those compromising letters: steal the keys and borrow the parcel for a
short while. That's what Leopold was waiting for. Not half an hour after
the keys had been abstracted, he raised the alarm. He had been "robbed."
The archducal safe had been rifled. And he managed to catch Schoenstein
red-handed.

"Send for the police," thundered my brother, "and meanwhile watch the
thief well." Schoenstein was given no chance to explain and deemed
himself lucky to escape arrest. My brother suspended him from service
and made him go to a hotel while he telegraphed the story of the
attempted theft to Vienna, asking the Count's immediate dismissal.

Of course, Vienna disavowed the dunderhead--royalty has no use for
persons that allow themselves to be compromised--and he has been in
disgrace ever since. Nor can he get another courtly office, for Leopold
threatened the moment he sees him with a Highness to warn everybody:
"Look to your watch and purse, we have a thief with us."

I jotted this down to remind me that Prince George's spy deserves no
better than the Emperor's.

CHAPTER XXI

BANISHMENT

I am ordered to repair to a country house with the hated spy as my
Grand Mistress--My first impulse to go home, but afraid parents
won't have me.

DRESDEN, _August 10, 1894_.

Order from the King that myself and children spend the rest of the
summer at Villa Loschwitz, to remain until I get royal permission to
return to Dresden,--the Tisch to act as chief of my household.

Banished! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Smile, because I
escaped the _ennui_ of attending court at the summer residence of
Pillnitz; weep, because my absence from court would be interpreted as a
disciplinary measure.

I know Pillnitz is about as gay as a Trappist feast of carrion and ant's
milk, but this princess doesn't want to be disciplined.

I shall tell them that I want to go home, but will they have me in
Salzburg? Papa, of course, but if mother hears of my acquaintance with
Heine, "who doesn't love Jesus,"--her own words,--she will undoubtedly
side with Prince George against her daughter. It was Heine who wrote of
one of her ancestors, King Louis of Bavaria: "As soon as the monkeys and
kangaroos are converted to Christianity, they'll make King Louis their
guardian saint, in proof of their perfect sanity." And you don't suppose
for a moment that mamma forgets a thing like that. As to Nietzsche, he
will give her no conscie