The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe, Volume I. | Page 6

of affairs, which is to be deplored!" Bismarck's
allusion to the Radziwills was an ungenerous reference to the romantic
attachment of old Emperor William for that Princess Elize Radziwill,
whom he was so determined to marry that he offered his father to
abandon his rights of succession to the throne on her account. This
King Frederick-William would not permit, and William was compelled
to wed Goethe's pupil, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar. A loveless
match in every sense of the word, for he remained until the day of
Princess Elize's death her most devoted friend and admirer, seeking her
advice in many a difficulty, to the great annoyance of Prince Bismarck,
who detested her, and after her death the old emperor continued to
show the utmost favor and good-will to the members of her family in
honor of her memory. Of course this speech of Prince Bismarck created
no end of a sensation throughout the empire, as well as abroad, the
press being encouraged thereby to print in cold type what had until that
time been merely whispered in official and court circles. It is possible
that the young emperor might have remained indifferent to popular
clamor about the matter, had not two other incidents occurred about the
same time to cool his liking for the fair Jenny.
In the first place, she felt herself so much encouraged by the influence
which she believed that she exercised over the emperor, that when
during the annual army manoeuvres Field Marshal Prince George of
Saxony, and other Prussian and foreign royalties were quartered under
her roof, she absolutely declined to hoist either the German flag, or the
Royal Saxon standard, but insisted upon flying the national colors of
Poland from the flag staff that surmounted the turret of her château.
Naturally, Prince George and his fellow royal guests complained of this
breach of etiquette to the kaiser, and protested strongly against it.

Almost at the same time, her husband, the baron, having been invited to
attend the opening of a provincial exhibition in the neighboring Empire
of Austria, was so carried away by enthusiasm, due to the kindness
with which the Poles present were treated by Emperor Francis-Joseph,
that forgetting all he owed to Emperor William, he publicly hailed
Francis-Joseph as "sole sovereign of all Polish hearts," and as "Poland's
future king!" About this time too, the empress paid a couple of rather
mysterious visits to her mother-in-law at Friedrichkron. Court gossip
ascribed these hurried trips to the fact that the empress had been
prompted by her jealousy of the baroness to invoke the intervention of
the strong-minded widow of Frederick the Noble. But it is far more
likely that the empress visited the Dowager Kaiserin in order that she
should call the attention of her son to the harm which the association of
the name of the baroness with his own was doing him in a political
sense both at home and abroad.
Whatever the cause of these consultations between the two empresses
may have been, the fact remains that almost immediately afterwards
Baron and Baroness Koscielski received from the
Grand-Master-of-the-Court, Count Eulenburg, an official intimation
that their presence at court was not desired in highest quarters until
further notice, and that under the circumstances they would do well to
remain at their country seat. In fact they were virtually banished, and
when both husband and wife travelled all the way to Berlin with the
object of asking for an explanation from the emperor, he declined to
receive either the one or the other. He had apparently come to the
conclusion that the game was not worth the candle, and that in view of
the fact that his intimacy with the baroness had never gone beyond
platonic friendship and mild flirtation, it was ridiculous to incur the
ill-will of his subjects and expose himself to slanderous stories
concocted by his enemies on her account.
The influence of the American born Countess Waldersee was of a far
more lasting character, and may be said to have been inaugurated very
shortly after his marriage. Prior to becoming a benedict, Prince William
was as gay as his very limited financial means would permit. In fact, he
was charged with playing the rôle of Don Juan to at least half a dozen

beauties of the Prussian Court, while at Vienna he became involved in
a scandal of a feminine character, from which he was only extricated
with the utmost difficulty by the then German Ambassador to the
Austrian Court, namely, Prince Reuss. The presumption is that he had
allowed himself to become the prey of an adventuress, and with the
object of avoiding publicity he was practically compelled to provide for
the welfare and future of a child which may or may not have been his
offspring. But