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
Shortly after her departure from Nice, her mother was forced to take
flight in consequence of the persecution to which she was subjected by
her creditors; and with a shamelessness that can only be explained on
the score of an unbalanced mind, she deliberately returned to Austria
with her lover, and coolly took up her residence at his castle near
Agram, where the count actually made preparations for a siege, in
order to resist by force any attempt on the part of the authorities to
take the princess from him.
Ultimately, both were captured by strategy, and while the princess was
conveyed under police escort to Vienna, and lodged at the request of
her husband in a lunatic asylum, on the sworn statements of two court
physicians concerning her insanity, the count was placed under close
arrest at Agram on the charge of grossly immoral conduct, unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman. Before he had been very long in the
military prison, this charge was changed to one of forgery; for it was
discovered that there were notes in circulation at Vienna and Paris
to the extent of more than a million dollars, which the count had
negotiated, and which bore the forged signature of Princess Louise's
sister, the widowed Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria.
The count of course denied that he had forged the signature, but
as the fact remains that he negotiated the notes, and that Princess
Louise, who, failing himself, can alone have been the culprit, is
officially declared insane, and legally irresponsible, he has had to
bear the brunt of the affair, and is now, after having undergone the
terrible ceremony of military degradation, working out a sentence of
five years' penal servitude in a fortress; doubtless comparing his
fate with that of the celebrated Baron Trench, who was imprisoned
for years in the dungeons of Spandau, and of Magdeburg, for having
compromised the fair name of the sister of Frederick the Great by
indiscreet attentions.
Princess Louise is now under strict restraint in an asylum for the
insane near Dresden, and inasmuch as both her father, King Leopold of
the Belgians, and her husband, have declined to pay any of her
debts, public sales of her belongings, even of her dresses and her
under-garments, were permitted to take place at Vienna and at Nice
for the benefit of her creditors. It is only fair to the unfortunate
princess to state that her entire married life has been one of
uninterrupted misery, owing to the brutality and drunken habits of
her husband, who is noted as one of the most dissolute princes in
all Europe. In fact if court gossip at Berlin and Vienna is to be
believed, the princess first became enamored of Count Keglewitch when
the latter, in attendance on the princely couple as their chamberlain,
interfered one day to protect her from the blows of her husband.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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