A Story from the Court of Vienna.

Bratska Sloga, Volume I, Issue 4, 26 June 1899, Page 4

A Story from the Court of Vienna.

THE MARTYRDOM OF A PRINCESS.

Out of the court of Vienna, the most fastidious and most corrupt in the world, has come many strange and terrible stories that have shocked the world when the truth about them was told. Men and women have suffered from the excesses, profligacy, and brutality of others, but the mud has been gilded. There has been no history more frightful, more awful, than that of the Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of the King of Belgium. Much has been written about her, and the truth has' been carefully veneered. . The world at large was made to believe that she was the true daughter of her father, to whom the dissipations of the French capital was particularly joyous. It has been told that she eloped with a Russian officer, and that it was a fitting climax to her career, which has ended in madness. The Princess Louise passed from a palace to an insane asylum. Yet the causes which made the Princess Louise what she is to-day were greater than those which took reason from the Empress Carlotta. For the younger Belgian Princess passed through a martyrdom that was more harrowing, more destructive, more brutal than that of Carlotta, which was born in revolution, christened in blood, and ended with madness. Of the real life of the Princess Louise the world knows little. The facts have been closely guarded. But now a commission representing the Belgian Chambers has taken up her cause. Lawyers are now in Vienna collecting evidence, and if it supports the testimony of persons of high repute, the Chambers will ask for the release of the Princess and the punishment of her husband, Prince Philippe, by criminal and civil process. Above all, they will seek to make the Prince disgorge the large fortune belonging to his wife. The plain, unvarnished facts of the life of the Princess Louise since her marriage 23 years ago are too dreadful to be set down. Many things may be only suggested. Princess Louise was scarcely seventeen years old when she was married to Prince Philippe, who is, incidentally, her cousin. He was distinguished principally for the amount of beer he could drink when he was a student at Bonn, and for his orgies in Vienna. The bride was frozen with horror at her wedding feast, celebrated on February 4, 1875, by Prince Philippe’s actions, for he insulted her grossly before the great company. She shut herself up in her rooms for weeks, and refused to see anyone but her old nurse, who had followed her to Vienna. From the very beginning Prince Philippe treated his wife shamefully. |

Very early in her married life Princess

Louise appealed to her mother, beseeching her to persuade King Leopold to consent to a divorce. Queen Marie has led a most unhappy matrimonial life, and she could sympathise with her daughter. The appeal to the King was fruitless. “ There can be no thought of a divorce,” he said, “ and we will not hear it mentioned again.” The efforts of his wife to be freed of him came to the ear of Prince Philippe. He set about heaping every possible humiliation and indignity upon his wife. He brought women into his own palace that he might make love to them. He made his wife sit at table with him. No woman in her court or in her service was safe from him. He disdained all considerations of rank in his amours. If the Princess dismissed the women who disgraced her under her own roof, the Prince re-engaged them. No woman could bear these outrages without protest; none but one of a Royal house would have endured them. There were many scenes, and in one of these the taunts and reproaches of his wife so enraged Prince Philippe that he struck her. “ Son of a pig-sticker 1” Louise is said to have cried, alluding to the CoburgKohary’s descent from a Hungarian cattledealer named Kohary (Cohen), “ you dare maltreat a King’s daughter.”

That which followed is so dreadful that io is scarcely to be believed. Prince Philippe called his chasseur, bade him fetch a riding-whip, and before the servants the Prince lashed his wife until the blood ran from her face and shoulders. This is only one of the stories the Belgian commission will investigate. On the morning of the second day after this a veiled woman appeared in Castle Laeken, the summer residence of the King and Queen of Belgium. The Princess Louise tore the veil from her face, and fell on her knees before her father and mother, begging them to consent to a divorce. Even the eloquence of her cut and bruised face was not successful. “ Reasons of State ” prevented. There was nothing for her to do but to return to the Austrian capital. Debauchery and maltreatment of his wife continued to distinguish Prince Philippe’s career. The Princess endured with what fortitude she could summon, remaining in seclusion, devoting herself to her religion and her children—a son. Leopold, who is now twenty, and a daughter, Dorothy, who is seventeen, and the daughter of the Duke of Schleswig, the brother of the German Empress. It was the tragedy of Meyerling that was the turning-point in the life of the Princess Louise. The world thinks that it knows all about the circumstances attending the death of the Crown Prince Rudolph and his beautiful Countess, but there are not more than 20 persons in the secret, the Austrian Emperor, his Prime Minister, the Pope, the Princess Louise, and the actual witnesses, among whom was Prince Philippe.

The Princess Louise learned the secret from her husband’s own lips. He boasted to her of his participation, although, like the other witnesses, he had sworn before the Papal delegate to guard the secret. Prince Philippe’s blow struck home, but not in the way that he expected. The Princess Louise is a devout Catholic, and her husband’s breach of faith decidea her to use every possible means to obtain a divorce. Again she appealed to her father. There was a family council. It decided against her. The Princess asked to be permitted to live in Belgium. This also was denied her.

Then she turned, as a woman driven to bay and made desperate, will turn. She stood before her relatives and declared that there was still a way open to her to secure her freedom, and she would avail herself of it, even if she dragged her name and theirs through the mire.

The Princess Louise, the sad, sorrowing pious woman, who had lived a life of

seclusion, returned to Vienna with her

head high in the air, with a smile upon her lips, with a cold gleam in her blue eyes. She summoned milliners and had made the most gorgeous and showy gowns. She who had shunned the gay court life now sought it. None were gayer, none more risque. She appeared on the turf, took part in late suppers, sought the companionship of the men who were her husband’s intimates. At first it was said in court circles that the Princess had at last come to her senses; but to such an extent did she carry her frivolities that even a court that is never censorious said that she was becoming reckless. Until the Princess Louise carried on a very bold flirtation with a young nobleman, Prince Philippe saw nothing. He did not want a divorce, because he did not wish to relinquish his wife’s large fortune. He reprimanded the young nobleman, who promptly retired.

The Princess was bound to force her husband to take some action, to humiliate him as he had outraged her. She drew to her side her husband’s adjutant and warm personal friend, Lieutenant Geza von Mattahooch Keglevitch. Nothing could more clearly show the state of the Princess’ mind than that which followed. One night, when she knew her husband was in the palace, she went to the apartments of Lieut. Keglevitch, who was adjutant in the palace. She caused word to be sent to her husband as to her whereabouts.

Prince Philippe went to his adjutant’s rooms, and confronted his wife, who was defiant. He struck her there, and then challenged Keglevitch to fight a duel. But it was no triumph for the Princess. Her husband told her that he knew it had all been arranged for his benefit, and she should not have a divorce. It may be remarked that the duel was to take place twelve months later, and in the meantime Keglevitch was ordered to remain away from court.

Then the Princess, who had hoped to be freed from her husband by an appearance of guilt, resolved to stop at nothing. She felt that nothing could add to her disgrace, and that no step was too great to pay for her freedom. She resolved to fly with Keglevitch. She knew that the scandal would ring throughout the world, and that her husband would not dare ignore it.

►So the Princess and Keglevitch eloped to Nice together, and the world knew of it. Even Prince Philippe could not pass this by. His first act was that of a petty

tradesman. He cut off his wife’s allowance, and gave notice that he would not be responsible for her bills. It is said, too, that he set about ensnaring his wife by making her the victim of shady financial operators. He was able to bring a charge against her for making spurious cheques. This was followed by an accusation of insanity. It was a Napoleonic idea. Even a Princess who is insane is not credible. Her sufferings were mere hallucinations. A month or so ago eminent doctors found that the Princess was mad. Nothing else could explain her conduct. She was hustled into a private asylum near Vienna, and the physicians of that institution declare that she is a mental wreck. Of course she has no claim upon her property or that of her husband if she is insane. But the Princess is not without friends. As has been said, the Belgian Chambers have taken up her cause, maintaining that a Belgian Princess cannot be spirited away in a foreign country even by her husband. They insisted that the Princess must be produced before a Belgian court to determine her mental state. If she is insane a guardian will care for her interests, and she will be confined and cared for in her native land.

If it is proven that she is not mad, then the Foreign Office of the Austrian Government will be asked to punish Prince Philippe.