However, the Duke of Holstein insisted that Dora ought to be introduced to his family and to the Hohenzollerns. He gave me his word of honour to bring her back if I would allow her to go to Berlin for a few days accompanied by her governess. I made this soldier of Berlin swear this, but "vanquished is he who pushes the wheel of the conqueror's chariot," and I let her go. She did not return. She was kept far away from me. This was the open avowal of the plot of which the melancholy vicissitudes were about to be precipitated. I only learnt of the marriage of my daughter to Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein from the newspapers, when I was incarcerated in the Doebling Asylum at Vienna. I had just been taken there. This plot--have I mentioned it?--was one of the vilest of plots--it was a plot which concerned money. I was not mad, but my enemies thought that I should most certainly become mad in the midst of lunatics. Madness is contagious. My destruction had been determined. For as insane, or passing as such, I should be incapable of managing my own affairs. I should possess no civil rights, and my representatives could do as they pleased with my property. The King was old, and doubtless it would not be long before he "passed over." It was then certain that each of his children would inherit about three thousand millions. Was I to be allowed to inherit such a fortune, which I was sure to surrender into inimical hands, and which would then be squandered? It is not to be wondered that my son, my daughter's husband, perhaps even my daughter herself, who was then a prisoner where William II and his wife ruled, agreed with the wishes of the Prince of Coburg, who was anxious to revenge himself for the bitter feelings which he had inspired in my heart. [Illustration: _Photo: E. Bieber_ DUKE GUNTHER OF SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN] Besides, his vengeance would not fall on me alone. It would overtake and crush the count, whom he hated for his presumed influence over me. And this influence, how could they possibly understand it? People see only what they want to see. It is beyond their miserable comprehension to understand superior beings with lofty souls and aspirations, and they describe as infamy what in reality is sacrifice. I will pass rapidly over the shame and the sorrow, and I will only relate as much as is necessary to make known to the world the high and pure character of the count, who, a Bayard without fear and without reproach, dauntlessly confronted a military tribunal. I will confine myself to stating that in the unprecedented drama of incessant persecutions which I was forced to endure from the year 1897 until the victory of the Entente, the Imperial Houses of Berlin and Vienna were the prop and support of the different attacks, pressure, outrages, defamations and calumnies which would assuredly have overwhelmed me if public opinion had not instinctively revolted thereat. And the public knew nothing of the rights and wrongs of the case.