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Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess. Fischer Henry William
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Автор произведения Fischer Henry William
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
During King George's short reign, Louise ran away from the Saxon court, end of November, 1902.
On February 11, 1903, divorce was pronounced against her by a special court assembled by King George.
Louise was adjudged the guilty party and deprived of the name and style of Crown Princess of Saxony. As previously (January 27) the Austrian Emperor had forbidden her to use the name and title of Austrian Archduchess and Imperial and royal Princess, Louise would have been nameless but for the rank and title of Countess Montiguoso, conferred upon her by King George.
At the same time Louise accepted from the court of Saxony a considerable monthly allowance on condition that "she undertake nothing liable to compromise the reigning family, either by criticism or story, either by word, deed or in writing."
Upon his father's death, Frederick Augustus succeeded King George October 15, 1904. He is now forty-seven years old, while Louise is forty-two.
The King of Saxony has six children by Louise, three boys and three girls, five born in wedlock, the youngest born without wedlock. The children born in wedlock are:
The present Crown Prince, born 1893.
Frederick Christian, likewise born in 1893.
Ernest, born 1896.
Margaret, born 1900.
And Marie Alix, born 1901.
The youngest Princess of Saxony, so called, Anna Monica, was born by Louise more than six months after she left her husband and nearly three months after her divorce.
Louise desired to retain Anna Monica in her own custody, but though the child's fathership is in doubt, to say the least, Frederick Augustus insisted upon the little one's transference to his care.
King Frederick Augustus raised Louise's allowance to $12,000 per year, "which alimony ceases if the said Countess Montiguoso shall commit, either personally, directly or indirectly, any act in writing or otherwise liable to injure the reputation of King Frederick Augustus or members of the royal family of Saxony, or if the said Countess Montiguoso contributes to any such libellous publication in any manner or form."
After divorce was pronounced against her, Louise declined to accept the decree of the court, pronouncing the proceedings illegal on the ground that both she and husband are Catholics and that the Roman Catholic Church, under no circumstances, recognizes divorce. Her protest gained importance from the fact that her marriage to Frederick Augustus was solemnized by the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The Saxon court, on the other hand, justified its own decision by basing same on a certain civil ceremony entered into by Louise and Frederick Augustus previous to the church marriage.
When Louise realized in the course of years that Frederick Augustus would not take her back, she changed her mind as to the illegality of her divorce and married, September 25, 1907, Enrico Toselli, an Italian composer and pianist of small reputation.
This marriage was performed civilly. They have one child, a boy, about whose custody the now legally separated parents have instituted several actions in law. The boy has now been allotted to the care of Toselli's mother.
King Frederick Augustus, though by the laws of Saxony and Germany allowed to contract a second marriage, has not availed himself of the license, probably in deference to the wishes of the Vatican. At the same time he spurned all of Louise's attempts at reconciliation, the most dramatic of which was her coup de tête of December, 1904, when she went to Dresden "to see her children," was arrested at the palace gate and conducted out of the kingdom by high police officials.
Louise refers, in her Diary, to the Kaiser as "cousin." If there be any relationship between her and William, it is that imposed by the Saxon marriage, Saxon princes and princesses having frequently intermarried with the royal and princely Hohenzollerns, despite the differences of religion. There are four courts of Saxony despite that of Dresden: Weimar, Meiningen, Altenburg and Coburg and Gotha.
The latter duchy's ruler, Karl Eduard, is of English descent, a son of the late Duke of Albany. Hence, Louise's cousinship with Victoria Melita, sometime Grand Duchess of Hesse, now Grand Duchess Kyril of Russia.
Of course, Louise is closely related to all the Orleans and Bourbons.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who died on the scaffold at Paris, October 16, 1793, she calls her great-grand-aunt and namesake, claiming, at the same time, most of the Kings and princes of France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as relatives.
CHAPTER I
MOTHERHOOD
A sterile Royal Family once fruitful – Diary true record of self – Long legs of Countess Solms – A child only because he can't help it – Wet nurse to Socialist brat – Royal permit for nursing – Royal negligee talk – A Saxon failing.
I did my duty towards the Saxons. I gave them a Prince. The Royal House ought to be grateful to me: – I am helping to perpetuate it. Who would, if I didn't? My sister-in-law, Princess Mathilde, is an old maid. The other, Maria Josepha, as sterile as Sarah was before she reached the nineties. This applies also to Isabelle, the wife of brother-in-law, John-George. And Prince Max, tired of ballet girls, is about to take the soutane.
There is just one more royal Saxon princess, Elizabeth, and she succeeded in having children neither with her husband de jure, the late Duke of Genoa, nor with her husband-lover, Marquis Rapallo.
Louise, then, is the sole living hope of the royal Saxons that, only 160 years ago, boasted of a sovereign having three hundred and fifty-two children to his credit, among them not a few subsequently accounted geniuses. Augustus, the Physical Strong (1670 to 1733), was the happy father, the Maréshal de Saxe one of his numerous gifted offspring.
Alas, since then the House of Wettin has declined not in numbers only.
Poor baby is burdened with ten names in honor of so many ancestors. Why, in addition, they want to call him "Maria" I cannot for the life of me understand, for there never was a Saxon princess or queen that amounted to a row of pins.
I wonder whether they will say the same of me after the crown of the Wettiners descended upon my brow. Those so inclined should consult these papers ere they begin throwing stones, for my Diary is intended to contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, my promises for the future, Myself, and let no one judge me by what I say other than what is recorded here.
These pages are my Father Confessor. I confess to myself, – what a woman in my position says to members of her family or official and semi-official persons – her servants, so to speak – doesn't signify, to borrow a phrase from my good cousin, the Kaiser Wilhelm.
Father-in-law George tells me to trust no one but him, my husband, and Frederick Augustus's sisters, cousins and aunts, and to rely on prayer only, yet, stubborn as nature made me, I prefer respectable white paper to my sweet relatives.
Up to now my most ambitious literary attempts were intimate letters to my brother Leopold, the "Black Sheep." As I now start in writing letters to myself, it occurs to me that my worse self may be corresponding with my better self, or vice versa. If I was only a poet like Countess Solms, but, dear, no. All real bluestockings are ugly and emaciated. Solms is both, and her legs are as long and as thin as those of Diana, my English hunter.
I think this Diary business will be quite amusing, – at any rate, it will be more so than the conversation of my ladies. Ah, those ladies of the court of Saxony! If they would only talk of anything else but orphans, sisters of charity and ballet girls. The latter always have one foot in Hades, while you can see the wings grow on the backs of the others.
When