Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess Part 11

PLANNING TO GET A HUSBAND FOR ME

Dissecting possible wooers at Vienna--Royalty after money, not character--"He is a Cohen, not a Coburg"--Prince who looked like a Jew counter-jumper in his Sunday best--Balkan princes tabooed by Francis Joseph--A good time for the girls--Army men commanded to attend us.

CASTLE WACHWITZ, _April 25, 1893_.

A change of scene. I was eighteen and my parents were anxious to get a husband for me. Royalty marries off its princes at an early age to keep them out of mischief; its princesses as soon as a profitable suitor turns up or can be secured by politics, diplomacy, the exercise of parental wits or the powerful influence of the head of the House.

Sister Anna, now Princess John of Hohenlohe, myself and mother were invited to Vienna. It was my introduction to royal pomp and circ.u.mstance. The _Hofburg_, our town lodging, seemed to me the first and also the last cry in sumptuousness--all that was beautiful and expensive in days gone by is there, and all that is new and desirable is there, too; Schoenbrunn, the Imperial summer residence, is a dream of loveliness wedded to grandeur. Between the Emperor and my mother and between her and the numerous archd.u.c.h.esses and archdukes every second word uttered referred to me as the possible wife of someone or another.

And that someone was well dissected as to fortune, success in life and political exigencies.

Whether he was good-looking or a monkey in face and figure mattered not.

Health, good character, uprightness didn't count.

Has he expectations for gaining a throne? Will he be wise enough to retain that throne? What kind of an establishment will he be able to set up? How long may his parents live, hanging on to the family fortune?--These were the only considerations deemed worthy of discussion.

Three or four of the archd.u.c.h.esses seemed to be acting as marriage brokers for Ferdinand, just elected hereditary prince of Bulgaria, whose mother, Princess Clementine, a daughter of the dethroned King Louis Philippe of France, was reputed to be rolling in gold.

Leopold irreverently called Ferdinand's partisans "_Fillons_" after famous "_La Fillon_," who supplied the harem of our jolly ancestor, the Regent of France, Duke of Orleans, and he insisted that Ferdinand was a _Cohen_, not a Coburg. As a matter of fact, Ferdinand's great fortune is derived from a Kohary, which is Hungarian for Cohen. The original Kohary was a cattle-dealer, who supplied the armies of the Allies during the Napoleonic wars. In this way he acc.u.mulated so much wealth that an impoverished Coburg prince fell in love with his daughter and made her his wife, after she exchanged the name of Rebecca for Antonie and the Mosaic faith for that of Rome.

Young and proud and flippant as I was, Leopold's talk filled me with hearty contempt for the "Coburger" long before we were introduced. And as to his amba.s.sador, who was forever dancing attendance upon me, I hated him. Yet the Imperial "_Fillons_" kept up their clatter, and one fine morning Prince Ferdinand was announced.

He wasn't half bad looking, but struck me as too much of a mother's-boy.

Princess Clementine seemed to decide everything for him. Anyhow, I wouldn't have him and he marched off again.

I next reviewed, as another Balkan matrimonial possibility, Prince Danilo of Montenegro, a small, thin person, looking like a Jew counter-jumper in holiday dress--Vienna "store-clothes."

Danilo spoke the worst _table d'hote_ French I ever heard in my life, and I told mother I would rather marry a rich banker than this crowned idiot. For once she agreed with me and said his father was only a "mutton-thief," anyhow.

Finally there was talk of King Alexander of Servia, six years younger than I. Queen Natalie, who a few days ago celebrated one of her several reunions with ex-King Milan, spoke feelingly of her "Sasha" to mother, lauding him as the best of sons and the most promising of sovereigns, but the oft-divorced Majesty was less communicative when mother asked how many millions she would pa.s.s over to Alexander on his marriage day.

That settled "Sasha's" ambitions as far as my hand was concerned. Marry a Balkan King and the _nee_ Keshko holding the purse-strings! Not for my father's daughter! I didn't want to marry into a Russian Colonel's family, anyhow. I believe Queen Natalie's father was a colonel, or was he only a lieutenant-colonel?

These marriage negotiations aside, Anna and myself had a mighty good time in Vienna (I forgot to say that Emperor Francis Joseph agreed with me that Danilo and Alexander were quite impossible and that henceforth Balkan marriages should be taboo).

"I have ordered a dozen young officers to report for tonight's dancing,"

said my Imperial uncle one evening. "Select from among them your tennis partners, girls." Baron Cambroy of the Guards was my choice, and a mighty handsome fellow he is. He seemed pleased when I commanded him to tennis duty every afternoon during our stay. He is tall and spare in appearance and I might have fallen in love with him sooner, but for his dark skin. I am an Italian and, by way of contrast, prefer blondes to any other sort of man.

Anna, myself and our ladies bicycled to the tennis court every afternoon, and on our way back to the castle were escorted by the Baron and the other officers.

Trust a girl with a dress reaching an inch below her knees to find out scandals! On the second day after our meeting with the Baron, Anna told me that he was the lover of Draga Maschin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie of Servia.[4]

Draga was in attendance upon Queen Natalie when she called on us, a beautiful girl, somewhat too full-bosomed for an unmarried one, like my great-aunt, Catharine, who became the wife of that upstart, Jerome Napoleon. At home we have her picture, and mother, who was rather skinny as a girl, never failed to point out that it was painted before Queen Catharine's marriage, despite her voluptuous bust.

If my Baron was really Draga's beloved, that would more than half explain mother's puzzle.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: The same who afterwards became the Queen of King Alexander of Servia and eventually the cause of his death and of the extinction of the Obrenovitsch dynasty. Alexander and Draga were both slaughtered in their beds May 29, 1903, ten years after the above was written.]

CHAPTER IX

LOVE-MAKING

The fascinating Baron--The man's audacity--Putting the question boldly--Real love-making--_Risque_ stories for royalty.

CASTLE WACHWITZ, _May 1, 1893_.

I am in love but, like a prudent virgin, I admitted the fact to myself only shortly before we departed for Salzburg. After I put several hundred miles between me and my fascinating Baron, all's well again.

My first love, and it was the man's audacity that won the day!

Imagine an Imperial Highness, decidedly attractive, eighteen, and no tigress by any means, wheeling at the side of a mere lieutenant who has nothing but his pay to bless himself with and nothing but good looks to recommend him. And, as before stated, he wasn't even my style.

Anna pedalled ahead some twenty-five paces; our ladies wheezed and snorted that many behind. This devil of a lieutenant took a chance.

"Imperial Highness," he commenced, "I wager you don't know what love is."

It was the one theme I was aching for, scenting, as I did, the odor of forbidden things. Never before had I the opportunity.

"R-e-a-l love," he insisted.

"Do you blame me?" I asked, vixen-like. "Would be a poor specimen of Guard officer who didn't know more about real love than a mere girl of eighteen and a princess at that."

"Will your Imperial Highness allow me to explain?" This, oh so insinuatingly, from the gay seducer.

"Why not?" I asked, with the air of a _roue_ and hating myself for blus.h.i.+ng like a poppy--I felt it.

"Charmed to enlighten you--with your Imperial Highness's permission,"

whispered the Baron, his knee crowding mine as he drew nearer on his wheel.

"Explain away."

"Not until I have your Imperial Highness's express command and your promise not to get angry if I should offend."

Anna, always an _enfant terrible_ and invariably in the way, was waiting for us in the shadow of a tree and now rode by the Baron's side. She had evidently heard part of our conversation.

"Permission and pardon granted beforehand," she cried. "Go ahead."

The Baron looked at me, and not to be outdone by the parcel of impudence in short petticoats, I said carelessly: "Oh, tell. I command."

The Baron began to stroke his moustache and then related a story of Napoleon and our ancestress Marie Louise, the Austrian Archd.u.c.h.ess, not found in school books.

On the day before her entry into Paris, he said, and when they were destined to meet for the first time, Napoleon waylaid his bride-to-be at Courcelles and without ceremony entered her carriage. They rushed past villages, through towns _en fete_ and at last, at nine o'clock in the evening, reached the palace of Compiegne. There the Emperor cut short the addresses of welcome, presentations and compliments, and taking Marie Louise by the hand conducted her to his private apartments. Next morning they had breakfast in bed. The marriage ceremony took place a few days later.