced to a
year's imprisonment for a violent and unprovoked assault upon a Jewish
newspaper proprietor, declared in the legislature, to which he had
been elected on emerging from jail, that public opinion was becoming
outraged by the impropriety of the conduct of the emperor. The scene
which ensued defied description. Schoenerer was suspended, and had not
steps been taken to assure his protection, would have been subjected
to very violent treatment by the vast majority of the house, which
is intensely loyal to the emperor, and the members of which resented
criticism of his majesty's twenty years' friendship with old Frau
Schratt Even the late empress herself did not regard as serious or
dangerous her husband's association with the actress. This is shown by
the fact that on two separate occasions she honored Frau Schratt with
a visit at the actress's villa near Ischl. At the Austrian Court it
is generally understood that whatever may have been the nature of the
intimacy of the monarch and the actress in the past, it is now nothing
more than a platonic affection between two old friends, the emperor
being accustomed to spend half an hour or so with this witty and
amiable lady nearly every day. The actress is a great favorite with
the people at large, on account of her devotion to the emperor, and
for her tact in declining to take any undue advantage of the favor
which he accords to her. Indeed, the degree of indulgence with which
Austrian society, as well as the masses, look upon this intimacy maybe
gathered from the fact that one of the most--popular photographs on
exhibition in the windows of the leading picture-shops at Vienna, and
at Pesth, is a snapshot, showing the kindly-faced old emperor and
the sunny-tempered old actress seated in the most domestic fashion
opposite one another at a breakfast table with the actress's pet dog
on a chair midway between stage and throne.

CHAPTER III

It was on the evening of June 7th, 1894, that a carriage, the servants
of which wore court liveries, drew up at the entrance of that old
building on the avenue known as "Unter Den Linden," which serves as
a military prison of the Berlin garrison. From this equipage alighted
two men, each of them a well-known figure in the great world of the
Prussian metropolis. The one in uniform was General Count von Hahnke,
chief of the military household of the emperor, while the other, who
was in civilian attire, was Baron von Kotze, master of ceremonies at
the court of Berlin, one of the most well-to-do and jovial of _bons
vivants_, and who up to that time had stood so high in the favor of
the reigning family that his sovereign was accustomed to address him
by his Christian name, and by the so familiar equivalent pronoun in
German of "thou."

Shortly afterwards General von Hahnke reappeared alone, entered the
carriage hurriedly, and drove back to the palace. On the following
morning it became known that Baron von Kotze had been suddenly
arrested, and lodged in the military prison by personal order of the
kaiser, and without the warrant of any tribunal or magistrate, either
military or civil.

While the general public was speculating as to the cause of this
mysterious and startling disciplinary measure against a nobleman so
well known and so prominent in every way as Baron von Kotze, the court
gossips were rubbing their hands, chuckling with satisfaction, and
congratulating themselves on the fact that success had at length
crowned the efforts made to bring to book the author of the hundreds
of anonymous letters that had been circulated in the great world of
Berlin during the two preceding years.

Gradually the circumstances which had led to the arrest of Baron Kotze
became public property, and people both at home and abroad were made
aware for the first time of the existence of a scandal which for over
four-and-twenty months had set court and society by the ears, and
which had caused every man and woman to regard with suspicion not
merely their acquaintances, but even their most intimate friends and
nearest relatives. No one, with the exception of the emperor, the
empress, and the widow of Emperor Frederick, can be said to have been
altogether exempt from this reflection on their honor. For among those
who were at one time most strongly suspected of being the author
of these letters were the eldest sister of the kaiser, Princess
Charlotte, and the only brother of the empress, Duke Ernest-Gunther of
Schleswig-Holstein.

Color was given to these suspicions by the fact that many of the
anonymous letters contained remarks and information that manifestly
emanated from the imperial family, while some of the views expressed
in the letters were known not merely to have been shared, but even
to have been uttered in conversation by the prince and princess in
question. What gave still further weight to these suppositions was the
extraordinary fact that incidents which had occurred within what may
be described as the most intimate circle of the court,--incidents,
indeed, of which no one could be aware, save royal personages
themselves and those few chosen friends and associates who were
with them at the time when the incidents in question occurred,--were
revealed a few days later in the anonymous letters, twisted and
distorted in such a manner as to admit only of the most shameful
interpretation.

Added to this was the knowledge that there are few women at the Court
of Berlin more cruelly satirical or have a keener sense of ridicule
than Princess Charlotte, or any more inveterate gossip than Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein.

The anonymous letters had literally spared no one, not even that most
blameless and excellent of women, the Empress Augusta-Victoria; nor
was there anybody of mark who had not received at least several of
them. But for some reason or other which was not understood at the
time, they seemed to be imbued with an especially relentless and
savage animosity against the charming Countess "Fritz" von Hohenau,
who must not be confounded with her less attractive sister-in-law,
Countess "Willy" von Hohenau; for whereas the latter is by birth a
princess of Hohenlohe and a niece of the imperial chancellor of
that ilk, Countess Fritz is by birth a Countess von der Decken, and
rejoices in the Christian name of Charlotte.

If Countess Fritz has one weakness which in any degree lends itself to
unfriendly criticism and ridicule it is the pride which she manifests
in her relationship through marriage to the reigning house of Prussia,
and in her being the sister-in-law of that Prince Albert of Prussia,
who is regent of the Duchy of Brunswick, her husband, Count Fritz von
Hohenau, being a half-brother to Prince Albert. It is owing to
this very innocent weakness of the countess that she was nicknamed
"_Lottchen von Preussen_," or "_Die Preussiche Lotte_" that is to say
"_Lotte of Prussia_" and at least a third of the hundreds of anonymous
letters confided to the mails during the period extending between 1892
and 1896 were filled with the most scurrilous remarks concerning the
unfortunate "_Lottchen von Preussen_."

The letters imputed to the countess almost every crime under the sun.
Inasmuch as her husband's principal friend was Baron Schrader, who
was of course frequently seen in her company at the races and at the
opera, it naturally followed that she was charged with an altogether
questionable intimacy with him. In fact, she was accused of sharing
her favors between him and the emperor, and in the letters that
reached both the kaiser and his consort, it was asserted that she was,
moreover, in the habit of constantly boasting among her friends about
the influence which as "_Sultana"_ she was able to exercise over the
ruler of the German Empire.

It was on the receipt of one of these letters that the emperor without
a moment's warning abruptly ordered Count and Countess Fritz Hohenau
to leave Berlin and to transfer their residence to Hanover. The count
and countess were not long in discovering the cause of their disgrace,
and bitterly incensed, at once resolved to leave no stone unturned in
their efforts to discover the culprit.

In this determination they were supported by the "Willy" von Hohenaus,
by the various members of the Hohenlohe family, by Baron Schrader,
Baron Hugo Reischach, chamberlain to the Empress Frederick, Prince and
Princess Aribert of Anhalt, the latter being a granddaughter of Queen
Victoria, Prince and Princess Albert of Saxe-Altenburg, and last, but
not least, Baron von Tausch, the chief of the secret police attached
to the particular service of the emperor.

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