ASTLE

Rendezvous at studio--State takes my children from me--Madhouse or
flight--I brought fifty-two trunks to the palace--Depart with small
satchel--If I attempt to see my children I'll be seized as "mad
woman"--Varying emotions of the last ten minutes--Threatening
shadows thrown on a curtain decide me--Ready for flight--Diary the
last thing to go into the satchel.

_At Night. Eleven O'clock._

They went into family council at six tonight and are still deliberating,
Andrew reports. The Tisch, he says, acts as secretary; His Majesty, of
course, presides.

Present are the Dowager Queen, Mathilde and Isabelle. Then Frederick
Augustus, Johann George, Max and Bernhardt. Baron George von Metzsch, a
high government and court functionary and my enemy, attends as legal
adviser to the King.

It's in the nature of things that the Baron will do his worst to destroy
me, but Bernhardt! Bernhardt, who held me in his arms, now one of my
judges! He will have to be especially severe with his _quondam_ mistress
lest the King suspect.

While the sweet family bent over those love letters--I bet the Tisch
withheld Henry's--I sat in Richard's studio, advising with him.

"There are only two things to be considered: the madhouse or instant
flight."

"You dare advise me to leave my children?"

"There are no nurseries in madhouses. Your children are lost to you,
anyhow. If you remain, as an alleged insane person, you 'can't be
trusted,' they'll argue, for you are helpless, legally, morally and
physically.

"If you run away to Switzerland, on the other hand, you are a free
woman, under the protection of a republican government.

"Switzerland, I needn't tell you, will not go to war to wrest your
children from the royal family, but will afford you personally every
advantage, legal and otherwise.

"Decide quickly: are you going to make King George a present of yourself
as well as of the five children you bore for the benefit of the
Wettiners?"

"Never."

* * * * *

My mind is made up. My few belongings are packed. I, who came to Dresden
with fifty-two trunks, leave the palace with a satchel, easy to carry. I
take nothing but my personal jewels, the little money I own and some
changes of linen.

If I could only see my children for a moment or two, but the Queen has
them in her keeping, and I might be seized as a "mad woman" if I dared
leave my apartments and cross to