Immediately after the christening of the little Princess, the Crown Prince joined his staff at Breslau. But he left under the most mournful auspices. Just before his departure the baby Prince Sigismund, whom Princess Alice had described as "that beautiful boy, the joy and pride of his parents," fell suddenly ill, and, what seemed particularly cruel and unnecessary, even the doctor in attendance on the sick child had to leave for the front. There is a very sad reference to the illness of her little nephew in a letter written by Princess Alice on June 15: "The serious illness of poor little Sigismund in the midst of all these troubles is really dreadful for poor Vicky and Fritz, they are so fond of that merry little child." Prince Sigismund's disease was at first difficult to diagnose. As a matter of fact it was meningitis, and very soon it became clear that there was no hope. On June 19 the child died, at the very moment when his father was addressing his troops at Niesse, and the Crown Princess found herself alone, without anyone near or dear to her to share her bitter grief in this, the second great loss of her life. Queen Augusta journeyed to the front to tell her son of his bereavement. He, however, more fortunate than the Crown Princess, had much to absorb every moment of his time and thoughts. But after the war was over, in a speech made to the Municipality of Berlin, the Crown Prince alluded briefly to his loss. "It was a heavy trial to be separated from my wife and my dying boy. It was a sacrifice which I offered to my country." In the _Reminiscences of Diplomatic Life_ published by Lady Macdonell, widow of Sir Hugh Macdonell, a fact is revealed which shows how the mother's heart must have hungered for Prince Sigismund. Lady Macdonell became on terms of considerable intimacy with the Crown Princess, who was evidently impressed by her sympathetic nature. One day, when they were going down a corridor in the New Palace, the Princess suddenly unlocked a door, and in the room to which the locked door gave access was preserved surely one of the strangest and most pathetic forms of consolation to which a bereaved mother ever had recourse. Lady Macdonell writes: "I saw a cradle, and in it a baby boy, beautiful to look upon, but it was only the waxen image of the former occupant, the little Prince Wenceslau [a mistake for Sigismund], who had died when the Crown Prince went to the war of 1866. How pathetic it was to note the silver rattle and ball lying as though flung aside by the little hand, the toys which had amused his baby mind arranged all about the cradle, his little shoes waiting, always waiting--at the side." When, five years later, Prince and Princess Charles of Roumania lost their only child, Princess Marie, at the age of three and a half, the Crown Prince wrote a letter of condolence to Prince Charles, who was Prince Sigismund's godfather, in which he said: