Leopold standing outside, an enormous dog whip
in hand. Without a word he applied the whip to the chaplain's broad
face, lashing him right and left. The scoundrel offered no resistance,
but fled like the dog he was, Leopold after him through the long
corridors, upstairs and downstairs, through the picture gallery and the
state apartments, lashing him as he ran, the two of them filling the
palace with cries of rage and pain. Only the fact that Leopold stumbled
over a footstool, enabled the chaplain to reach his room alive, where he
barricaded himself.

CHAPTER VII

PRINCES AND PRINCESSES DANCE TO THE TUNE OF THE WHIP

The result shows in the character of rulers--Why English kings and
princes are superior to the Continental kind--Leopold's awful
revenge--Mother acts the tigress--Her mailed fist--"I forbid Your
Imperial Highness to see that dog."

CASTLE WACHWITZ, _April 21, 1893_.

If my Diary ever fell into plebeian hands, I suppose such stories as the
above would be branded as rank exaggerations.

A Queen endangering life and health of her children by a form of
punishment otherwise known only in the prize ring.

An Imperial Highness using her diamonds to graft scars on the cheeks of
a little girl!

Royal children beaten worse than dogs, deprived of sleep, subjected to
cold and damp and, withal, given over, bound hand and foot, so to speak,
to the tender mercies of low-minded, unworthy, and even dangerous
persons without manners or education.

And, to cap the climax, a Royal maid in the first blush of budding
womanhood grossly repulsed and physically attacked when she appeals to
her mother for protection; that child locked in a room with her would-be
ravisher and obliged to defend her honor by a threat of murder.

Only the uninitiated--men and women living outside the pale of royal
courts--will deem such things impossible. Let me tell these happy
ignoramuses that all through the nineteenth century the princes and
princesses of Europe were brought up to the tune of the whip and of
physical and mental humiliation. It was the fashion.

The only eminent monarch of the immediate past--Frederick the Great--was
all but flayed alive by his father when a boy and young man,--emulate
the second King of Prussia's brutalities and your offspring will be
destined for greatness, argued princes.

The first Emperor William of Germany had a gentle mother, my famous
namesake; he was always a gentl