I have known the "justice" of the Court and that of the Emperor Francis Joseph. I have learned that a princess has not the same legal rights as the rest of the world. For her, secret arrangements exist which are applied without the judges having anything to say, or, if they do, they only carry out certain orders. They disguise these with all kinds of pretexts. In my case the excuse was that of madness. It would be impossible to-day to tax a rebellious conscience with insanity. It would be impossible to accuse a victim of causing impossible scandals if she dared appeal for help. No one can be thrown by force into a madhouse, where the superintendent says that you are not mad and yet is obliged to keep a guard over you. He had his orders! They called these "_une affaire de cour_!" I do not think it would require many criminal attempts of this nature to obtain a sentence from a Divine justice which no hypocrisy of words or deeds and no machinery of human power can deceive. But why should not those who were guilty of an immoral and cowardly policy be the only ones to expiate their faults? A whole nation is at this moment expiating the decadence and the downfall of the Court of Vienna. Yes, the poor people, who are so good, so duped, so resigned, so industrious and so much to be pitied, are now expiating the crimes of their rulers! When I arrived at the Austrian Court in 1875 Francis Joseph was forty-five years old. He was always distinguishable at a distance by his gallant bearing in uniform. At close quarters he gave one the impression of possessing a certain amount of good humour, which was contradicted by the severity of his glance. He was a narrow-minded man, full of false and preconceived ideas, but he possessed from his upbringing and from the traditions of Austrian politics certain formulas and mannerisms, which enabled him to keep afloat for a long time before he was finally engulfed in the sea of blood in which the Imperial galley ultimately foundered. But, stripped of his rank and ceremonial, devoid of routine or receptions, audiences and speeches, he was nothing but a fool. At his birth, Nature deprived him of a heart. He was an emperor but he was not a man. He is best described as an automaton dressed as a soldier. The Emperor at first made a great impression on me when my husband presented me to him as the new Princess of Coburg. I listened to his amiable and polished phrases, which I found difficult to answer becomingly. They were usually so banal that almost before leaving his presence I had already forgotten what he had said. It was almost always like this, except on one memorable occasion which I will describe later.