n of the
ex-Crown Princess of Saxony_, under the heads of "_Louise's Alimony and
Conditions_" and "_Allowance Raised and a Further Threat_."

HENRY W. FISCHER, _Editor_.
Fischer's Foreign Letters, Publishers

THIS BOOK AND ITS PURPOSE

By Henry W. Fischer

Of Memoirs that are truly faithful records of royal lives, we have a
few; the late Queen Victoria led the small number of crowned
autobiographists only to discourage the reading of self-satisfied royal
ego-portrayals forever, but in the Story of Louise of Saxony we have the
main life epoch of a Cyprian Royal, who had no inducement to say
anything false and is not afraid to say anything true.

For the Saxon Louise wrote not to guide the hand of future official
historiographers, or to make virtue distasteful to some sixty odd
grand-children, bored to death by the recital of the late "Mrs. John
Brown's" sublime goodness:--Louise wrote for her own amusement, even as
Pepys did when he diarized the peccadilloes of the Second Charles'
English and French "hures" (which is the estimate these ladies put upon
themselves).[1]

The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony suffered much in her youth by a
narrow-minded, bigoted mother, a Sadist like the monstrous Torquemada;
marriage, she imagined, spelled a rich husband, more lover than master;
freedom from tyranny, paltry surroundings, interference. To her
untutored mind, life at the Saxon Court meant right royal splendor,
liberty to do as one pleases, the companionship of agreeable, amusing
and ready-to-serve friends.

_The Sad Saxon Court_

Her experience? Instead of the Imperial mother who took delight in
cutting her children's faces with diamonds and exposing her daughters to
the foul machinations of worthless teachers--she acquired a
father-in-law (Prince, afterwards King George) whose pretended affection
was but a share of his all-encompassing hatred, whose breath was a
serpent's, whose veins were flowing with gall; the supposed
chevaleresque husband turned out a walking dictionary of petty
indecencies and gross vulgarities when in a favorable mood, a brawler at
other times, a coward always.

As to money--Louise wished for nothing better "than to be an American
multi-millionaire's daughter for a week"! Amusements were few and
frowned upon.

Liberty? None outside of a general permit to eat, drink and couple like
animals in pasture, was recognized or tolerated. Nor could the royal
young woman make friends.