"The upper tier of dining rooms is reserved at night for any Grand-duke who promises his visit," quoted my husband, "and the broad marble stairs leading to them must not be used by others. Well, one fine evening Grand-duke Vladimir and a crowd of nobles and officers supped at the '_Ermitaj_' and when they were all good and drunk, one of Vladimir's guests, Prince Galitzin, bet the host the price of the supper and a champagne bath for all, that he could induce the famous _danseuse_ Mshinskaya to descend the stairs stark naked and walk among the tables below without anyone offering her insult. "The bet was accepted and the girl sent for. She was found in a near-by theatre and rushed to the '_Ermitaj_'. Of course, seeing that His Imperial Highness wished it, she consented to pull off the trick and--her clothes, but she made a condition." "She demanded tights," I suggested. "Pshaw, she is a sport, says Kyril." This in a tone of disgust from Frederick Augustus. He continued: "She merely begged his Imperial Highness to have it announced that she, Mshinskaya, was acting under the Grand-duke's orders. Done. 'By His Imperial Highness's leave,' shouted the _Maitre d'Hotel_ from the top of the stairs, as _Mademoiselle_ descended in her birthday suit. And the Mshinskaya made the tour of the restaurant as unconcernedly and as little subject to protests, or remarks, as if she had been muffled up to her ears. "That's what I call freedom--discipline," concluded Frederick Augustus. "Think of doing anything like that in a Dresden restaurant." "I would gladly give a year's allowance to the poor if you could manage it here while Prince George was masticating a Hamburg steak at a table opposite the grand staircase," said I. CHAPTER XV ROYALTY NOT PRETTY, AND WHY Fecundity royal women's greatest charm--How to have beautiful children. DRESDEN, _February 25, 1894_. Behold the mother of two boys in a twelve-month! Frederick came just in the nick of time, Sylvester Eve (December 31, 1893), to gain me a little brief renown, for royalty likes its women to be rabbits and, in the reigning houses at least, we are esteemed in proportion to our fecundity. "January 15--December 31," not half bad! Even Prince George had to admit that. And the Kaiser remarked: "Louise, if she keeps it up, bids fair to break de Villeneuve's record. Let me see, Sophie's first child was born January 9--a girl" (with a sneer); "her next, the Hereditary Count, on December 28th of the same year." The "de Villeneuve" is Sophie, Countess of Schlitz. Wilhelm made her celebrated by his gallantries and Lenbach by the great portrait he painted of her wondrous loveliness. If I ever have a daughter, I will have a copy of the Lenbach canvas placed in baby's room. Come to think of it, I will have one made right away to hang in my own boudoir.