), he cried out with every indication of gusto:
"You don't know how deliciously common that girl is."

Frederick's words explain the hostler marriages of several royal women
mentioned by Louise, as well as her own and loving family's
_broulleries_ of the fish-wife order, repeatedly described in the Diary.

_Royalty Threatens a Royal Woman_

It is safe to say that few $15 flats in all the United States witnessed
more outrageous family jars than were fought out in the gilded halls of
the Dresden palace between Louise and father-in-law and Louise and
husband. Threats of violence are frequent; Prince George promises his
daughter-in-law a sound beating at the hands of the Crown Prince and the
Crown Princess confesses that she would rather go to bed with a drunken
husband, booted and spurred, than risk a sword thrust.

At the coronation of the present Czar, at Moscow, I mistook the Duke of
Edinburgh, brother of the late King Edward, for a policeman attached to
the British Ambassador, so exceedingly commonplace a person in
appearance, speech and manner he seemed; Louise has a telling chapter on
the mean looks of royalty, but fails to see the connection between that
and royalty's coarseness.

Perhaps it wasn't the "commonness" of Lady Emma Hamilton, child of the
slums, impersonator of _risque_ stage pictures, and mistress of the
greatest naval hero of all times, that appealed primarily to Louise's
grand-aunt, Queen Caroline of Naples, but the abandon of the beautiful
Englishwoman, her reckless exposure of person, her freedom of speech,
certainly sealed the friendship between the adventuress and the despotic
ruler who deserved the epithet of "bloody" no less than Mary of England.

_Covetous Royalty_

Royal covetousness is another subject dwelt on by Louise. We learn that
in money matters the kings and princes of her acquaintance--and her
acquaintance embraces all the monarchs of Europe--are "dirty," that
royal girls are given in marriage to the highest bidder, and that poor
princes have no more chance to marry a rich princess than a drayman an
American multi-millionaire's daughter.

Louise gives us a curious insight into the Pappenheim-Wheeler marriage
embroglio, and refers to some noble families that made their money in
infamous trades; that the Kaiser adopted the title of one of these
unspeakables ("Count of Henneberg") she doesn't seem to know.

We hear of imperial and royal highnesses, living at public expense a