te chance of ever coming to the
throne of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, but nevertheless and because
of the rules of the House of Hesse-Barchfeld, he cannot give his
rank and title to a wife, not of equal birth. The head of the
House, therefore, the Grand Duke of Hesse, conferred the title of
Baroness Barchfeld in her own right on the bride, and her
children will be known as Barons and Baronesses Barchfeld.

When Prince Christian and his wife go out to dinner in Berlin, he
is given his rank at the table as a member of a royal house, but
his wife is treated on a parity with the wives of all officers
holding commissions of equal grade with her husband in the army.
As her husband is a Lieutenant, she ranks merely as a Lieutenant's
wife. On the same day that Miss Rogers and Prince Christian were
wedded, Miss Cecilia May of Baltimore married Lieutenant Vom
Rath. I acted as one of Miss May's witnesses at the Standesamt,
where the civil marriage was performed, while the religious
marriage took place in our Embassy. Lieutenant Vom Rath is the
son of one of the proprietors of the great dye works manufactories
known as Lucius-Meister-Farbewerke at Hoehst, near Frankfurt a. M.,
where salvarsan and many other medicines used in America are
manufactured, as well as dyestuffs and chemicals.

In my earlier book I described presentations at the Royal
Prussian Court in Berlin, especially the great court called the
"Schleppencour," because of the long trains or Schleppe worn by
the women. All the little kingdoms and principalities of the
German Empire have somewhat the same ceremonies. In Dresden, the
capital of Saxony, a peculiar custom is followed. The King and
Queen sit at a table at one end of the room playing cards and the
members of the court and distinguished strangers file into the
room, pass by the card table in single file and drop deep
courtesies and make bows to the seated royalties, who, as a
rule, do not even take the trouble to glance at those engaged in
this servile tribute to small royalty. I suppose that the excuse
for this is that it is an old custom. But so is serfdom!

There are in Germany many so-called mediatised families,
so-called because at one time they possessed royal rank and
rights over small bits of territory before Napoleon changed the
map of Europe and wiped out so many small principalities.

At the Congress of Vienna these families who lost their right of
rule, in part compensation, were given the right