"You are a malicious, lying, low-minded creature," hissed my mother, at the same time striking me in the face with her big diamonds. "It's mortal sin to throw suspicion on so holy a man, and I will not have him watched." I ran out of mother's room crying, intending to go to papa, but met the boys in the corridor, who told me that father had just departed for the chase. Then I took Leopold aside and told him everything. He was half-mad with rage and was hardly able to articulate when he rushed to mother's room demanding protection for me. "I will protect the holy man instead," answered my fanatic mother. "Louise shall be locked in the room with the chaplain while she has her lesson." And my mother actually carried out that wicked design inspired by fanaticism. Locked in a room with me, the chaplain was sweetness itself, but for a while at least remained at a distance. When he attempted to approach me, I seized the burning kerosene lamp, as Leopold had advised. "One step more," I cried excitedly, "and I will throw the lamp in your face." The coward stood still in his tracks, and began whispering to me in a hoarse voice things I hardly understood, but that nevertheless wounded me to the quick. I kept my hand at the burning lamp during the whole hour and was ready to faint when the fiend at last left me. As the door opened, I saw Leopold standing outside, an enormous dog whip in hand. Without a word he applied the whip to the chaplain's broad face, lashing him right and left. The scoundrel offered no resistance, but fled like the dog he was, Leopold after him through the long corridors, upstairs and downstairs, through the picture gallery and the state apartments, lashing him as he ran, the two of them filling the palace with cries of rage and pain. Only the fact that Leopold stumbled over a footstool, enabled the chaplain to reach his room alive, where he barricaded himself. CHAPTER VII PRINCES AND PRINCESSES DANCE TO THE TUNE OF THE WHIP The result shows in the character of rulers--Why English kings and princes are superior to the Continental kind--Leopold's awful revenge--Mother acts the tigress--Her mailed fist--"I forbid Your Imperial Highness to see that dog." CASTLE WACHWITZ, _April 21, 1893_. If my Diary ever fell into plebeian hands, I suppose such stories as the above would be branded as rank exaggerations. A Queen endangering life and health of her children by a form of punishment otherwise known only in the prize ring. An Imperial Highness using her diamonds to graft scars on the cheeks of a little girl! Royal children beaten worse than dogs, deprived of sleep, subjected to cold and damp and, withal, given over, bound hand and foot, so to speak, to the tender mercies of low-minded, unworthy, and even dangerous persons without manners or education.