The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)Fontenoy, marquise de
History
The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)
Fontenoy, marquise de
Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, 1830-1916; William II, German Emperor, 1859-1941
Of the bachelorhood days of the kaiser's other brother-in-law, Duke
Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, already mentioned several times
in these pages, especially in connection with the anonymous letter
scandal, the least said the better. A hard-drinking, dissipated, and
somewhat coarse-mannered cavalry officer, he has often been a source
of perpetual anger to the kaiser and of distress to his sister, the
excellent empress. He managed to get his name involved in all sorts of
unsavory speculations on the stock exchange and in gambling scandals,
invariably, it is true, as a victim; while at least three foreign
footlight favorites were expelled from Germany by the police on
account of the scandals created by his association with them. On one
occasion, he even had the audacity to appear at Charlottenburg with a
notorious American "_demi-mondaine_" seated beside him on the box of
his drag, although his sister, the empress, was present at the races,
as well as a large number of ladies of the court and many great
dignitaries. Seeing the servants of his coach arrayed in the familiar
liveries of his house, they all naturally imagined that the
lady beside the duke was one of his sisters, either Princess
Frederick-Leopold or Princess Fedora, and accorded to her the homage
which would have belonged by right to either of these two princesses,
but which was totally misplaced when conceded to a woman of such
unenviable notoriety as the fair stranger who sat beside the duke.
Needless to add that the emperor was furious when he heard of the
affair, and after giving orders for the immediate expulsion of the
woman, directed the prince to leave Berlin, and to remain at his
castle of Prinkenau until he had expiated his gross and flagrant
breach of the proprieties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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