Six or eight regiments, Horse, Foot and Artillery, had been moved to do him honor, but he flatly refused to accept a mount for the occasion. Like the ladies of the royal family, he drove to the parade field in a coach and four, and no sooner did he clap eyes on me at the rendezvous in another vehicle than he left his and shambled over to me. He stood at the carriage door, chanting love and devotion, and if I hadn't been all ice, I have no doubt he would have jumped in and ordered the coachman to drive to a hotel. Meanwhile the King trotted around the manoeuvre field in honor of his "sublime guest." Evolutions, _Parade-marsch_, attacks, saluting the colors, Persian and Saxon, what not? Imagine the feelings of the old King when he rode up to the Shah's gala coach and found it empty. The marching past had begun, and still the "King of kings" turned his back on it all, while trying to persuade me to be Queen of his seraglio. Our courtiers, the princes, the Queen, the generals were in despair. They took counsel with each other, disputed, advised, got red in the face. The Shah's gentlemen alone kept cool. They probably argued: If our master prefers the company of a pretty woman to looking at ten thousand men, he shows his good taste. I tried to shake him off. He stood his ground and smiled. "The Grand March has begun, Your Majesty." "Bother the Grand March." The King began to bombard me with ungracious, glances, and of course everybody stared. Three times I asked the big booby to return to his carriage to oblige his host. "Not while I may look at you, adored one." His love-making became desperate. The Crown Princess of Saxony, the Imperial Highness of Austria, the "adored one" of this butcher, who was ruining twenty-five thousand marks' worth of carpets in his apartments at our palace by using them as a shambles to prepare his breakfast of lamb stew. It was contemptible,--nay, ridiculous. Surely there was nothing to do but laugh. And I laughed and laughed again. Only when the last battalion had marched by and the music ceased, the "King of kings" returned to his carriage and drove back to Dresden with the most bored looking visage of the world. CHAPTER XXX MY LIFE AT COURT BECOMES UNBEARABLE Laughter a crime--Disappointed Queen lays down the law for my behavior--Frederick Augustus sometimes fighting drunk--Draws sword on me--Prince George would have me beaten--To bed with his boots on. DRESDEN, _January 5, 1895_. Ever since the Shah left I have been the object of criticism, suspicions and down-right attacks by the pretty family I married into. These pages witness that I tried to conform to the absurd notions and comply with the narrow-minded idiosyncrasies of the Royal Wettiners. I give it up. It can't be done, and I won't make another effort at pleasing my relatives-in-law, who adjudge laughter a crime and the desire to make friends a bid of lewdness.