Because I refuse to accept orders and insults from people that are
beneath an Imperial Princess of Austria."

Prince George turned pale.

"Am I one of those beneath Your Imperial Highness?" he queried stupidly.

"Decidedly so."

A long pause. Then Prince George shouted: "To the devil with you. I
don't care whether you stay in Loschwitz, or Dresden, or on the
Vogelwiese."

The Vogelwiese is an amusement park, respectable enough, but the word or
name, as used by George, reeked with sinister and insulting meaning.

Trembling with rage, I replied: "Right royal language you royal Saxons
use. From time to time, I suppose, you refresh your fish-wife
vocabulary in the annals of Augustus the Physical Strong, than whom a
more gross word-slinger did not walk the history of the eighteenth
century."

I believe Prince George was frightened by my violence. Assuming a
haughty tone he said formally: "Your Imperial Highness is at liberty to
travel whenever you please, but you will be so good as to leave your
children in Dresden."

I stepped up to the white-livered coward and hissed in his face: "Steal
my children if you dare, and I will go to France, or Switzerland and ask
a republican President to interfere for humanity's sake."

"And--land yourself in an insane asylum," sneered George.

"An old trick of the Royal House of Saxony, I know," I shouted back.
"Bernhardt is saner than you, yet the King sent him to Sonnenstein. If
such a crime had been perpetrated by one not a king, he would go to
jail."

Prince George pointed a trembling finger towards the door. "Out with
you!" he bawled hoarsely. "Out!"

I stood my ground. "May I take my children? Yes or no?"

He rang the bell and repeated mechanically: "Out with you, out!"

I had another fit of crying convulsions. Doctors, maids and lackeys were
summoned in numbers. They bedded me on the couch and six men-servants
carried me to my apartments.

Two days later I went to Loschwitz with my children.

I had defied the King. Prince George was humbled. I carried my point,
and the Dresden court will not see me again in a hurry.

* * * * *

LOSCHWITZ, _Christmas, 1901_.

I refused to spend Christmas at Court. Frederick Augustus planned a stay
of a couple of weeks. "Not a single night," I wrote back.

They parleyed; they begged. "The Crown Prince desires to spend Christmas
with the children. In the interests of public opinion, it's absolut