EX-CROWN PRINCESS OF SAXONY.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1917, Page 7

EX-CROWN PRINCESS OF SAXONY.

THIS TMUTI[ ABOUT A 110 YAI, SCANDAL i (By William Le, Queux). A good, deal of interest lias, during the past few years, been taken in the romantic career of her Royal Highness the exCrown Princess of Saxony, and much scandal has been written concerning her by Continental journalists; uiost of it is a tissue of cruel fictions. Many leaves in my secret note book are devoted to incidents concerning the life and adventures of her Imperial Highness, for my friendship with her dates from the time when as Louisa, Archduchess of Tuscany, she lived at home at the grim old palace of Salzburg with her extremely pious family. From those long-ago days, through all her adventurous career as Crown Princess of Saxony, until to-day, we have been friends. To myself, indeed, was entrusted many of her affairs after she left Dresden, and further I was witness at her secret and 'ill-fated marriage with the musician Enrico Toselli. At the Royal Court of Dresden I was frequently 'her guest, and after her departure from Saxony she was often my guest at my house in Florence or in .London. Hence, perhaps, no one had a better opportunity than myself of obtaining exact knowledge of the circumstances which combined to cri)9h, humiliate, and scandalise her.

GUEST OP THE GROWN PBINCE. In the pages of my diary I find notes if my first visit to Dresden after her marriage, when; I was the guest of the Crown Prince (now King of Saxony) and tyerself at the Taschenberg Palace, where found myself marvelling at her beauty, her youth, her high spirits, hfr tact, and her truly Imperial manner towards strangers. I remember her at the Court balls, exquisitely gowned, her hair dressed perfectly to suit her tiaray and wearing those wonderful pearls of hers, of which I will speak later. Prince Ferdinand (now King of Bulgaria) had been chosen 'by her father, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, as her future husband. "I met him on several occasions," she had told me in her merry, irresponsible way. "But he was a perfumed elegant who wore yellow boots. : Ugh! I hate yellow boots, don't you?'' she asked. "Well, ray parents gave a grand dinner one evening at which his Royal Highness was present. So, in order to end the farce, I simply jeered at him across the table, to everybody's horror and to the anger of papa. Hence he went away and I never saw him again. Bulgaria! Fancy being queen of a country where half the people wear sheepskins, and the girls all dress in blue!" she added, with a laugh. THE MAN SHE LOVED. She told me this as we sat tete-a-tete at tea in the Taschenberg Palace a year after her marriage to the man she loved, and who loved her so devotedly, Frederick August, Crown Prince of Saxony. The latter was a charming, good-look-ing man who was always very kind and gracious to myself. He read my novels in German and often expressed to me his admiration of Britain and .everything British. He was pro-British, just as was his charming wife. Sad it is to-day, sad to know that he is so constantly in the company of the Kaiser. Yet we hear from every side that the Saxon soldier forced to fight against us has even a soft corner in his heart for his "brave and gallant enemy" the British. In this article I am perhaps indiscreetly lifting the veil from a Royal scandal in which I found myself quite unconsciously implicated. I know that her Highness published her memoirs, and in them she told an interesting story. But she did not reveal the whole of the facts, merely because she was unaware at the time Mrs. Foulkes wrote the book of her of the true extent of the dastardly intrigue which, at the Kaiser's orders, prevented her from becoming Queen of Saxony.

Why? Because the Emperor had decided to attack England, and Louisa was far too pro-British. The truth of this I will here reveal for the first time. The first years of her Highness'a life were very happy ones. Yet the old King and Queen of Saxony she used to declare to me were "two old parrots seated on a perch," avuf from the very first she crossed swords with them because of their rigid etiquette and their antique outlook upon life. The old King was in the ha'bitiof referring at taible to his subjects as ''Our d d public." To this Louisa objected, for she was ever active in all kinds of charitable movements for the alleviation of any distress of the working classes. The latter hailed her as ' Our Louisa," a title by which she is known in every household in Saxony today. It was after she had been married nearly four years that one morning I arrived in Dresden unexpectedly, an',l telephoned to her lady-in-waiting, Frau von Fritsch, that I was in the capital. A quarter of an hour later the Crown Princess herself rang me up, cheerily urging me to come to luncheon, as her husband wished to see me.

I went. It was a pleasant and quite simple meal. The Crown Princess and George von Nietzsch-Reiehenbach a good-looking court official who, as afterwards revealed, was the creature and spy of the totiser—and myself sat around a small table laughing merrily. I remember how the Crown Princess, speaking of my novels, said in her excellent English:— "Ah! my dear Mr. Lo Quoux. If you would get some good plots for your novels you should live here in Dresden amid our so-called society. Oh, the scandals, scandals most terrible!" And all of us laughed. WHAT THE EMPEROR SAID.

After luncheon we took coffee in the fine winter garden which led out from the private dining-room. Frederick-Aug-ust, who was, of course, in military uniform, had to' go forth to a review, von Xeitzsch and the woman von Fritsch were dismissed, and we were alone. "I am very unhappy," her Highness said to me, with a sigh. "You are an old friend, and I confide in you. Last week I was at Potsdam with my husband. We had been invited by the Kaiserin. On Friday night last the Emperor told me that Germany intended war upon England and he added: 'I shall require your aid against England, Louisa—when the time comes.'" ' War!" I echoed, "What do you mean?" "I only tell you the truth, Mr. Le Queux. The Emperor means war against England. You should tell that fine old friend of yours, Lord Roberts, to whom you introduced me at Claridge's in Loudon. He .should know—all England should Iv'now. The Emperor means war!" I -at absolutely dumbfounded, I had My suspicious that Germany wm

preparing, but here was plain proof of it. OFFENDED THE ALL-HIGHEST. ''And .what was your replyV' I asked. l 'l have offended the All-Highest—-deeply ollended him," she answered. **X told him that i did not agree with any warlike object to be used as his puppet against England. His Majesty became furious, and savagely throwing the cigar lie was smoking into the grate, walked back with me to the salon where Freder-ick-August waa chatting with the Empress.'' "But why are you worried?" I asked. "Because I know that His Majesty will have his revenge," was her reply. "What form it shall take we sTialf see. Hitherto he has been most gracious and flattering Now, however, he has revealed to me his secret, and finds that I have defied liimt" Tim situation was certainly a dramatic one. Here was proof from the Emperor's own lips th&t he intended war in Europe, a fact which I, of course, duly reported to the British Cabinet of the time. Time after time I visited Dresden, and from her 'Highness I learnt of tue clever and subtle plot against her, of the unfounded scandals whispered, and of the attempts to poison her husband's mind against her. Yet Frederick-August, a fine manly man, even though lie »3 our enemy to-day, would hear no word against the woman who, he knew, loved him devotedly. THE KAISER'S REVENGE. Yet the fact, only recently disclosed, was that the Kaiser had declared to the Imperial Chancellor tlat "Louisa must never become 1 Queen of Saxony. She is far too pro-British, and. too democratic." This is the key-note of all the fabricated scandals concerning the morry, easy-going Princess of the House of Hapsburg, who was ever busy in the eause of the people's welfare, the Crown Princess whom the populace of Dresden hailed as she' drove in her ear as "Louisa —Our Louisa!" This women von Fritseh, whom her Highness trusted so implicitly, was bribed from Potsdam, just as was the spy and sycophant von Nietasch. both creatures of the Emperor, and accepted many thousands of marks to plot against and rend and destroy the woman who, having learnt the Emperor's secret, had become a dangerous personality inEuropean politics.