The etiquette of Versailles in the time of Louis XVI. could hardly be more exasperating to a modern woman than that of Berlin in the twentieth century. Before luncheon and dinner processions converge from all parts of the castle, conducting members of the Imperial family and royal guests to the drawing-room. “The Kaiser will be in the drawing-room in ten minutes,” was the regular warning I used to receive from a lady-in-waiting, fearful that I should be late, and knowing the value the Kaiser sets on punctuality. In point of fact, I never was late, and, indeed, punctuality almost ceases to be a virtue at the Schloss, where one lives under a hard-and-fast code of rules. On the way from the drawing-room to the dining-room the Kaiser and Kaiserin and their guests pass through the apartment in which the ladies and gentlemen in attendance have been discarded. They stand in a great circle, and it is the invariable custom to make the tour of the circle with the usual smile and the usual banal remarks. That duty performed, the royal personages go into the dining-room, and the suites retire to eat in another room. In Madrid the persons in attendance on the royal family dine with them. When I first went to Berlin the Kaiser’s children were young, and, although they lunched with us, they were not permitted to speak unless first spoken to. After the meal the royal party returns to the drawing-room, but it must not be thought that when alone royal persons unbend and behave naturally. The daily discipline of relentless etiquette has its effect on them; they cannot forget that they are royal, and therefore obliged to mask their feelings more rigorously than is necessary for ordinary people; indeed, most princesses I know are reduced by this inexorable discipline to nonentities whose mouths are twisted in an eternal smile. At Berlin we conversed politely for the regulation time, and, after making the circle of the suites again, were conducted back to our apartments in half a dozen processions. Back in one’s rooms, it is impossible to emerge without a repetition of wearisome ceremonies. To go out for half an hour’s walk by oneself is a relaxation the poorest can enjoy; it is forbidden to a palace prisoner. The etiquette of Berlin requires a princess to be accompanied by a lady-in-waiting. And usually the lady-in-waiting cannot walk fast, so that the enjoyment of a little vigorous exercise in the open air is impossible. Moreover, people about courts are usually uninteresting companions. Obviously, intelligent persons would not consent to lead such aimless lives and to conform to such an inexorable code. How inexorable is that code may be judged from the fact that one of the Court ladies in Berlin was confined to her room for three days as a punishment for walking across the courtyard in an indecorous manner, that is to say with one hand ungloved.