of the castle. So my brother
kicked in the door and went for the cowering brute again, raining
stripes on every part of his bloated body, alternately using the whip
and the whip-end. Undoubtedly Leopold would have killed him then and
there if his boy's strength had not given out. He left him more dead
than alive, bleeding and moaning.

I will never forget the spectacle when Leopold came down the stairs
after leaving the chaplain's room. I and my brothers and sisters were
huddled together behind our ladies in the blue ante-chamber. A dozen or
more lackeys stood in the corridor, whispering.

Leopold's face was deathly pale as he descended the stairs, and blood
was dripping from his whip, reddening the white linen runners
protecting the carpet. He wore his army uniform, that should have saved
him from violence at any rate. At that moment I prayed my sincerest that
father would come home. I would have thrown myself on my knees and told
everything, servants or no servants. But mother came instead.

She was fully informed and she sprang upon poor Leopold like a tigress,
knocking him from one end of the corridor to the other with her
diamond-mailed fist. It was terrible, and all of us children cried aloud
with terror. But the more we cried and the more we begged for mercy, the
harder were the blows mother rained upon poor Leopold's face and head.
His blood spattered over the white enameled banisters and doors until
finally he was dragged out of my mother's clutches by an old footman who
placed his broad back between the Imperial Highness and her victim.

Now, it was the rule in our house that the whipped child had to ask our
mother's forgiveness for putting her to the trouble of wielding the
terrible back of her hand.

Six weeks Leopold stayed at Salzburg after the scene described, and
daily my mother urged him to beg her forgiveness. The boy stood
stockstill on these occasions, never twitching a muscle of his face and
never saying a word in reply. During all these six weeks he waited on
mother morning, noon and night, according to ceremony, but never a word
escaped him, never did he look in her direction unless actually forced
to do so. He played the deaf and dumb to perfection.

Father must have thought that Leopold got enough punishment, for he
never mentioned the matter to him and forbade the servants to even
allude to the court chaplain. Mother, on her part, placed the chaplain
in charge of two skilled surgeons and