The Villa Zirio was a comfortable house standing in its own grounds. The first floor, which consisted of two suites of large rooms, was occupied by the Crown Prince and Princess. On this floor were also the rooms of the Princess's lady-in-waiting, Countess von Bruschl. The second floor was assigned to the three young princesses and the rest of the suite. Unfortunately, owing to the great curiosity and anxiety felt all over Europe as to the progress of the Crown Prince's illness, the little Italian town was filled with newspaper representatives, their headquarters being a large hotel opposite the Villa Zirio. In fact, during the winter of 1887-8, all the world was watching the race between the two lives--that of the ninety-year-old Emperor, and that of his son, already stricken with a mortal disease, on whom so many fair hopes rested. The Crown Prince and Princess owed a great deal, at this troubled period of their lives, to the devotion and vigilant loyalty of their friend and servant, Count Theodor Seckendorff, whose official position in the Crown Princess's Household was that of "chambellan." Seckendorff was once well described by an English friend as "the Baldassare Castiglione of the present day." He was, indeed, "the perfect courtier." His father, a distinguished diplomatist, had been attached to the Prussian Legation in London, and so the Count knew England and the English intimately. Indeed, he had obtained leave to accompany Lord Napier of Magdala on the Abyssinian campaign, and he was also with that distinguished commander on the North-West frontier of India. Afterwards he was on the staff of the Crown Prince in the Franco-German War, and was chosen by the latter to be one of the officers to escort Napoleon III to Wilhelmshöhe. Thereafter the Count's relationship with the Crown Prince and Princess became even closer. A man of fine literary and artistic taste, and a really good artist, Count Seckendorff spoke English, Italian, and French with ease and distinction, and he retained--what few men and women seem able to retain in the world of Courts--a great simplicity of manner and absolute sincerity of nature. While patriotically devoted to his own country, he was also a true lover of England, and he always did everything that lay in his power to ease the often strained relations between the two nations. After the death of the Empress Frederick, Count Seckendorff continued in faithful and kindly touch with her native country. He organised the Loan Exhibition of British Art in Berlin as late as 1908, and his premature death, two years later, caused much sorrow to a large circle of attached friends in both London and Berlin. To return to the life at San Remo; in a letter written about this time the Crown Princess says: