or married divorced women--Books that
are full of guilty knowledge, according to royalty--A mud-hole
lodging for one Imperial Highness--Leopold's girl--What I think of
army officers' wives--Their anonymous letters--Leopold's money
troubles--We will fool our enemies by feigning obedience.

LOSCHWITZ, _September 15, 1894_.

Leopold is with me, the brother two years older than I. They just made
him a Major--a twelve-month later than his patent calls for.

Like myself, he is almost permanently in disgrace with the head of the
family, even as I am with the King and Prince George. We had no sooner
embraced and kissed, than I asked him for the latest gossip concerning
the Crown Princess of Saxony.

"You are a tough one," he said, shaking his finger with amused mockery.
According to Vienna court gossip, "I threw Prince George out of doors,"
when he "raised his hand against me," Frederick Augustus and myself
haven't been on speaking terms for six months; and the Saxe family was
actually considering the advisability of divorce.

Of course I told Leopold how things really are.

"Then there will be no divorce?" he asked.

"If the King and Prince George leave me alone,--no."

"Too bad," he said with a laugh, "that knocks me out of the pleasure of
maintaining my _thesis_ that the founder of the Christian religion
didn't believe in indissoluble marriage, but, on the contrary, in
divorce if such couldn't be avoided."

"Who told you that?"

"Professor Wahrmund is preparing a paper on the subject," said Leopold,
who, as remarked, is a very well-read chap and a student. He named five
or six emperors and kings, Catholics, some of them members of the
Austrian Imperial family, who obtained divorces, or married divorced
women. I jotted down the list.

Lothair II divorced his wife Theutberga and married his love, Waldrade.

Emperor Frederick I divorced the Empress Anna on the plea that she was
sterile. She married a Count, with whom she had a dozen children.

Margaret, a daughter of Leopold VI of Austria, was divorced by King
Ottokar of Bohemia.

John Henry, Prince of Bohemia, divorced his wife Margareta, who
afterwards married an ancestor of the Kaiser, Ludwig of Brandenburg.

King Ladislaus of Sicily divorced Queen Constance and forced his vassal,
Andrea di Capua, to marry her against his will. Ten years later
Ladislaus married Maria de Lusignan.

* * * * *

But a lit