Because they were swayed by the male of the species, of course!

Though the characters of the world's female sovereigns differed as to blood, race, education, environment and personal traits, neither showed any inclination to resist the allurements of irregular _amours_.

Think of Semiramis, of Mary of Scots, of Elizabeth, Catherine I, of the Tsaritzas Elizabeth and the second Catherine--under the temptations of Power, they recruited paramours for themselves in all ranks of society.

Agrippina was more licentious than Caligula; Messalina's infamy surpa.s.sed Nero's, and the furthest reaching, the one irresistible Power swaying them all was MAN.

Augustus of the three hundred and fifty-four emphasized this in the negative and, in his own uncouth way, by "postering" the Countess Cosel's chief charm on penny coins.

"She cost Saxony twenty millions in gold--behold the penny's worth she gave in return."

When the beauty who had brought the richest German kingdom to the verge of state bankruptcy died February 2, 1765, four hundred of Augustus's infamous medals were found hidden in her favorite armchair. She paid three or four times their weight in gold for each.

CHAPTER LIX

THE PEOPLE THINK ME A WANTON

Credit me with innumerable lovers, but don't disapprove--Glad the King feels scandalized--Picture of the "she-monster"--Everybody eager for love--I delight in Richard's jealousy--Husband's indelicate announcement at table--I rush from the royal opera to see my lover--A threatening dream--Richard not mercenary like my n.o.ble lovers.

DRESDEN, _August 10, 1902_.

This is the kind of speech Richard holds with me and--I enjoy:

"Every working-girl, every poor woman who suckles her own children and helps her husband in the fight for existence, stands mountain high above royal ladies like you.

"None of you royal ladies are their moral equals.

"In no distant time," he says, "they will chase you from your thrones, even as your relatives had to evacuate France by tumbril, post-chaise or train."

Richard's ethical and intellectual valuation of royal princes coincides with my own. He has rare insight into our family life.

However, these disclosures both amazed and alarmed me when I first heard them p.r.o.nounced. I never dreamt that opinions of that kind prevailed among the ma.s.ses.

"But why am I acclaimed whenever I show myself?"

"Because you are pretty, because you impersonate the one thing all are desirous to embrace: affluence, kindness, youth and beauty. Because you are a treat to the senses and because sensuality is the paramount thing in life, whether we admit it or not."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Kings and anarchists, princesses of the Blood and laundresses, royal princes and cab drivers, empresses, street-walkers, society ladies, big-wigs and _sabretasches_. The draggled Menads and the helpful Lafayette, the Jacobins, Charlotte Corday and the man she killed--all were, and are, on similar pleasure bent."

And he added quickly: "As to the Dresdeners, they are tickled because, every time they applaud you, the King is scandalized."

"How do they know that I am not on good terms with the King?"

"The very children in arms understand."

All Dresden, says Richard, is talking about me. Everybody a.s.sumes to know the number and qualities of my lovers. "Louise," they argue, "knows how to enjoy herself, but, though it serves the King right, we wouldn't have her for a daughter-in-law, either."

According to the ma.s.ses, I visit the Vogelwiese at night, ride on the flying horses and solicit men and boys that please my fancy. Like a gigantic she-monster, I drag them to my lair--"some to vanish forever."

(No doubt, I eat them.)

"Unwashed soldiers and clerks reeking with cheap perfume, actors and students, draymen and generals, it's all the same to the Crown Princess.

"Sometimes, when the spirit moves her, the Crown Princess issues from her gilded apartments in the palace and seizes the sentinel patrolling the corridors. Or she visits the guard-room _en deshabille_ and selects the youngest and best looking officer for her prey.

"Generous, too. She thinks nothing of handing a pension of ten thousand marks per year to a chap that pleased her once."

"Is that all they say about me?"

"Not one-half. Poor devils that can't afford ten marks per year for their fun, Cit's wives that know only their ill-kempt husbands, factory girls that sell their virtue for a supper or a gla.s.s of beer--though afterwards they claim it was champagne--all take delight in contemplating that you, or any other good looking royal woman, are Frankenstein's succuba or worse. Didn't they accuse your grand-aunt, Marie Antoinette, of incest with her son and gave him to the cobbler to thrash the immorality out of him?"

"And they give names?"

"Strings of them"--among them several I never heard mentioned before.

DRESDEN, _August 15, 1902_.

Richard is jealous--jealous of the men I did love and the regiments that public opinion give me credit for. He must needs think I have loins of steel.

He tells me he suffers agonies by what I confessed, and still more by what I hide. To see him thus unhappy gives me intense pleasure, for it shows that the boy loves me to distraction.

_Midnight._

M. Giron was very cold and distant during the afternoon's lessons.

I had previously lunched with him at his studio and we were very gay then. I teased him unmercifully about "his royal _demi-mondaine_," as the ma.s.ses painted me.

Frederick Augustus was very gallant at dinner and told me, before a table full of people, that he would take pleasure in sleeping with me tonight. I have too bad a conscience to deny myself to him. But I ran over to the opera for half an hour and ordered M. Giron to my box.

"I got over my vexation," he said,--"got over it because I reflected that you are the Princess Royal and that I would be a fool to take your love seriously. Henceforth I will regard it a pa.s.sing adventure and let it go at that, for if I thought it the great pa.s.sion of my life, I would despair, indeed."

"Find a closed cab," I whispered, my heart in my mouth; "I must see you alone. I will be at the northern side-exit in five minutes."

Cabby was ordered to drive slowly along unfrequented side streets. We lowered the curtains.

"So you don't love me?" I wailed. Burying my face on Richard's chest I cried as if my heart would break.

"Not love you?" he breathed. "If I loved you not, I would die, Louise."

"Then why those cruel words?"