THE KAISER’S DAUGHTER, PRINCESS VICTORIA LOUISE (NOW DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK) AT THE AGE OF NINE 12 (Photo, T. H. Voigt, Homburg.) THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS WITH MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILY, TAKEN AT THE NEW PALACE, WILDPARK 44 (Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.) THE KAISER AND HIS TWO ELDEST GRANDSONS, PRINCES WILHELM AND LOUIS FERDINAND OF PRUSSIA 76 (Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.) THE CROWN PRINCE AND HIS HEIR, PRINCE WILHELM 122 (Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.) THE KAISER AND HIS ELDEST GRANDSON 136 (Photo, Selle and Kuntze, Potsdam.) THE EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER, TAKEN ON THE DAY WHEN SHE WAS MADE COLONEL OF THE “DEATH’S HEAD” HUSSARS 232 (Photo, A. Topham.) THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK 238 (Photo, T. H. Voigt, Frankfort.) MEMORIES OF THE KAISER’S COURT CHAPTER I ARRIVAL AT THE PRUSSIAN COURT Towards the middle of August 1902, on a very hot, dusty, suffocating day, I was travelling, the prey of various apprehensions, to the town of Homburg-vor-der-Höhe, where the Prussian Court was at that time in temporary residence. Thither I had been summoned, to join it in the capacity of resident English teacher to the young nine-year-old Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, only daughter of the German Emperor and Empress. A stormy night-passage of eight hours on the North Sea, followed by a long train-journey through stifling heat lasting till five o’clock in the afternoon, naturally affects any one’s spiritual buoyancy, and it was with a distinct feeling of depression that I at last descended from the train on to the platform of Homburg station. I confidently expected that a carriage would be waiting for me, but nothing in the least resembling a royal equipage is to be seen. There is only a row of those shabby, time-worn, open droschkies, harnessed to attenuated, weary-looking horses, which, even since the advent of the “taxi” into the social conditions of the Fatherland, still maintain a precarious, struggling existence in most German towns. I am a helpless stranger, with a very limited knowledge of the German language as applied to porters and cabmen, and consequently very much at the mercy of these functionaries. As my luggage is plainly addressed to the “Königliches Schloss,” the group of officials who surround me, all talking together in strident tones, are most anxious that I should get there as soon as possible. I manage to convey to them my idea that a carriage will probably be coming for me soon, and after a few minutes’ interval of waiting one porter obligingly goes outside the station to look up the long street for the missing vehicle; but he returns sadly shaking his head.