Some reflections on queens of old who punished recreant lovers--Henry was in debt and I gave him money--Indignities by which some of that money was earned--Husband accompanies me to Loschwitz--Reflections on Frederick Augustus's character. _January 15, 1901._ My love played the melancholy Dane for the last few days. His tenderness seemed labored, his spirits under a cloud. Every smile I got had to be coaxed from him. "The end of my happiness," I thought; "some chit of a girl dethroned me." And I cursed my birthday. "A kingdom for ten years off my age." And my thoughts of thoughts travelled back to the times when royal ladies had their rivals immured, as practiced by a Brandenburg princess at the Kaiser's hunting box at Gruenewald, or made a head shorter, like Lady Jane Grey, who was far too pretty to please Elizabeth; or shot, as elected by Queen Christina, _tribade_ and nymphomaniac both. And the things Queen Bess did to her unfaithfuls and the crimes Mary Stuart perpetrated to cheat Jeannie Bothwell out of her doughty Hepburn! "If I were Queen," I thought, and I must have spoken aloud, for Henry said: "You would make me a great lord, love, wouldn't you, give me the best paying office at court, but that's small comfort to my creditors today." "It's creditors, mere creditors bothering you?" I almost shouted with joy. This man was still mine. No one had succeeded in luring him away from me. I threw myself upon him and nearly smothered him. Filthy lucre, or the want of it, oppressing my boy. Money, miserable money, caused me to doubt his very loyalty. "How much?" He stuttered and denied and swore it was all a mistake and that I had misunderstood him. "As an army officer----" "Don't talk like Frederick Augustus. It will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to arrange your affairs, dearest." I got him to name the sum after a while. What a pity I am not rich. As Catharine sent her Orloffs and Potemkins and Zoritchs to the State Treasury to help themselves as they saw fit, so I would gladly turn fortunes over to Henry, never asking for an accounting. But this Imperial Highness is wretchedly poor, like most royal women not actually seated on the throne. I can't offer my paramour financial independence, not even luxury, but, thank heaven, I saved up enough to provide for his present needs, even if my treasury be drained to the last twenty-mark piece, and I will have to cut short my charities for the next quarter of a year. But he must not know these sordid details. Some day I will be Queen. I will reimburse the poor and I will be a true Catharine to Henry. * * * * * DRESDEN, _January 16, 1901_. I brought my mite to our rendezvous. Mostly in small bills and twenty-mark pieces. If Henry knew that many of these were earned in the right royal fashion of having them slipped down one's stocking by a husband, too drunk to distinguish a royal palace from a dance-hall!