head. No one spoke to me but the
lackeys: "If it please Your Imperial Highness----"

Frederick Augustus tore into my bedroom some little time after I had
retired. Picture of the offended gentleman, if you please. I got no more
than I deserve, but it "reflected on him, h-i-m, HIM." Though it was a
"family dinner," he, the Crown Prince of Saxony, was "publicly"
disgraced. The Emperor had treated the Crown Princess as air. He had not
deigned to address a single word to her. The Crown Princess was a
trollop in the Imperial eyes--it was enough to drive the Crown Prince to
drink.

"Drink yourself to death then," I shrieked.

During the night I speculated what to do: ask a private audience of the
Emperor, state my side of the case and beg his forgiveness and
protection, beg, especially, for better treatment at his hands?

And if he refused?

Francis Joseph is a good deal of a Jesuit. When he hates, he never lets
it come to a break; when he loves, he never attaches himself.

If I stooped to humiliate myself, he might choose to debase me still
more. It was entirely probable that he would betray my confidences to
the King and Prince George.

I will defy him and--all of them!

"Her Imperial Highness regrets----" my Court Marshal wrote in answer to
all invitations or rather "commands" for the next three days. When I
refused to participate in the "grand leave-taking," Frederick Augustus
came post-haste to expostulate with me.

"You must. It would be an affront without precedent."

"Take leave of a man who didn't say good-day to me on his arrival, and
who probably intends to slight me in similar fashion on going away----"

In lieu of argument the Prince Royal abused me like a pick-pocket; I had
waited for it and now I let loose.

"You are like the rest of your family," I shouted: "ignorant,
thoughtless, brutal _en venerie_, sanctimonious in dotage. I know few
people for whom I have so great a detestation as for the Royal Saxons.
Look at your father, there is no more jesuitical a Jesuit, the inward
man as hideous as the outward. He would be an insolent lackey, if he
didn't happen to be a prince.

"And Johann George--a shameless inheritance-chaser, despoiler of
pupillary funds, gambler at the _bourse_, who whines like a whipped dog
when he loses.

"The royal Bernhardt, companion of street-walkers!

"Prince Max, who talks theology, but keeps his eye on Therese.

"Your Queen, a victim of religious madness, your King