hat are in disgrace, this momentous question
is put only once. Those in good standing are asked three times.

Ever since that September day when all Dresden did me honor, the King
and Prince George have said "_How art thou's?_" to me and mine but once,
whenever and wherever we met, and be sure there were always listeners to
report the double omission.

At first it amused me; then enraged me; I don't care a fig now. But
Frederick Augustus! Poor imbecile, he is eating his heart out about
those two missing "_How art thou's?_" and though he looks splendid in
gala uniform he acts in the royal, but ungracious, presence like a green
recruit expecting to be kicked and cuffed by his noncommissioned officer
on getting back to the barracks.

As to my entourage, it surrenders to royal disfavor even as Frederick
Augustus: depressed faces, pitying glances. I could box their ears for
their sympathy.

Am I not the great-granddaughter of that mighty Maria Theresa that ruled
Austria and Hungary with an iron hand, lined with velvet. "_Moriamur pro
rege nostro_" (We will die for our King), cried the Hungarians, when she
appealed to their chivalry, her new-born babe at her breast. "_Rege_,"
not "_Regina_." They called her King. They forgot the woman in the
monarch, yet I am treated like an insipid female always, never as the
Crown Princess!

Let them beware. My full name is Louise Marie Antoinette. I was named
after the Marie Antoinette of history--another ancestor of mine--and the
pride of the decapitated Queen of France is in me! My namesake was
satisfied when she read the Saint-Antoine placard of June 25, 1791:
"Whosoever insults Marie Antoinette shall be caned, whosoever applauds
her shall be hanged." Some day I will dismiss the cattle that now grudge
me the people's applause and punish those that insult me.

Come to think of it, Marie Antoinette had not only pride and defiance,
she had lovers too. Well, some day this Marie Antoinette may have
lovers, and if it's wrong, let the recording angel debit my sins to the
Saxon court.

Thank God, I am blessed with that truly royal attribute, ability to
dissimulate. "_Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_" was all the Latin
Charles VIII knew, yet he made a pretty successful king for one who died
at the age of twenty-seven.

I always act as if the King, and father-in-law George, had asked me not
once, or three times, but a dozen times "_How art thou?_" I don't know
anything about being