snnfWd
jBPSI
LVHI 1﻿﻿Cornell University Library
D 352.8.M59A3 1921a
Days that are no more :
3 1924 027 898 851
31924027898851﻿﻿THE DAYS THAT
ARE NO MORE﻿﻿﻿PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH﻿THE DAYS THAT
ARE NO MORE
SOME REMINISCENCES
BY
PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE﻿Printed in Great Britain﻿CHAP.	CONTENTS	PAGE
	PREFACE ...	7
I.	GRANDPAPA ....	• 45
II.	“THE SANDOR!”	So
III.	OUR FIRST DIPLOMATIC POST	IOI
IV.	RICHARD WAGNER (1859-61) .	• 138
V.	FRANZ LISZT	. 156
VI.	MAITRE LACHAUD	. 163
VII.	COUNT TAAFFE ....	. 16S
VIII. DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME, THE SPIRITUALIST 177
5﻿LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH .
PRINCE CLEMENS METTERNICH .
COUNT MORITZ SANDOR
COUNTESS LEONTINE SANDOR
PRINCE RICHARD METTERNICH .
PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH (1861)
MARIE KALERGIS
COUNT LOUIS TAAFFE.
Facing page
Frontispiece
.	46
.	82
.	90
.	.	102
. 120
.	.	l6o
.	.	172
6﻿PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH
AND THE SECOND EMPIRE
SOME NOTES
BY EDWARD LEGGE
Some time in June 1920, I read the
following paragraph in Le 'Temps :
“Now and then the Empress Eugenie comes
to see us, passing like a shadow. To-day we
learn from Vienna that Princess Metternich is
going to publish her recollections. Like two
old fairies of a time almost fabulous the
Empress Eugenie and Princess Pauline de
Metternich look silently at each other across
a Europe turned upside down. What would
they say ? Nothing would be more expressive
than total silence. But the Empress might
tell the Princess that one day a few years
ago, when she had picked a flower in what
was once the garden of the Tuileries, the
custodian remonstrated with her, contenting
himself, however, with saying, ‘ I won’t com-
plain of you this time, my good woman, but
7﻿Preface
don’t do it again ! * The Empress, continu-
ing her walk, thanked the representative
of Authority with a smile not without a
suggestion of melancholy, but she did not
explain why she had picked that flower, nor
tell the custodian who she was. Perhaps she
thought that since the time of which the
flower had reminded her there had been two
deluges, and that her name would doubtless
mean nothing to the guardian of the Rue
des Tuileries.”
Princess Metternich had this in common
with the Empress Eugenie—that she found
as many enthusiastic defenders as scornful
enemies. She owed their existence entirely
to herself, to her peculiar idiosyncrasies. A
devoted friend of the persons who frequented
her salons, she lashed with contemptuous
words those whom, often for no serious reason,
she wished to get rid of. She loved and she
detested with passionate sincerity. People
soon came to treat her similarly. She was
“ Notre Dame de Vienne” and also “la Reine
Peste.” Daughter of a wealthy Hungarian,
Count Sandor, celebrated for his equestrian
feats and regarded as the victim of mental
derangement, she boasted of her father’s
peculiarities and found in them an excuse for
her own oddities. Shortly after her marriage
to Prince Richard Metternich, son of the
8﻿Preface
eminent diplomatist, she made her first appear-
ance in Paris in 1859, at the moment of the
outbreak of war between France and Italy,
and when her husband was hoping to restore
peace.
The newcomers, who were cordially re-
ceived at the Tuileries, began their entertaining
with some “Thursdays,” at which everybody
smoked. These parties were presided over by
the Princess, who was found to be an inveterate
smoker. The ditties sung by the hostess were
not all in the purest taste. She had not been
among the Parisians many months ere the
more prudish discovered that they had among
the reputed grandes dames an Ambassadress
who did not scruple to behave, and not
infrequently, like a grisette. She kissed
Count Beust (who is still remembered in
London by a select few) at an official reception
at the Tuileries, to wheedle him into giving
a fancy-dress ball, and said impertinent things
of the Empress who had impulsively taken the
eccentric Hungarian to her heart, but it was
conceded that she had caste, which in a measure
atoned for her follies, in some of which the
consort of Napoleon III. participated, as the
Comtesse de Pourtales and the Princesse de
Sagan knew better than most people. I can
give only an inkling of her eccentricities,
which were passed over by the Empress with
a smile. But in those days the Imperial lady
9﻿Preface
was not the Empress some of us knew at
Chislehurst and Farnborough Hill until the
end of 1919, when she left England for Cap
Martin before starting on her last journey—to
Spain.
Princess Metternich found at Paris the
aristocratic world that she had left at Vienna.
She had passed from one cosmopolitan atmo-
sphere only to enter into a similar one, the
Empress Eugenie’s Court being largely com-
posed of foreigners from all quarters of the
globe. Russians, English, and Americans
mingled with Spaniards and Italians, a few
Germans, and some Mexicans, of whom
Mme. Erazzua was the most prominent.
Hence the celebrated “ Five Quarters of the
World” ball was given. I had the advantage
of hearing much about that entertainment
from a lady who (with her sister, Miss Carter)
was present at it—Mrs. Ronalds, who died
only a few years ago. Her sister represented
“ America ” in the tableaux, and Mrs. Ronalds
had preserved illustrations of the scene pub-
lished by the Paris papers of the period.
The formalism of the late Emperor Francis
Joseph’s Court troubled Mme. de Metternich.
She was always being besought to remember
that she was Pauline Sandor, the wife of an
eminent diplomatist’s son. At the Tuileries
neither Morny the illegitimate, nor Persigny
the equivocal, nor ladies with the reputation
10﻿Preface
of a Lehon or a Castiglione could pretend to
be shocked at any slang word or audacious
gesture of Princess Metternich. It would not
have surprised anyone in the monde, demi-
monde, or quart de monde to have seen the
Austrian Ambassadress jump on the table and
dance the “ can-can ! ” She was quite equal
to it.
Three ladies only were endowed with the
hall-mark gracieuse—Mesdames de Metter-
nich, de GallifFet, and de Pourtales—and they
were so described from i860 until 1870.
Winterhalter, who painted most of the ele-
gances of the Second Empire, was unable to
beautify the first-named lady to a point which
would make one forget her plainness. But
what fire and life he put into her eyes ! In
his portrait the artist accentuated her nation-
ality by the contrast of her features with the
gauzes and light veils which enveloped the
undulating and bouffante hair surmounting
her high forehead. The Princess, however,
anticipated the observations which she felt
would be made by the critical concerning her
lack of beauty : she had the wit to describe
herself as “ le singe a la mode ” (the “ fashion-
able monkey”), the appellation by which she
was ever after known. Her lack of loveliness
did not lessen her fame, and she had the proud
satisfaction of being recognised as the fore-
most of the crowd of women who amused the﻿Preface
frequenters of the Tuileries, Fontainebleau,
and Compiegne.
Princess Metternich’s charm was, and is,
her intelligence; that of the Marquise de
Galliffet was the beauty which, as the French
readily admitted, characterises the daughters
of Albion. The Marquise’s chin revealed the
woman who means to make all-comers bow to
her caprices. Of Scottish descent, she was
recognised as the queen of fashion, the ruler
of a great couturiere, the woman who inaugur-
ated a sober style of dress, especially that worn
on the racecourses frequented by “ sports-
women,” a word coined in the first years of
the Imperial regime. Her taste and her
toilettes made her an authority in a large
section of that Paris Society which she domin-
ated, while her apparent coldness, which alien-
ated many from her, concealed a heart of
gold and an ever-pitying soul. Such was the
adorable Mme. de Galliffet, one of King
Edward’s favourites.
Mme. de Pourtales (Princess Metternich’s
best friend) was, on the contrary, sufficiently
tnignonne to tempt the brush of a Latour—
gracious as one of Lancret’s personages. She
made people dream of those Marquises of the
eighteenth century that were, and still are, to
be seen in “L’Accord Parfait” or the “Lecture.”
She was “ the beautiful Mme. de Pourtales,”
and recalled the Pompadour in a Court which
12﻿Preface
dreamt of resuscitating the epoch of the
Regency. This beautiful woman, who died
only some half-dozen years ago, had not
that frivolite outree which characterised so
many of her contemporaries. She divined
Bismarck’s intentions more clearly than all
the diplomatists who buzzed around Napoleon
III. and his ambitious consort. Why was
she, who knew so much, not listened to? She
had a grace ancienne which made her con-
temporaries regard her as a late arrival from
the preceding century. Her husband was an
Alsatian, and in 1871 her portrait, showing
her in the picturesque dress of the women of
that conquered province, was circulated all
over the world.
The Comtesse de Castiglione prided herself
upon being the woman who had Napoleon III.
more in hand than any other. The Empress
resented this weakness of her consort, but said
nothing, and continued to invite the objection-
able Italian to her “ Mondays.” (There is
still at least one person in London in 1921
who claims to have been a frequent attendant
at the Imperial lady’s “ Lundis.”) But it
was Princess Metternich who exercised over
Eugenie the most powerful influence. This
intensely amusing blonde assumed a freedom
at the French Court which she would not
have displayed at the Hofburg. She intro-
duced dancing in gardens converted into ball-
13﻿Preface
rooms, illumined by thousands of coloured
lights, thus producing the aspect now of a
veritable Eden, anon of the infernal regions.
Those who felt themselves impelled to do
likewise at a ruinous expenditure complained
that Paris had become a modern Babylon, with
the Austrian lady as Semiramis.
During the eighteen years of the Second
Empire no one was more discussed than the
wife of the Austrian Ambassador. The
Princess took singers at the “ halls ” into
her favour, and imitated them to the life in
her salons in the presence of the leaders of
Paris Society. The Emperor would say to his
English, as well as to his French, friends,
“ There are to be private theatricals at
Compiegne, a revue or something of the
kind. The Empress has asked Mme. de
Metternich to appear; ” and he would add
smilingly, “ C'est tout dire, nest ce pas ?
You’d better come.” And our Englishman
did not fail to put in an appearance at
Compiegne on “ the night.” The programme
was certain to amuse our favoured countryfolk
when the Compiegne “ bill ” contained Les
Commentaires de Cesar, with the boy-Prince
Imperial as a grenadier in full uniform and
Princess Pauline as a vivandtere of the Turcos,
in which character she sang a song which
was very popular at the time; its refrain
was :
14﻿Preface
Je suis une guerriere,
Au cceur, au cceur joyeux;
La vi, la vivandiere
Des Turcos bleus.
Round about the country homes of the
Imperial couple—Compiegne and Fontaine-
bleau—there were paper chases, in which the
Empress took part. All the ladies who joined
in these “ high jinks ” wore unusually short
skirts by “ order ” of the Princess Pauline.
The more sedate members of the Court de-
nounced this garb, but the Austrian Ambassa-
dress laughed at their prudery, and the Empress
was as wax in her hands. Needless to say
that the caricaturists revelled in these pranks
of Parisian “ high society.”
But there are matters of infinitely greater
importance calling for explanation. In De-
cember 1872, Prince Jerome Napoleon (father
of that Prince Victor to whom the late Empress
bequeathed Farnborough Hill) visited Napo-
leon III. at Chislehurst less than a month
before his unexpected and tragic death. Some
months previously Princess Metternich was
also a visitor at Chislehurst. In the Emperor’s
desk, according to Prince Jerome (better
known as “ Plon-Plon,” a sobriquet given him
in Crimean War days), were drafts of two
Treaties which had been negotiated by France
with Italy and Austria, under the terms of
which those Powers conditionally agreed to
l5﻿Preface
support France should she be attacked (as in
1870 she was) by Germany. Later, after
Princess Pauline’s visit, the draft Treaty with
Austria could not be found ! This led to the
Empress saying to Prince Jerome, “ Mon
Dieu ! You have opened my eyes. Now I
understand the object of a visit which I re-
ceived from Princess Metternich some months
ago.” All this, and much more, was told to
Alfred Darimon by Prince Jerome himself.
Thiers, who was President from March 1871
until the 24th of May, 1873 (f°ur months after
the death of Napoleon III.), was said to have
had his spies at Camden Place, the Imperial
residence, whose duties were (1) to see that
no documents or “ papers ” of any kind were
secretly taken out of “ Camden,” and (2) to
report to the Paris authorities the names of
all visitors received by the Emperor, the
Empress, the Prince Imperial (!), and M.
Franceschini Pietri, the deposed Sovereign’s
secretary. The French Government knew,
or suspected, that copies of the draft Treaties
between Austria, Italy, and France were
among the Emperor Napoleon’s “papers” at
Chislehurst ; and possibly the Vienna Foreign
Office would not have asked troublesome
questions had some enterprising visitor to
Chislehurst “annexed” the draft Treaty to
which Austria was a party, and presented it
to the Government of Francis Joseph.
16﻿Preface
“ The women of the Second Empire,” said
General de Galliffet, “ can be characterised in
two words : they were more frank and much
cheaper.” The heroic General enjoyed the
friendship of the Prince of Wales who became
King Edward VII., and was entertained by
H.R.H. whenever he came to England, which
was not often. But they frequently met in
Paris before and after the fall of the Second
Empire. De Galliffet had a warm friend in
Napoleon III., and was in Princess Pauline’s
good books. He was too independent and
outspoken for the Empress, and never hesitated
to correct her when she was inaccurate on
military subjects—which was not seldom.
Lord Malmesbury was candid enough to
write (October i, 1862): “All the women
surrounding the Empress Eugenie are a bad
lot (mauvais ton), with the exception of Mme.
Walewsk'a. Their hair is dressed in Chinese
style, and so tightly arranged that they can
hardly close their eyes, and they wear scarlet
jackets and mantles, which go very badly
with their complexions, which are all very
blond. I x-eturned to Paris from Fontaine-
bleau in one of the Imperial carriages with
M. and Mme. de Moray, M. Walewski and
his wife, and the two dames d'honneur then on
duty. Two of the ladies (one of whom was
Mme. de Pierre, nee Thorne, an American,
and the other Mme. de Moray, a Russian)
17
B﻿Preface
smoked all the way under the Empress’s
nose. The Empress was too indulgent to her
entourage.”
“Walewska” (note the “a”) is a name
known to all students of Napoleonic history,
and it came again into prominence in the
first week of May 1921, when the hundredth
anniversary of the great captain’s death was
celebrated in France. The bearer of the name
“Walewska” was that beautiful Polish girl
who had gained the love of Napoleon and
who bore him a son, who ultimately became
the Ambassador of France to the Court of St.
James. She fully reciprocated the Emperor’s
passion, and had the truly feminine courage
to visit secretly her exiled lover at Elba. The
Ambassador Walewski (note the “ i,” his own
way of spelling it) married a lady with Italian
blood in her veins. In the fullest sense of the
word, this Mme. Walewska was a remarkable
woman, and developed into one of the three
ladies who were the “ stars ” of the ill-fated
Second Empire, the two others being the
Empress Eugenie and Princess Pauline Met-
ternich. Mme. Walewska had gained (and
I state it as a fact personally given to me for
use in this Preface as recently as May 1921)
the affection as well as the friendship of
Bismarck when he was Prussian Minister in
Paris, and a constant visitor and admirer of
the lady in question.
18﻿Preface
This Mme. Walewska had a grandson,
Count Louis Matheus Walewski, who, at the
outbreak of the world-war in 1914, was a
captain in the 29th Dragoons, stationed at
Rheims. By September 1915 he had become
a major, and took part in the attack on the
German front. After that great battle he
was reported as missing, and was vainly
searched for in all the prisoners’ camps in
Germany. Less than a year ago his body was
found in a shell-hole among a number of his
men. The heroic major’s widow, the present
Countess Marguerite Matheus Walewska (so
she writes it), was upon her marriage received
with open arms by her late husband’s grand-
mother. That shrewd and gifted old lady had
immediately recognised that a very remark-
able new member had been added to her
family, and until her death appreciated at its
full value the rare beauty and intelligence of
her grandson’s wife. Often she declared that
the only Walewskas worthy of the name were
those who, like herself and the Countess Mar-
guerite, had married into the Napoleonic
family, and she attributed their superiority
to her Italian, and to Marguerite’s Corsican,
ancestry.
“ La grand'mere Walewska,” as she was
called in the family, was so enamoured of her
youthful grandchild, Countess Marguerite,
that she made the young lady stay with her
19﻿Preface
on all possible occasions. The veteran grande
dame would tell Marguerite all manner of
stories and events of that historical past in
which she had so prominently figured, espe-
cially those extraordinary episodes of which
Princess Metternich was the central figure.
Thus the grandmother’s young friend came to
have a full acquaintance with all that had
happened behind the scenes during the life-
time of Napoleon III. and afterwards under
the Republic. Thus much that is of historical
interest and value is still preserved for posterity,
thanks to this gifted and receptive witness,
the Countess Walewska of the present day.
Grandmother Walewska, who attained great
age, although less than that of Eugenie, died
only a few years ago in her sleep. Need I
say that her memory is piously preserved by
her family, as is that of the Great Emperor
and military genius, who was also the most
romantic of lovers ?
At the Tuileries in the eighteen-sixties
Princess Metternich saw Winterhalter’s great
picture of the Empress, “ Le Watteau maigre,”
the original of which I got a glimpse of at
Farnborough Hill one memorable day when
the late M. Franceschini Pietri was very good-
naturedly “ coaching ” me on many matters
concerning the great lady whom he served
so well until a few weeks before his death.
Princess Pauline will agree that he could be
20﻿Preface
very “snubby” on occasion, even to his
Imperial mistress, who always “ gave it him
back” with interest. The lady from Vienna
had met Pietri at Chislehurst.
The Empress felt more at home at St.
Cloud than anywhere else. There was less
formality at that palace, as Princess Metternich
discovered when she was there. People who
had merely called there were kept to dinner,
and casual visitors were taken for drives in
ordinary, not state, carriages. At St. Cloud
our Austrian Princess met the Princesses
of the (Imperial) “ blood ”—the delightful
Mathilde, for example, whom many had sup-
posed the Emperor would have married. And
there were Princess Clotilde of Sardinia, mother
of that Prince Victor to whom the Empress
bequeathed Farnborough Hill; and that altesse
imperiale, Mme. Lucien Murat, mother of the
now venerable Anna, the widowed Duchesse
de Mouchy, the marriage being insisted upon
by the Emperor for reasons best known to
himself; Princess Gabrielli, also a Murat,
whom I remember when she resided in
London ; and the enigmatic Mme. de Castig-
lione ; and any number of French beauties
not of the Imperial family—the Comtesse
Fleury (a Russian), the Duchesse d’Isly, the
Marechale Canrobert, the Baronne de Bour-
going (little known in England), and Mes-
dames de Galliffet and de Pourtales. Of the
21﻿Preface
latter I have a portrait given to me by her
shortly before her death a few years ago.
All these fair dames had to be amused, and
ordinarily it was Princess Pauline who pro-
vided them with the requisite fun—“ des
riens, beaucoup de riens ”; for the reign of
futilities had begun.
Very popular at St. Cloud was the fete
champetre of the Watteau pattern, and it was
“the Metternich ” who made the ladies dress
in the style she desired. They had all to be
powdered, even when engaged in these out-
door festivities. Imagine the incongruity—
powdered faces in a Watteau scene ! What
would Ruskin have said? And “Jimmy”
Whistler, who knew his Paris to its often
wholly inartistic and indescribable depths ?
And Leighton the art-incorruptible ? Well,
despite all the fair and thoroughgoing Pauline’s
blandishments and polite bullying, one lovely
creature, Mme. de Persigny, flatly refused to
powder herself for this comical Watteau
revival. Worse than this—she persisted in
appearing en scene with her beautiful chest-
nut hair falling over her plump shoulders!
Princess Metternich flew into a rage, and,
almost tearfully, craved the interposition of
the Empress, who unkindly screamed with
laughter, saying soothingly : “ Don’t distress
yourself, my dear Pauline—you know Mme.
de Persigny’s mother is mad!” “Well,
22﻿Preface
madame,” exclaimed Princess Metternich,
at the top of her voice, “ what of that ? My
father is also mad, yet I am well powdered ! ”
Before every performance of a charade, or
what not, there was a “ scene,” making the
courtiers of the eighteen-sixties laugh as, in
the great days of Troyes, the Presidents of
the Parliament had laughed at the antics of a
flea—Mme. Desroches’ flea.
The Empress’s “ Mondays,” held in the
winter only, were essentially private gatherings.
These were given in the White Salon of the
Tuileries—so called after the First Consul
who became Napoleon I. The guests danced
until supper-time. Princess Metternich and
the Comtesse de Castiglione were, in turn, the
principal figures at these comparatively cosy
parties ; the former was noted for her wit,
the latter for her beauty. The cotillon was
invariably led by the Marquis de Caux, whose
marriage to Adelina Patti was brought about
by the Empress, with whom the volatile
arranger of dances was a great favourite.
It was gratifying to Princess Metternich,
and doubtless to some of the other guests at
Fontainebleau, to find etiquette less stringent
there than at the other Imperial homes. The
Princess will remember her stay at Fontaine-
bleau if only because of the devotion of the
Chevalier Nigra, the Italian Ambassador, to
the Empress, who seemed particularly happy
23﻿Preface
when boating on the great lake, while the
diplomatist warbled “ songs of Arcady ” to the
infatuated lady. Her unconcealed partiality—
it might be said affection—for Nigra provoked
scandal and not a little sarcastic merriment.
Among Princess Metternicfrs many gifts
is that of an exceptionally good memory, as
shown by nearly every page of her volume,
which will serve to keep her always in re-
membrance. One of her great friends in
Paris in the old days was, and I daresay is
in 1921, Princess Anna Murat, the aged widow
of the Due de Mouchy. The news of their
quite unexpected engagement is said by a
reliable authority on Second Empire matters to
have “ scandalised the residents in the heraldic
faubourg” (the Faubourg St. Germains, the
home of the old Royalists, the bitter opponents
of Eugenie and Napoleon III.). That devoted
friend, from her infancy, of the Empress,
Prosper Merimee, in a letter written to Mr.
Panizzi, of British Museum fame, on the 2nd of
November, 1865, when Princess Metternich
was the central figure in social and diplomatic
Paris, a position which she never lost, said :
“Your friend, Princess Anna Murat, is about to
be married to the Due de Mouchy, who is one of
the best of the young men of to-day. He is a
fortnight younger than the lady, has an income
of 200,000 livres, and is sufficiently good-look-
ing. He is also very polished, and more natural
24﻿Preface
than the cacodes in general. The funny thing
is that he is the ally and relative of all the
wildest Legitimists in France. The Due de
Noailles is his uncle.”
The Legitimists, it may be added for the
benefit of the younger readers of Princess
Pauline’s volume, were the active opponents
of Napoleon III. and his followers, many of
whom were treated with the utmost liberality
by the Emperor from the moment he was
placed on the throne. Many of them detested
the Empress: among these was the well-known
General Fleury, one of whose sons recently
issued a work, in English, which cannot be
said to be devoid of flattery of Eugenie.
General Fleury stoutly opposed the marriage
of Napoleon III. and Mile, de Montijo, whose
mother so pestered her Imperial son-in-law
for money that he ordered her to leave France.
October 1869 (the year before the war
with Prussia) found the Empress at Con-
stantinople, where she stayed for a few days
as the Sultan’s guest after witnessing the in-
auguration of the Suez Canal, the project of
her relative, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who some
years later came to irremediable pecuniary
grief. During her stay in the capital of the
Unspeakable Turk she learnt that all the talk
in Paris was of the probability of a duel
between Prince Metternich (Pauline’s husband)
and Comte de Beaumont, the latter of whom
25﻿Preface
had already fought duels with two members of
the Jockey Club to defend the reputation of
his wife. Presumably Prince Metternich had
been also “saying things” about Mme. de
Beaumont, and had received, or was expecting
to receive, a challenge from the infuriated
husband. Writing to her husband from the
Imperial Palace of Beyle-Bey, Constantinople,
on the 7th of October, 1869, the Empress, re-
ferring to the much-discussed duel, said : “ Poor
Metternich ! I believe he is quarrelling with a
lunatic.” The Comtesse de Beaumont is re-
membered to-day by the few as one of the
most beautiful and gifted women of the period,
of irreproachable character, and a close friend
of the Empress and Emperor. I do not
suppose that all this malevolent gossip about
the Austrian Ambassador and the Comtesse
de Beaumont caused Princess Metternich a
moment’s uneasiness. She doubtless thought,
with the Empress, that De Beaumont had
temporarily “ lost his head.”
Princess Metternich has stored up in her
memory, and I daresay in her diaries, the
wherewithal to give the world a “surprise”
history of the final ten years’ existence of the
Second Empire, which fell with a crash on
the 4th of September, 1870—that Sunday
when the Emperor (then on his way to
Wilhelmshohe, there to remain until he was
liberated in the third week of the following
26﻿Preface
March) was handed a telegram reporting how
Paris had received the news of the defeat at
Sedan on the ist of September. Whither his
wife had gone no one could tell him—as a
matter of fact, no one knew; no, not even
Princess Pauline’s husband, who, with the
Chevalier Nigra, the Italian Ambassador, had,
to their great credit as men, succeeded in
hustling her out of the Tuileries. Princess
Pauline had also witnessed the flight. That
4th of September remains as fixed in my
memory as ever, for on the previous day I had
been granted formal permission to accompany
the Saxon troops to Paris—a fortnight’s march
from the battlefield of Sedan. What happened
in 1S72, when the Princess, for the first time
since the escape from the Tuileries, saw the
Empress at Camden Place, Chislehurst, I have
noted on another page. There is no evidence
that the two ladies ever met again. When
the Empress went to Ischl, some thirteen years
ago, as the guest, for a couple of days, of the
late Emperor Francis Joseph, Princess Pauline,
who was then in Austria, telegraphed (so the
papers said) that she was unable to visit
Eugenie (who may not have been greatly
surprised, or distressed, at the message).
How the Princess received the news of the
Empress’s sudden death at Madrid in July
1920, I have never heard. The event could
scarcely have surprised her—certainly could
27﻿Preface
not have saddened her after reading the
explicit statement about the lost Treaty
which Prince Jerome Napoleon had allowed
to be published, to which I have already
referred.
In 1858, two years before Princess Metter-
nich’s descent upon Paris, the renowned Italian
politician, Cavour, wrote to Chevalier Cib-
rario :	“ I have enrolled in our diplomatic
ranks the beautiful Comtesse de Castiglione,
begging her to make love to, and, if necessary,
to get under her thumb, the Emperor
Napoleon.” She had separated from her
husband, whom she had married against her
inclination, and, although very young, had
become the lady-love of King Victor Em-
manuel, who was not remarkable for virtue.
This lady was the guest for a time of that
other celebrity, Countess Walewska, who,
like herself, was from Florence. Through
the influence of Count Walewski, she was
invited to a ball at the Tuileries, and made
an immediate success, even rivalling the
Empress and serving Cavour politically
beyond his most sanguine expectations. She
was utterly devoid of espj-it, but possessed
an instinctive cleverness. Precisely what
she thought of herself was amusingly illus-
trated by her own words, written on the
photographs which she gave to her friends :
“ I am equal to them by my birth, I surpass
28﻿Preface
them by my beauty, I judge them by my
esprit.” At a later, but not the final, stage
of her career, she proudly said :	“ My
mother stupidly tied me to Castiglione.
Had she taken me to France, a Spanish
’woman ’would, never have reigned! I should
not have brought about the Mexican war,
nor have been the cause of the disaster at
Sedan.” What Talleyrand sarcastically said,
when speaking of his wife, “ Her esprit is
like that of a rose,” seems to have been
applicable to Mme. de Castiglione, whose
end was miserable.
While “ the Castiglione ” admittedly had
greater influence over Napoleon III. than
anyone else, Princess Metternich was ad-
mittedly supreme over the Empress. Those
(and they were numerous) who were jealous
of the power of the lady whom they called
the “ turbulent blond ” asserted that she
would not have acted at the Austrian Court
as she acted at the French Court, and vehem-
ently declared that she contributed more than
anyone else to blow over the Tuileries that
wind of fetes, eccentricities, and follies which
, characterised the Second Empire throughout
the last ten years of its ill-starred existence.
That deservedly popular soldier, Colonel
Verly, whose name is still a household word
in the French army, wrote to a friend :
“ Princess Metternich has made it the
29﻿Preface
fashion to give dances in gardens converted
into ballrooms, illuminated by innumerable
coloured lights, lighting up trees, houses,
and people by Bengal fires, thus giving the
scene the appearance now of a veritable Eden,
and anon the aspect of the realm of Lucifer.”
These were expensive luxuries ; it cost the
Metternichs from 60,000 to 80,000 francs
to construct an aerial garden suspended from
the first story of a house, and causing people
to say that “ Paris had become a modern
Babylon, of which the amiable Princess
Metternich was the Semiramis ! ” Spiteful
persons, who perhaps had not been invited
to these picturesque gatherings, whispered
that “ Pauline ” had to economise in order
to meet the expense entailed by these costly
freaks, and had her diamonds remounted
annually to make the Parisians believe that
she had purchased new ones !
Her craving for pleasure carried the Em-
press away to an extent that made foreigners
pretend to be shocked, and a severe French
critic wrote of her that she “ amused herself
like a lorette who went to sup at the Maison
Doree with her last shilling.” Poor Princess
Metternich was asserted by the strait-laced to
be Eugenie’s aider and abetter in doing all
the things which, according to those who
failed to gain admittance to the Imperial
circle, the Empress ought not to have done,
3°﻿Preface
while she very often left undone the things
she ought to have done. At a more than
ordinarily brilliant gathering in 1863 Princess
Pauline appeared as an Incroyable of the period
of the Directory, and her rival, the Comtesse
de Castiglione, as Salaambo. The hair of both
streamed down their backs, a gold diadem
encircled their heads, the breast and arms of
both were nude, and they wore gold sandals !
One of the most splendid of all the fetes
during the Imperial reign of a little over
eighteen years was that given at the Hotel
d’Albe. The invitations were sent out in the
name of the Duchess d’Albe, the Empress’s
only sister, but their Majesties were really the
host and hostess. The Empress on this occasion
had resolved to surprise the guests by going in
“ tights,” and the leading Belgian journal,
rIndependance Beige, published a description
of the costume which, it alleged, would
be worn by her Majesty. The paper was soon
in the hands of the shocked Emperor, who
took it to the Empress, and commented upon
its unsuitability. After failing to overcome the
Emperor’s objections, the Empress agreed to
wear a less striking costume, but unfortunately
the Patrie, the paper then the favourite of
the Court circle, had reproduced its description
of the dress, and the Parisians were roaring
with laughter over it. Sober-minded people,
however, took another view of it, and asked
31﻿Preface
themselves if the Empress had become insane.
It certainly looked like it.
Some of the vile attacks which were made
upon Princess Pauline during her more than
ten years’ residence in Paris were doubtless the
result of her own determination to assume the
position of the leader of French Society—not
second even to the Empress, who, as a matter
of fact, was not a success in the role. “ I leave
it to you, Pauline ”—this was her almost in-
variable reply to her Austrian friend’s proposals
to “ do something new,” heedless of what
might be thought of it by unimaginative
people, many of whom she had come to
regard as social “ outsiders ”—as not a few
were. She brooked no opposition by Cassar’s
wife, who was a beautiful woman without
ideas of her own. Perhaps her greatest defect
was her arrogance, which was demonstrated
when she insisted upon her suffering consort
acceding to the desire of the crazy War Party
in 1870.
When, if ever, she chooses to do so,
Princess Metternich, better than any other
living person, can give us the full story of the
introduction of the crinoline and its disuse in
1868, “unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.”
She was one of the first to discard it, and all
the “ cream of cream ” followed her example.
The Austrian Ambassadress was, as noted, the
inspirer of the great Worth, who went to and
32﻿Preface
from the Metternichs’ splendid mansion in
the Rue de Varennes as in the misty past the
celebrated dressmaker, Leroy, had attended
upon the Empress Josephine. Eugenie’s
irreverent suite dubbed the Princess “Madame
Chiffon,” and all adopted her style of dress,
the fuseau (spindle) !
The Empress was no judge of art or of
pictures; however, she “ painted ” for the
sake of amusement. The satirical Marquise
de Taisey-Chatenoy said of her: “The Em-
press paints fipinal’s drawings and then calls
them water-colours ! ” In the summer, when
life at St. Cloud was dull, Eugenie, who was
not a bad rider, would mount her horse, and,
with Princess Metternich for her only com-
panion, canter off to Marly incognito. One
day, when the Court was at the Tuileries,
her Majesty, feeling duller than usual, set off
to see how Paris looked from the top of an
omnibus, accompanied by Princess Pauline.
Both wore men’s clothes, for in those days,
the eighteen-sixties, the Paris omnibuses had
no stairs, and passengers had to climb to the
top on ladders. The ladies left the Palace bv
a private door, believing that in male garb
they were unrecognisable. When, on their
return, they had climbed down, a detective
approached them and smilingly expressed a
hope that they had had a pleasant outing !
The story was soon common property, and
33
c﻿Preface
the Imperial escapade was severely criticised.
To those who advised her to get rid of some
of the numerous lovely creatures who seemed
to pass their days and nights at the Tuileries,
the Empress said sweetly: “ The poor Emperor
must be amused, and likes to see pretty women
around him.”
Life at Compiegne was not seldom of
the free-and-easy kind, and sometimes the
conversation at the dinner-table was very un-
conventional. One evening, General Fleury
was relating to the lady he had taken in to
dinner, and who chanced to be Princess
Metternich, a story of a not very delicate
nature, when she begged him to stop, adding
that one of the persons referred to by the
gallant officer was within earshot.
At Compiegne there was much play-acting
even before Princess Metternich made Paris
her home. During her ten years’ residence
in the capital she made the theatrical and
musical performances “ hum.” “ Never before
had we seen a woman with such energy and
varied skill”—such was the unanimous verdict
of the Imperial guests at the Royal chateaux,
which the dashing Austrian Ambassadress
turned upside down, the Empress acceding
to her every whim and crotchet. Whatever
she did or proposed to do was law. She was
a slim, wiry woman, a welcome novelty,
respectfully adored by Caesar and admired
34﻿Preface
by all and sundry for her talents and delight-
ful audacity, which the staid, and sometimes
prudish, English guests, when “ alone by
themselves,” ungraciously termed “ cheek.”
There were occasional performances by the
brilliant companies of the Comedie Franfaise
and the Gymnase (“the Bernhardt” was not
yet the vogue, but in 1867, three years before
the downfall, she had appeared in Paris
theatres and was regarded as a promising
actress, who, in time, would surely “ arrive ”).
But the “ intimate ” plays, concerts, and
charades were reserved for the delectation
of the personal friends of the Imperial pair.
These waxed enthusiastic over Princess Met-
ternich, grande dame and comedienne. Under
her direction the stage, at Compiegne in
particular, was fitted with accessories borrowed
from the great lumber-room, which contained
everything that was necessary for stage use.
The stage-manager was the celebrated archi-
tect, Viollet-le-Duc, who has described the
grounds and the Long Walk at Windsor as
the most superb landscapes he had ever seen.
The amateur artistes at Compiegne in those
palmy years of triumphant Imperialism were
Pauline de Metternich-Sandor, the Marquise
de Galliffet (the beautiful wife of the leader
of the astounding cavalry charges at Sedan
in 1870), Laure de Rothschild, the Baronne
de Poilly, Comte d’Aguado, the Marquis
35﻿Preface
de Caux (still a well-remembered name), the
Vicomte de Fitz-James, the Comte de Solms
—briefly, an elite seigneuriale. The Empress
once appeared in a piece called Les Portraits
de la Marquise, by the celebrated Octave
Feuillet ; but she did not “score,” for the
reason that she was utterly devoid of talent.
Theresa, of cafe-chantant celebrity, who
attained her zenith during the last decade of
the Second Empire, was only seventy-six
(eleven years younger than the Empress
Eugenie) when she died in May 1913. The
Times, which honoured her with an obituary
notice, explained that she was Mme. Valladon,
and gave up the millinery business to appear
first as a singer of sentimental songs and
then as a parodist of those ditties, “ thereby
becoming the predecessor of Mme. Yvette
Guilbert.” But I should say there were
parodists long before Yvette, or even Theresa,
was ever heard of. The grandes dames
imported Theresa into their salons. Her
Memoirs (published in 1865) were said to have
been written by Albert Wolff (of the Figaro),
Ernest Blum (the French John Hollingshead),
and Henri Rochefort. Theresa came out in
the eighteen-sixties. I heard her in the
’seventies and ’eighties, and remember how
violently she and others were attacked by the
celebrated Catholic journalist, Louis Veuillot.
The songs which brought her most fame were
36﻿Preface
the “Femme a Barbe,” the “Gardeuse d’Ours,”
“ C’est dans le nez qu’ 5a m’chatouille,” and
“ Rien n’est sacre pour un Sapeur.” She had
a great admirer, and imitator, in Princess
Pauline de Metternich.
Yellow being the Austrian national colours
the Princess had the wheels and body of her
carriage painted in that hue, while even her
coachman’s livery was black upon yellow.
Finding, however, that the Duke of Bruns-
wick’s carriage was somewhat similarly painted,
she adopted grey in lieu of yellow. One
afternoon, as she was taking an airing in the
Bois de Boulogne, the Parisians’ Hyde Park,
she saw men raising their hats to a lady in a
victoria painted also in grey ; seated in it
was a notorious person ; in fact, an impure.
Pale with indignation the Princess drove back
to the Embassy house in the Faubourg St.
Germain, and did not leave it until her
carriage had been repainted in still another
colour!
But these were the merest trivialities by
comparison with the next step taken by the
lady from Vienna to secure pre-eminence in
French Society. She discovered that the
Parisiennes did not know how to dress ! She
disdained the falbalas so dear to the French
Court. It was her mission, she believed, to
free Frenchwomen from the odious yoke
which caused them to dissimulate their charms
37﻿Preface
under heavy mantles and gowns, to make
walking a penance when weighed down by
garments heavy with ornaments, and to
imprison their waists in those hideous crino-
lines. These latter had recently taken a most
exaggerated form, principally, perhaps solely,
because they had been favoured by the Lady
at the Tuileries, who, however, soon discarded
them.
A belle	dame wrote to	a woman friend :
“ Do you	know Princess	Pauline ?	I	must
present you to her. After yourself she is my
greatest friend and the latest recruit of our
leaders of fashion. I met her for the first
time at Comtesse Walewska’s, the Foreign
Office, you know. Her physiognomy struck
me immediately as sympathetic. She reminded
me of my dear little dog, Marquesita, whose
death almost broke my heart. By chance we
took leave of our hostess	together,	and	went
into the	cloak-room.	I knew	she	was
Princess Metternich, and stood aside defer-
entially to let her enter the antechamber first.
In recognition of my little civility she stopped
and looked me full in the face—then held out
her hand. ‘ Shall we be friends ? ’ she asked.
‘ I see by your face that we shall understand
each other.’ When I had replied very civilly,
in recognition of her position, she pointed to
the closed door of the saloti, where our
hostess was receiving another bevy of very
38
1﻿Preface
great ladies, and said, ‘ Have you seen the
waxworks ? Ah ! how I yawned ! The ladies
ought to have been thoroughly pleased with
me, for I let them do all the talking, answer-
ing all their questions with one word,—yes.
Can you guess what I was thinking about
while they were chattering ? I was realising
how these fine ladies, the old and the young,
would look if I undressed them ! This is one
of my manias—I must strip of their clothes
all the humans I meet ! Take your own case.
It is as clear as daylight to me that under
your skirts there is £5,000 or even £10,000 a
year ! You don’t laugh. I do,’ and she had to
stuff her handkerchief into her mouth to stop
her laughter. Then she said, ‘ I count upon
you to help me to strip these lady-bankers,
these mummies. Que vou/ez-vous ? I am
gay. Hop ! ’ And with that she put her
hands on the floor—the Foreign Office floor ;
only fancy it !—and turned head over heels in
the presence of the lackeys who were helping
her on with her pelisse ! By the time we
parted we were calling each other by our
Christian names. It strikes me that the world
of diplomacy is undergoing a change.”
In 1886, eighteen years after Princess
Metternich and her husband, the Austrian
Ambassador, had left Paris, the Princess
opened Vienna’s first flower-show, and was
the idol of the day when she drove along
39﻿Preface
the Prater, the Hyde Park of the capital.
No Austrian Sovereign had ever been ac-
corded so magnificent a reception. One
famous writer entitled her “ Our Lady of
Vienna”; another,“The Real Man of Vienna” ;
and another styled her “ The Incomparable.”
A song, written “ round ” her, was sung in
the streets. One verse, still remembered in
starving Vienna even in 1921, ran :
Es giebt nur a Kaiserstadt,
Es giebt nur a Wien ;
Es giebt nur a Fflrstin,
Es ist die Metternich Paulin !
(There is only one Imperial city—Vienna.
There is only one Princess—Pauline Met-
ternich !)
Of the celebrated diplomatist, Prince Met-
ternich, who died in 1859, the year of his
son’s appointment as Austrian Ambassador to
France, there is not a little gup in the third
volume of the Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Lari
of Beaconsfeld, by W- F. Monypenny and
G. E. Buckle.
Disraeli writes to Lady Londonderry :
“ Grosvenor Gate, May Day, 1848.—Have
you yet recovered the great catastrophe ? . . .
The King of France [Louis Philippe] in a
Surrey villa, Metternich in a Hanover Square
hotel, and the Prince of Prussia at Lady
Palmerston’s! [That Prince became in 1871
the Emperor William I., grandfather of the
40﻿Preface
ex-Kaiser of the present day.] . . . Did you
hear of Lord Hardinge’s interview with Met-
ternich on the 9th of March ? Lord Ponsonby
and P. [Prince] Esterhazy both present and
listening as if to an oracle, while Metternich
announced that Austria never was so sound,
while he moralised over the miserable fate of
the French. Esterhazy kissing his [Prince
Metternich’s] hand, like the Emperor’s, when
he quitted the room ! Lord Harding told me
this.”
“On May 17” (writes Mr. Buckle),
“ Londonderry, who had been Ambassador
in Vienna, took Disraeli to Eaton Square to
introduce him to Prince Metternich. This
eminent man had been mainly responsible
for the policy for nearly forty years. . . . He
was now seventy-five years old. Disraeli had
long admired the serene intelligence of the
profound Metternich ! The attraction seems
to have been mutual. Metternich was living
as a hermit, in Londonderry’s phrase ; but,
though he saw few others, he saw and
corresponded with Disraeli frequently. ‘ I
have seen Metternich twice,’ Disraeli writes
to his sister on the 30th of May, 1848.	‘ He
talks very much, and is very kind.’ Met-
ternich’s wife, Princess Melanie, notes in her
diary for May of this year that a complete
understanding was at once established between
the two men. They agreed in deploring the
41﻿Preface
socialistic doctrines which were promulgated
from Paris, in wishing to stem the revolu-
tionary tide throughout Europe, and in re-
probating Palmerston's policy of constant
interference, in the interests of Liberalism,
between Continental Governments and their
peoples. Two speeches of Disraeli on foreign
affairs, in June and August of 1848, were
clearly made under Metternich’s influence ;
and Princess Melanie’s diary shows the im-
portance which Metternich attached to both
of them.”
The first, on the 5th of June, arose out of
an awkward complication with Spain ; the
second speech (of which Mr. Buckle gives
a long account) was delivered on the Foreign
Office vote in supply on the 16th of August,
and dealt mainly with British relations with
Rome, Naples, Sardinia, and Austria. “In
this speech, which Disraeli himself thought
would make a noise, and which Greville calls
‘ very brilliant,’ and Hobhouse ‘ amusing and
striking,’ there were, according to Princess
Melanie Metternich, certain expressions which
Palmerston maintained could only have been
furnished to Disraeli by her husband ; and
Metternich certainly called the particular
attention of the Austrian Foreign Office to
it, and pointed out that £ ce grand orateur’
had borrowed from him the idea of the
difference between political and sentimental
42﻿Preface
mediation, the first based on treaties, the
second on nationality.”
Writing to Lady Londonderry on the 30th
of April, 1849, Mr. Disraeli told how on the
previous day he “ went to pay a visit to the
Metternichs. They live in a most charming
old house on Richmond Green, called the
Old Palace. Nothing can be conceived more
picturesque. ... I met there Duchess of
Cambridge and the Coloredos. On the
Sunday in August before leaving London for
Hughenden ” (Disraeli writes) “ I went to pay
my adieu to the Metternichs. . . . The Princess
was making lint for the Austrian wounded,
Brunnow with her, ‘whispering at the ear
of Eve.’ ” Prince Metternich was “ much
altered, very extenuated . . . but his appre-
hension not less bright.” Lord and Lady
Palmerston were cordially received ; “ the
Prince even went to the hall to welcome
them.”
In a delightful, undated letter, Disraeli,
writing to Prince Metternich in August or
September 1849, says:	“I wish I could
induce your Highness to find a total change
of air and scene amid our Chiltern hills. . . .
I would arrange that your despatches should
come to you twice a day. Think of this, my
dear master, seriously.”
43﻿﻿THE DAYS THAT ARE
NO MORE
CHAPTER I
GRANDPAPA
(Prince Clemens Metternich)
(Reminiscences of my Childhood and Youth, 1845—1849)
One morning, when my grandfather—the
Chancellor Prince Metternich — saw my
daughter Sophie, who was then eighteen
months old, playing at my feet, he exclaimed :
“ What I was really meant to be was a
children’s nurse ! ”
I do not think that in any biography of the
Chancellor mention has been made, or indeed
could be made, of the talents he may have had
in this direction.
This grandfatherly exclamation at the sight
of his little granddaughter, who was also his
great-granddaughter, will serve me as a clue
for the difficult task I have here set myself.
It is not of the Chancellor that I wish to tell:
the Chancellor I never knew. I remember
45﻿﻿Grandpapa
able sin. We all did what he told us to do,
not from fear, but from love, and because we
felt that in all his wishes and commands he
had only our own good in view. There was
nothing petty about him, and I cannot imagine
anyone so easy and pleasant to get on with as
he was. It is not everyone who understands
so readily as he did how to go about with
children, young people, and simple, nay,
insignificant, persons in general.
His spirit communicated itself to others.
It often happened, to the astonishment of
other members of the company, that down-
right stupid people, in their intercourse with
him, suddenly seemed to become quite intelli-
gent, and not only asked sensible questions,
but gave judicious answers. In his verdicts
on the mental capacity, the actions, and the
characters of his fellows, my grandfather’s
indulgence may really be described as limitless.
He was never more tolerant than when
opponents—and not merely opponents, but
avowed enemies of his—were in question.
Personal spite was entirely foreign to his
nature. All who knew him will agree with
me in saying that his greatness of soul was
even more to be admired than his intellectual
gifts. It would, indeed, scarcely be desirable
if such loyalty and impartiality towards
antagonists as he had made it his principle
to display were often to be found. True, he
47﻿The Days That Are No More
detested the activities of the party of up-
heaval, and declared open war against it ; but
towards individuals whose opinions differed
from his, and of whom he was justified in
thinking that they followed from conviction a
wrong and dangerous path, he was a lenient
judge, and never bore them any personal
malice.
His deep religious feeling, no doubt, did
much to keep him from passing harsh judg-
ments. He marched steadily on towards his
life’s goal, always seeking to purify himself,
always looking upward, and one might truth-
fully say of him that every day he became a
better man.
Among my earliest recollections of my
childhood are the Christmas evenings at
grandpapa’s, the greatest of the many delights
that fell to my lot. At seven o’clock, after
the family dinner, which, as the custom was
in those days, began at five o’clock, the doors
of the great reception-room in the State
Chancellery, with a superb, gigantic Christmas-
tree in the middle, were flung open, and we
rushed in, to revel in the countless lovely toys
with which the huge room was crammed.
The most beautiful toys came from old Baron
Salomon Rothschild, who, in his deep attach-
ment to the Chancellor he revered so highly,
knew that he could give him no greater
pleasure than preparing surprises of this kind
48﻿Grandpapa
for his children and his granddaughter. I
remember an enormous doll’s house, into
which a child could go ; it had a parlour and
a kitchen, both completely furnished. Another
time there was a grocer’s shop, and at another
a switchback—it was enchanting ! Our dear
grandpapa, who never got anything in all this
bestowal of Christmas gifts, found his enjoy-
ment in our happiness, and for his part made
handsome presents to all, from the oldest to
the youngest. Such are my reminiscences of
the State Chancellery : it must be admitted
that they are childish !
In the spring, about the i oth or x 2th of May,
my grandparents used to leave for the villa in the
Rennweg, and there, on the 15th, my grand-
father’s birthday was celebrated. There was
a great dinner-party, and after dinner I was
allowed to put in an appearance, although, of
course, I had already given him my birthday
greetings in the morning. When the weather
was fine, I found the whole company sitting
on the terrace, where coffee was served. If
the lilac was in bloom—as with us in Vienna
is not always the case at this season—grand-
papa was delighted, and took his guests round
the garden, so that they might admire the
glorious wealth of blossom. He was a
passionate lover of Nature and of flowers, and
would go into, such rapturesjover the loveliness
of spring as I have never, or hardly ever, heard
49
D﻿The Days That Are No More
from the lips of anyone else. The garden
stretched from the Rennweg to the Modenese
garden, and included the whole group of
buildings of the Metternich grounds, as in
those days they were called.
My grandparents remained in Vienna till
the end of June, and then, unless prevented by
the pressure of State business, went off either
to Bohemia or to the Johannisberg on the
Rhine.
Almost every day, just as at the State
Chancellery, guests were invited to dinner at
the villa, and every evening there was a recep-
tion. One day Fanny Elsler was among the
guests, and I had the privilege of seeing her.
My grandparents were very fond of her, for
they admired not only her unsurpassable art,
but the distinction of her personality, her
appearance, and her engaging, exquisite man-
ners. I can still see her sitting by my grand-
father’s side in the drawing-room, wearing a
yellow silk dress and with a rose in her hair.
What impressed me even then was the dainty
way in which she kept her feet crossed.
Grandpapa called me to him and asked : “ Do
you know who this lady is ? ”	“ No, grand-
pa,” I answered, and gazed wonderingly at
that noble figure, sitting there so gracefully.
And what a well-shaped head, what a deli-
cately chiselled profile ! How beautiful Fanny
Elsler must have been, to make so unforget-
5°﻿Grandpapa
table an impression on a child !	“ Well,”
said grandpapa, “ that’s the famous Fanny
Elsler ! Make her a nice curtsey, as you have
learnt it from your dancing-master.” I dropped
my very best curtsey, and the Elsler declared
that it did credit both to me and to my teacher.
“ Oh ! ” I cried, “ I can do a lot more ! ”
“ Well, do the five positions,” she said, and
hardly had she uttered the words before I
went through the five positions. “ Up to
now,” remarked my grandfather to Fanny
Elsler, “ you have not been thrown into the
shade by my granddaughter.”
My mother, who was also an ardent admirer
of the incomparable dancer, wanted me to see
her on the stage, in order that I might realise
the true meaning of dignity and genuine grace.
It was settled, therefore, that I should be taken
to the next performance of the ballet “ Gisela ;
or, the Willis.” The impression was one
neither to be described nor forgotten. To-day
I still see Fanny Elsler before me, and I have
a vivid recollection of the tears that were shed
when the Willis, an ideal figure of beauty and
pathos, sank into the grave, with her arms
outstretched above her head. It was the
dying of poetry itself !
My grandfather, to whom, no doubt, I
gave a very lively account of my childish
impressions, induced my mother to let me
see Fanny Elsler in other ballets also. He
5i﻿The Days That Are No More
held the wise view that the eyes of the young
cannot be regaled too early with the sight of
all that is fair and noble. I can say without
hesitation that it was Fanny Elsler who
awakened in me a love and enthusiasm for art.
During the summer of 1846 we paid a visit
to grandpapa at the Johannisberg. I can
recall two notabilities whom I met here—
Alexander von Humboldt and Radowitz. Of
the former I can remember only that he was
short in stature and had a luxuriant crop of
snow-white hair ; of the latter, that he had
a miraculous “ gift of the gab.” Grandpapa
said to me, in introducing Humboldt : “ Here
is a mighty man of science, by the side of
whom we are all ignoramuses ! ” As for
Radowitz, I can only repeat that his loquacity
was amazing. He went on like a waterfall,
an endless stream of words poured from his
lips. To me, of course, they were for the
most part meaningless ; but they must have
been very interesting, for the “grown-ups”
listened with bated breath and seemed to be
spellbound.
Then came the fatal year 1848, and one
day—the 14th of March—the word went
round : “ Grandpapa has to leave ! ”
My mother wept bitterly from morning
till night. Gangs of men trooped through
the streets, throwing stones at the windows,
marching past the soldiers on sentry-go, putting
52﻿Grandpapa
out their tongues at them and uttering vile
insults. I saw a grenadier with the high,
splendid bearskin busby, whose post was near
our house, at the entrance to the Bastion case-
mate, which then was still standing. He was
pelted with the foulest abuse, but stood there
like a rock, not moving a muscle, while his
face grew paler and paler. What a terrible
inward struggle it must have been for the
poor fellow not to make use of his rifle
against that crew of tatterdemalions ! I
turned to my governess and indignantly
exclaimed in French:	“Idiots!” “Not
merely idiots,” she replied, “ but brutes ! ”
“ I don’t mean them” I retorted angrily ;
“ I mean the Government ! ” She smiled ;
I did not know why. Long afterwards she
told me that this condemnation of the
Government sounded so quaint from a child’s
lips that it seemed as if I had an old head on
young shoulders.
My mother, almost speechless with tears
and indignation, told me that gentlemen from
aristocratic circles had joined the revolutionary
movement, and on the morning of the 13th of
March had appeared at my grandfather’s with
the deputation which informed him, in the
most brutal manner, that he must resign.
Count B. and Count F. had been among the
delegates, and had not removed their hats
during the interview.
53﻿The Days That Are No More
What Count B. thought of his behaviour
during later years I have never learnt. Count
F., however, not merely regretted his conduct,
but in 1852, when my grandfather returned
to Vienna, came to him in person to offer his
apologies. I need scarcely add that my dear
grandfather never bore either of these gentle-
men the slightest ill-will for the part they had
played ; in fact, that he had never even
mentioned the affair.
My mother was in a state of painful anxiety
about her beloved father and her stepmother,1
until at last she heard that, amid discomforts
and difficulties of all kinds, they had reached
Holland and finally England. The Tsar
Nicholas of Russia, in his loyal friendship and
his recognition of all that my grandfather had
done for Europe, immediately upon his arrival
in England, placed at his disposal 100,000
roubles, with a note suggesting that, as Prince
Metternich had had to leave Vienna in such
a hurry, and everything was at sixes and
sevens all over the Continent, he might find
it convenient to have this amount of ready
cash to draw upon. The generous offer was
gratefully accepted, but only on the condition
that interest at five per cent, should be paid
on the amount until the repayment of the
total sum. The Tsar was tactful enough to
1 Melanie, nee Countess Zichy-Ferraris, third wife of the
Chancellor.
54﻿Grandpapa
accede to this request, realising that the
acceptance of the money as a gift was out
of the question.
In 1849, in May, so far as I remember, we
undertook the journey to England. My grand-
parents had spent the winter in Brighton, and
for the summer had rented a house named the
“ Old Palace,” at Richmond, charmingly
situated by the Thames. Here it was that
we once more joined our dear grandpapa, to
stay with him until October. I used to spend
the whole day at the house of a Mrs. Jenkins,
who had some other little girls with her ; her
pretty daughter gave them lessons, while she
exercised a general supervision. Although I
already had a fair command of English, I then
for the first time mastered the more subtle
points of the language, and also acquired a
good pronunciation in Mrs. Jenkins’s school,
where nothing but English was spoken or
understood.
From all quarters came a stream of faithful
friends to the Old Palace, and if, unfortunately,
my recollection of them is on the whole very
faint, there are some personalities that I have
not yet forgotten. First of all there were the
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who were
living in a little Royal villa at Kew, close by,
and who visited us several times a week. As
particular friends of Austria they were most
welcome guests. With them came their two
55﻿The Days That Are No More
daughters, the then Hereditary Grand Duchess
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Mary,
mother of the present Queen of England
(afterwards married to the Duke of Teck) ;
their son, Prince George of Cambridge;
and finally their son-in-law, the Hereditary
Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They
were all the more inclined to show the deepest
respect for my grandfather, in that they were
bitter opponents of Lord Palmerston, who was
then Foreign Secretary and displayed a parti-
ality for revolutionary ideas. Moreover, they
had no great liking for the Prince Consort, of
whose tendencies, like my grandfather, they
did not approve. Queen Victoria completely
ignored my grandfather. She knew well
enough that he had long since been displeased
with the activities of her brother-in-law, the
reigning Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
and that the latter’s Utopian vagaries and
Liberal views were little to his taste.
Besides these delightful members of the
H ouse of Cambridge, we often saw Princess
Lieven, who was at one time so famous. She
looked as if she had stepped out of some
ancestral portrait. She was always dressed
entirely in black, wore an enormous hat, had
a green shade over.her eyes, and carried a
gigantic fan. So she paraded before us,
stately and imposing, without so much as
deigning to glance at us poor earthworms.
56﻿Grandpapa
In contrast to this dignified old lady, this
emblem of European high politics, we used to
see tripping along that celebrated belle of Vienna
Congress days, Princess Bagration. She was
the most extraordinary-looking person I ever
set eyes upon, and our age, with its tendency
to make everything conform to one pattern
and one measure, must forego the pleasure—
or the horror—of beholding so eccentric a
being. She had forgotten the march of years,
and seemed to think she was still in that
glorious prime when Isabey painted her
crowned with roses, wrapped in clouds and
shrouded in veils! Only the veils and the
roses remained ; the clouds, with her beauty,
had vanished. Of her wealth of blond tresses,
only some half-dozen yellow hairs were left.
Her skin had become like a lemon, and her
body — for one could see her body — was
nothing but a creaking bag of bones.
The poor Princess was flimsily clad in a
chemise of fine batiste, with two pink or light
blue bows—that was all ! We went in fear and
trembling, and uttered a fervent prayer that
those loosely-tied bows might not come un-
done. Her weather-beaten little face was
topped by a hat that a shepherdess of eighteen
might have hesitated to wear. Thus dressed,
if one can call it dressed, she appeared on her
visits to my grandfather. The poor creature
would indulge in all sorts of sly coquetries,
57﻿The Days That Are No More
and would throw him languishing glances.
It was a sight for the gods to watch my
grandfather, always so dignified and patrician
in appearance, tow this poor shrivelled
mummy on his arm to the table. She clung
to him and gazed at him so earnestly with
her watery blue eyes that, young and old
alike, it was all we could do to keep from
laughing outright.
Another lady, once famed for her beauty,
the Duchess von Sagan, nee Princess of
Courland (known in her young days as the
Duchess de Dino, niece of Prince Talleyrand),
came to see my grandfather at Richmond,
and also later in Vienna. She was very dis-
tinguished-looking, and always exceedingly
well dressed, but in a manner suited to her
years. What struck me about her more than
anything else was that she spoke the most
beautiful German : her voice was rich and
mellow in tone, and the melodious note of
her wonderful speech still rings in my ears.
At Richmond, too, I saw Benjamin Disraeli,
then in the full vigour of his manhood. I am
not in a position to say more about him than
that I saw him very often, for in those days,
while I was open to receive such impressions
as the Princesses Lieven and Bagration and the
Duchess of Sagan evoked, a man like Disraeli
left me quite cold, however eloquent he may
have been. I was still a child, and can tell
58﻿Grandpapa
of things only as they left their stamp on a
childish mind ; on all that concerns more
serious matters I merely picked up stray hints
now and then, when we had to take a rest
from our social duties—the unfriendly atti-
tude of Queen Victoria, for instance; Lord
Palmerston’s omission to call on us, and the
antipathy towards everything connected with
the houses of Coburg and Orleans.
Thirty years later I met Disraeli in London,
and when we got into conversation he at once
began speaking to me of my grandfather. “ If
I had been able to forget Prince Metternich,”
he remarked, “ the force of circumstances
would have served to recall him to my
memory. All his predictions have come true,
he really had the gift of prophetic insight ! ”
In October 1849, my mother took me back
to Vienna, to go once more on a visit to
grandpapa in the autumn of 1850, this time
to Brussels, and to spend the winter there.
England, in course of time, had become too
expensive, and we had to economise. Of the
“ millions ” which Prince Metternich, accord-
ing to all the revolutionary newspapers of
1848, had put by, in order to deposit them
at an English bank, I never heard anything,
nor did I ever see a vestige of them later on,
when I married my uncle, who himself had
by then become heir to the whole estate.
We found our grandparents in Brussels,
59﻿The Days That Are No More
installed in the Hotel Beriot, Boulevard de
l’Observatoire, which was the property of the
famous violinist, Beriot, the husband of Mali-
bran, the singer. My mother rented a little
house in the immediate neighbourhood. Soon
afterwards my grandfather moved again, and
took up his quarters in an old house in
the Place du Grand Sablon, belonging to the
Duke von Arenberg, while we came to lodge
in the Rue des Meriennes, a narrow, gloomy
lane, the very embodiment of all that was
dismal. Of our stay in Brussels I have no
very pleasant recollections ; perhaps this was
because for three months I had felt far from
well, in consequence of a persistent, very
violent intestinal catarrh.
In Brussels the throng of callers on my
grandfather was, if possible, even greater than
at Richmond, and it would scarcely be too
much to say that half Europe came to look
him up. One day the well-known Socialist,
Louis Blanc, was announced. My grand-
mother was furious, saying it was sheer
impudence for such a scoundrel to set foot
in our house. But her protests were of no
avail ; my grandfather declared that he would
be greatly interested to hear Louis Blanc
expound his theories, and he was shown in.
The representative of ultra-Conservative prin-
ciples and the leader of ultra-Radicalism had
a long discussion together. Neither convinced
60﻿Grandpapa
the other, but Louis Blanc was said to have
admitted afterwards that, after all, he “ found
it difficult to refute Prince Metternich’s
arguments.” However that may be, he was
delighted with the venerable Chancellor,
whose good nature and even temper in de-
bate had left a profound impression upon
him, all the more as he appears to have
found him quite different from what he had
expected. My grandfather, for his part,
expressed himself in most complimentary
terms on Louis Blanc’s personality. This,
again, made my grandmother angry : “ Now
he’s even beginning to praise him ! ” she said.
The historian, Thiers, also called upon my
grandfather, and had long conversations with
him. He wished to be enlightened on various
points in connection with the Napoleonic era,
as he was just then writing his Histoire du
Consulat et de FEmpire. The following year
he came to Johannisberg, in order to learn the
exact tenor of my grandfather’s discussions
with the Emperor Napoleon. King Leopold
was another frequent visitor, and often asked
my grandfather for advice. As is well known,
he was credited with being the chosen inter-
mediary between the various Cabinets, and
my grandfather considered him one of the
best diplomatists he had ever met : very
wary, very far-seeing, and crafty to the highest
degree.
61﻿The Days That Are No More
In the summer of 1851, my grandfather
betook himself to the Johannisberg. The
Revolution had spent its fury, and its hated
opponent could now go back to Germany.
The Emperor Francis Joseph at once sent
word to my grandfather that he could return
to Austria as soon as he liked, without causing
the Government any embarrassment. Accord-
ingly he arrived in Vienna with his family
in October of the same year, travelling from
Linz by steamer, and was given a rousing
welcome by all his friends and faithful
adherents.
Thus we are all once more happily united
in our old home, and could resume our family
life undisturbed. We usually lunched at
grandpapa’s three times a week, and spent
almost every evening at his house in the
Rennweg, which became a rendezvous for
all the diplomatic world, as well as for the
whole of Vienna Society. Among the most
constant guests were Field-Marshal Prince
Windischgraetz ; the poet, Freiherr von
Zedlitz ; the English Ambassador, Lord
Westmorland, and his highly gifted wife ;
and the French Ambassador, Baron Bour-
queney, to whose youngest son my grandfather
had stood sponsor.
It often happened that after dinner, when
my parents went to the theatre, or my mother
had something else on hand, I stayed alone
62﻿Grandpapa
with my dear grandparents and had a pleasant
chat with them, asked my grandfather for
information on various subjects, and got him
to tell me his experiences and of people he
had met.
Immediately after dinner he would take a
brief nap, which never lasted more than a
quarter of an hour. Then he would read the
evening papers, and when he was tired of
reading would start talking with us. Had I
been older, I should have turned this inter-
course to better account, and should have had
ample opportunity of obtaining sidelights on
the period of his active influence. As it is,
only a few things here and there have not
slipped from my memory, and to-day I could
shed bitter tears over my stupidity, which has
made me forget so much. One of these
stories greatly amused us. On the day when
he was raised to the rank of Prince, October
20th, 1813, his valet, Giroux, asked him:
“ Will Your Highness put on the same suit
as His Excellency wore yesterday ? ”
Grandpapa liked to speak of Napoleon,
whom he by no means looked upon as an
enemy in the ordinary sense of the word.
He was an enemy of Napoleon’s lust of con-
quest, and regarded him as the scourge of
Europe ; but even in this respect, as was
always the case with him, his judgment
was marked by absolute fairness, and he
63﻿The Days That Are No More
never failed to give Napoleon his due. He
lamented the fact that a man of such tower-
ing genius had not been able to control
himself better, and, after his successful con-
flict with the French Revolution, had not
contented himself with restoring order in
his country. How often he told us that there
was no one so attractive and fascinating to
converse with as the Emperor Napoleon !
He knew how to give an interesting turn
to every topic, so that talking with him was
a pleasure that never palled. The Empress
Josephine, according to my grandfather, was
good-natured, but rather insignificant, and
mainly preoccupied with her clothes, on
which she spent a mint of money. He de-
scribed her daughter, Queen Hortense, as the
most well-bred woman he had ever known,
and said that for amiability, courtesy, and
polish of manner she had no peer. The
Princess Borghese was the most beautiful
woman he had ever set eyes upon. She was
so much in love with her own beauty that
she spoke of it as if alluding to some other
person, whose perfections she was praising.
As regards the Empress Marie Louise, my
father did not care to express himself freely,
but from what he said one felt that he was
not greatly drawn towards her. When she
started on her journey from Vienna to Paris,
after her marriage by proxy, in the company
64﻿Grandpapa
of my grandmother, Eleonore Kaunitz, the
Chancellor’s first wife, and shed tears at
leaving her home, her companion tried to
comfort her, whereupon the young Empress
answered : “ Well, after all, dear Princess, it’s
what we Royalties have to put up with ! ”
The wife of the great Napoleon might well
have given a different answer. If Napoleon
was a brilliant conversationalist, he could at
times show a rudeness that was simply appal-
ling. Whenever he met my grandmother,
who was in poor health and anything but
vain—and whose intelligence, by the way, he
rated very high—he never omitted to pass
some jesting remark upon her sickly look
and her thinness ; as, for instance :	“ Ah,
Princess Laure, we’re getting old, we’re getting
scraggy, we’re getting ugly ! ” She used to
laugh at this, and he liked her for falling in
with his humour, and would add : “ There’s
no doubt about it ; you’ve got more brains
than all those clodhopping women around
you ! ”
When grandpapa spoke of the festivities
and dances in Paris during the First Empire,
I was, of course, all ears. He told us that
in the quadrilles such fantastic twists and
twirls were then in vogue, that on one occasion
one of the famous dancers, whom he desired
to watch, asked him to go a little further off,
because it was not at all unlikely that anyone
e	65﻿The Days That Are No More
standing near him would get hurt ! Those
who have only seen the languid and ungrace-
ful steps of present-day dancers can really
have no conception of what dancing must
have been like a hundred years ago.
My grandfather always expressed a very
favourable opinion of King Frederick William
III. of Prussia, and his consort, Queen Louise.
He could not speak too highly of their beauty
and charm, their affability and kindness.
King Frederick William III. had exacted
from him a promise to remain a loyal
counsellor to his sons, and never to spare
them the truth, if he thought it necessary
to be frank. The promise was faithfully
kept.
To go back to my grandfather’s stories, I
must not omit to mention those that concern
the excellent Emperor Francis, whom he loved
and honoured beyond words. He would laugh-
ingly describe to us the quartet evenings, when
the good Emperor played the ’cello, and he
himself the violin. At times the joint per-
formance, it appears, was rather a halting
one, and altogether would not have been
exactly a feast for the ear, had any audience
been present. Fortunately there was no
audience for these quartets.
The Emperor Francis once asked my grand-
father whether he had ever been fond of
reading novels. The latter answering that
66﻿Grandpapa
he had not, the Emperor said he had never
read one, and that it would interest him, by
way of an experiment, to see whether a work
of fiction could attract him at all. “ Do get
hold of a really interesting novel for me;
we’ll read it each for himself, perhaps we
shall enjoy it,” added the Emperor. The
next day my grandfather sent a novel which
all the world was then devouring, and both
set to work. When Emperor and Chancellor
met again, the former asked : “Well, do you
like our novel ? ”	“ I must confess to your
Majesty that I have not managed to get
through more than twelve pages.” “ Well,
you are braver than I,” rejoined the Emperor ;
“ I gave it up at page eight ! ”
It is indeed humiliating to have such scanty
reminiscences of detached conversations, seeing
that I was in a position to fill volumes with
them. I can only plead my youth as an
excuse. At that age, after all, one is not a
very careful listener; if the conversation grows
long and serious, one thinks of anything rather
than of what is being said, unless one is
directed by a teacher to pay attention.
Every evening, after the theatre, people
flocked to my grandfather’s drawing-room,
and often the place was so full that one could
hardly find a place to sit down. As my grand-
father had become very deaf, he could not
take part in a general conversation, and the
67﻿The Days That Are No More
person who spoke to him had to talk extremely
loud, a fact which caused no little embarrass-
ment to those who were shy. My sister-in-
law, then still Aunt Melanie, became engaged
to a distant cousin, Count Zichy, and the
wedding took place in 1853, in the family
chapel. After the ceremony, all Vienna came
to offer congratulations. When the guests
were taking their leave, my grandmother—or
rather my step-grandmother—who had been
remarkably beautiful, and was still very hand-
some (she had a Greek profile and wonderful
eyes, one green and the other blue), asked the
French Ambassador, Baron Bourqueney, whom
he considered the loveliest of all the women
present. He replied : “You, Princess, beyond
all shadow of doubt ! ” Instead of assuming
an air of false modesty, she said : “ Upon my
word, you are right ! ”
The following year, 1854, the good and
beautiful Princess died of a severe chronic
disease, from which she had suffered since the
birth of Lothar, her last child, without ever
making the slightest complaint, though it
must have caused her terrible pain and suffer-
ing. The loss was a crushing blow for my
poor grandfather, but his strength of mind
never deserted him for a moment. With
simple, I might almost say child-like, resigna-
tion, he acquiesced in the decree of Providence,
without ever parading his grief or letting it
68﻿Grandpapa
appear that he felt himself sorely tried beyond
the common lot. When God had spoken, he
could only be silent.
So life went quietly on. All sorts and
conditions of men came to see him, some
pleasant, others boring in the extreme. In
the latter category we placed Professor Zahn,
who had written treatises on Moorish art: he
used to drive us youngsters to despair by taking
the arabesques of the Alhambra one by one,
describing and explaining them. Another
portentous bore was Professor Sydow, a Hima-
layan explorer, who would strum on the piano
with one finger in order to give grandpapa
an idea of what the pipes of the Indian
shepherds sounded like. It was an excruciat-
ing performance. But the palm for tediousness
and rant was undoubtedly borne away by the
Orientalist, Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall.
He would begin something like this : “ The
language of the Arabs is full of imagery—for
one thing, for one object they often have a
thousand words and phrases. Let us take for
example the camel. For the camel alone the
Arabs have four thousand equivalents. I will
begin with the first: ‘ the ship of the desert.’ ”
. . . We would quietly slink out of the draw-
ing-room and leave poor grandpapa alone with
the man of learning. An hour later we would
peep stealthily into the room and, to our
astonishment, find the latter still holding
69﻿The Days That Are No More
forth, and grandpapa still listening with the
utmost attention.
One day, to the joy of our dear grandpapa,
there appeared Prince Belgiojoso. In Rossini’s
heyday he had been accounted one of the
finest tenors of his time, and as such was still
remembered by my grandfather. One of the
first questions he asked was : “ Do you still
sing ? ”	“ Of course I do,” answered the
Prince, drawing himself up proudly. “ Then
I hope you’ll let us have the pleasure of hear-
ing you,” said my grandfather, beaming with
delight. The day and the hour were fixed,
and the whole family was invited to come
and admire the peerless singer and enjoy the
melody of his voice. Our expectations were
keyed to the highest pitch. The Prince
appeared with an accompanist, and strode in
triumph, self-consciously clearing his throat,
to the piano. “ What will you sing to us,
my dear Prince ? ” asked grandpapa. “ ‘ Mira
la bianca luna,’ your favourite song,” was the
reply. Looking forward to a rare musical
treat, my grandfather sat near the piano,
absorbed in meditation, his eyes cast down,
thinking of Rossini and of the song that was
to burst forth from the princely tenor’s lips.
The pianist struck up the first chords, the
singer opened his mouth, but all one heard
was the accompaniment, and now and then
sounds so faint and hollow that they seemed
70﻿Grandpapa
to come from somewhere far away ; it was,
in fact, mere mimicry of singing—horrible !
We were on pins and needles. Grandpapa,
who was, as I have already remarked, very
hard of hearing, still sat there waiting and
wrapped in thought. The voiceless singer
had just uttered his last note, if note it could
be called, when grandpapa turned to us and
said : “ When is he going to begin ? ” My
uncle Lothar and I—we were of the same
age—burst into such a fit of laughing that
we collapsed and rolled under the piano. We
were at once turned out of the room, and had
to make ourselves scarce until Prince Belgiojoso
left.
My uncle Richard, who had decided musical
talent, often had to play duets with me for
grandpapa’s benefit. At his request, we usually
chose the overtures from Rossini’s operas. He
listened attentively to our strumming. I call
it strumming because Richard, though an ex-
cellent player by ear, was bad at reading music,
while I was a very moderate performer, so
that it needed the indulgent ear of a father and
grandfather to find any enjoyment in our efforts.
One visit that my grandfather received still
stands out in my memory—that of the
Empress Maria Anna, Emperor Ferdinand’s
consort. It was at the Rennweg Villa. The
Empress, who was staying in Vienna for a
few days on her way back from Italy, wanted
7*﻿The Days That Are No More
to see him ; but as she knew that he no
longer attended levees and had not even paid
his respects to the Emperor, she thought it
would be out of place to summon him to her
presence, and called on him instead. A more
majestic figure than the Empress Maria Anna
could not be imagined. She was every inch a
queen. When she appeared in the hall, my
grandfather stood before her, bowing very
low. She graciously inclined her head, slowly
pulled off the glove from her right hand, and
offered him the hand to kiss, with a dignity
that had to be seen to be believed. My
grandfather kissed the Empress’s hand with
such a courtly air, and such heartfelt reverence,
that this meeting left an ineffaceable mark in
my memory.
In 1856, my uncle Richard came home on
leave from Paris, where he was Secretary to
the Embassy, intending to spend January
and February in Vienna. Piano-playing and
natural sympathy had drawn uncle and niece
together, and on the 7th of February he
asked for my hand. Grandpapa was over-
joyed at his son’s decision, as were also my
parents, although, to my mother, the idea of
my marrying her step-brother1 was rather
startling. My heart still thrills at the recol-
lection of the welcome I received when I
1 By the Chancellor’s second marriage with Antoinette,
Freiherrin von Leykam.
72﻿Grandpapa
appeared at the Rennweg as a bride, and when
my dear grandpapa, tenderly embracing me,
said : “ I am still your grandfather ; you
must not call me your father-in-law, for as
grandfather I am nearer to you.”
So he remained for me “ grandpapa,” much
to the confusion of many people abroad who
did not know of the close tie of blood. It
was long before my dear mother could get used
to hearing me called “ Princess Metternich,”
and one day, six weeks or so after our wedding,
when someone asked her : “ How is Princess
Metternich ? ” she replied : “ She is dead.”
“ What ! ” exclaimed her questioner, “ dead !
—when did she die?” “Three years ago.”
Then the misunderstanding was cleared up.
Richard had meanwhile been appointed
envoy in Dresden, and my dear grandpapa
took great interest in the setting up of our
new home. He proposed to share his silver
plate with us, and ordered the list to be
brought to him, with the division made out
on a loose leaf next to the inventory. When
both were brought to him, he read: “Aspa-
ragus tongs, two,” and on the neighbouring
leaf, “ For the young master and mistress, two,”
so that for him none were left. “ It seems,”
he remarked, “ that in my own house my
Socialistic principles are pretty thoroughly
applied.”
On the 30th of June, 1856, the wedding cere-
73﻿The Days That Are No More
mony took place before the Papal Nuncio,
Monsignor Viale Prela, an intimate friend of
the family. My step-grandmother’s mother,
the old Countess Molly Zichy-Ferraris, was to
be present, but the day before she received
news of the death of her brother-in-law,
Count Ferdinand Zichy. She informed us
that, to her regret, she could not officially
appear at the wedding, but promised to come
and remain in hiding behind the altar. This,
however, as it turned out, was impossible ; for
when all were assembled in the chapel and
the Nuncio was putting on his vestments, my
grandfather looked towards the altar, which
was so close to the wall that there would have
been no room even for a sheet of paper
between the two, and said aloud (for, owing
to his deafness, he did not know how to
modulate his voice) : “ Where the deuce can
Molly have got to ? ” It was a marvel that
Richard and I, in spite of the seriousness of
the occasion, did not burst out laughing.
In the afternoon, after the wedding break-
fast at the Rennweg Villa, we took a special
train for my mother’s residence in Moravia,
and from there, a fortnight later, we went to
Dresden. In August, grandpapa had every-
thing ready for us at Konigswart, where he
gave us a most festive reception, and in his
usual simple, cheery way enjoyed all that went
on and took part in every entertainment, so
74﻿Grandpapa
far as his advanced age allowed. Though
eighty-three, his mind was still as vigorous as
ever, and he entered with a really youthful
zest into all our fun, often laughing at our
wild pranks until the tears came. His life in
the country was so regularly planned and
parcelled out, so well filled, that he was never
bored for a moment. He got up at eight
o’clock, dressed as carefully as if he expected
visitors at that hour, had a cup of tea, and
then immediately sat down at his desk, where
he read the newspapers and then wrote letters.
His handwriting was still clear and beautifully
formed. In fact, he had kept all his mental
faculties unimpaired, and read with the same
keenness and perseverance as in his younger
days. He simply devoured every interesting
book that came out, and could pore over
literature for hours at a sitting. He used to
laugh so heartily over Charivari, issued in
Paris every Saturday with the drawings of
that past master of caricature, Cham, that we
had to join in the laugh, without knowing
what had provoked his mirth. Every after-
noon he went for a walk in the park, and
enjoyed, with rare enthusiasm and sensitiveness
to impressions, the beauties of Nature that it
offered. On Sundays and festival days he
regularly attended Mass and devoutly read the
Epistles of St. Paul, for which he had a great
admiration.
75﻿The Days That Are No More
There was one favourite sport of ours that
never appealed to him—hunting. He held it
in abhorrence. When the game that had
been shot was brought home, and he happened
to catch sight of it, he would look at it with
a glance of pity, and never failed to express
his regret in some such phrase as, “ Poor
creature ! ” or to reproach us with our cruelty.
His love of animals was so great that he even
had a kindly feeling for bothersome creatures
like flies, and when he saw any on the window-
pane would actually open the window to give
them their liberty. Once, at Konigswart, we
found him removing an open mouse-trap and
putting a lump of sugar at the mouse-hole.
When we remonstrated with him, saying that
“ it was really too much of a good thing, and
that he was breeding mice,” he confessed to
us that the mouse that appeared every day in
his library was uncommonly clever, and that
it would be a pity to do her any harm. He
added : “ She comes every day for her sugar
and has already brought a comrade.”
In the evening, when in the country,
grandpapa used to play whist. As, however,
his attention was constantly diverted from the
game by his thinking of other matters, he
was, as Richard often said to me, “ a trying
partner,” and, much to his amusement, he
came in for a good deal of scolding.
In the October of the year of our marriage
76﻿Grandpapa
grandpapa paid us a visit on his return journey
from Konigswart to Vienna, and seemed to be
delighted with our home.
Once more, in January 1858, we visited
grandpapa, and that, too, at the Johannisberg.
It was his last stay in the country. In the
spring of the following year, 1859, the war-
clouds began to lour on the horizon, and my
grandfather saw with deep misgivings the
dangers that a war between Austria and Italy
would bring in its train. One day the
Emperor Francis Joseph came to him, in
order to obtain his advice on the political
tangle. “ For God’s sake,” said grandpapa,
“ no ultimatum to Italy ! ” The Emperor
replied : “ It went off yesterday.”
His presentiment that such a war would
have the most serious consequences for Austria,
wrought him up to such a pitch that his
health, hitherto so excellent, was undermined.
We could no longer hide the painful truth
that his days would shortly be numbered.
He still often saw the Foreign Minister of the
day, Count Buol-Schauenstein, and even had
the honour of receiving his Emperor at his
house. These meetings and discussions were
so great a strain on him that afterwards we
always found him utterly exhausted. War
was declared, and Richard was ordered to
proceed with the Emperor to headquarters at
Verona as diplomatic aide-de-camp, in order
77﻿The Days That Are No More
to lay before him the reports of the Foreign
Minister and communicate the Imperial
decisions to Vienna. Paul was in the army,
and with his regiment of Savoy dragoons was
taking part in the campaign. Both Richard
and he were destined never to see their father
again in this world.
My grandfather followed the news from the
front with unremitting interest, but, owing to
the frequency of bad news, with an ever-
growing sense of pain and sorrow. His
mental faculties had not weakened in the
slightest degree, and thus we found it im-
possible to keep anything secret from him.
He read the newspapers every day, and had a
complete grasp of the situation, characterising
it, on the very eve of his death, as a desperate
one.
On the morning of June n, he wanted to
get up as usual—he had not spent a single day
in bed—but his legs failed him, and he told
his valet that he felt too weak to stay up, and
must go to bed again. The old servant ran
out in dismay to send us word, and summoned
the family physician, Professor Dr. Jager.
When we came in, we saw that we must
be prepared for the worst, that the eternal
farewell was at hand. A Franciscan Father,
who came to the house every day to read
Mass in the chapel, hadjust arrived. Professor
Jager, who came soon afterwards and saw that
78﻿Grandpapa
the end was near, asked the dying man
whether he would not like to see the Father,
a question to which he joyfully and thankfully
answered that he would. When our dear
grandpapa was receiving extreme unction, we
all knelt in tears at his bedside. He was
fully conscious. Noticing that Lothar was
sobbing loudly, he motioned to him with his
hand to stop crying.
Till his last breath he remained the same as
ever, calm and considerate. When Professor
Jager, after the priest’s departure, approached
the bed, grandpapa smiled gently and indicated,
with a wave of his hand, that his heart had
almost stopped beating.
Thus did the much-abused Metternich
system come to an end. Unswervingly loyal
to his Emperor and to the Monarchy, forgiving
his enemies, blessing his nearest and dearest, a
staunch friend to his friends, and with a firm
belief in the infinite mercy of his God, this
man of lofty soul soon afterwards breathed
his last.
79﻿CHAPTER II
“ THE SANDOR ! ”
My father was Moritz, Count Sandor, so
well known, I may even say famous, as a horse-
man throughout the sporting world.
It may be that men as brave as he have
existed, but I do not think there could ever
have been a braver. My father was daring to
the point of recklessness, and altogether what is
best described as a “character.” For physical
and mental courage, for straightforwardness
and love of truth, one could scarcely find his
equal. The slightest falsehood, the least
touch of “ brag ” would move him to indigna-
tion. He was magnanimous and kind to his
subordinates, though he could show an iron
severity when he chose. This severity did
not prevent them from loving and respecting
him, or perhaps rather for this very reason
they looked up to him as to a superior being.
According to present-day notions, it is true,
he would perhaps seem a trifle too tyrannical.
I went in great fear of my father, for his
impetuous manner, his wild careering with
mettlesome horses, his stentorian voice, which
80﻿‘ The Sandor ! ’
he could raise to such a pitch that one could
hear him about a mile off; his tremendous
strength, which he was always ready to have
put to the test—all this was calculated to
bewilder, even to terrify, a child.
My father told us that in his whole life, as
far as he could look back, he had never known
the feeling of fear. As a three-year-old child
he already gave a sample of his fearlessness
and his simply amazing energy. He was
playing with a dog, and suddenly the dog bit
him in the finger, so that the blood spurted
out. Without uttering a cry, he took firm
hold of the dog, bit off a piece of its ear, spat
it out, and, pushing the animal aside, said :
“ You bite me, I bite you ! ”
My grandfather, Count Vinzenz Sandor,
occupied in Buda Pesth a house that was his
own property, opposite the royal residence.
It is still known as the “ Sandor Palace,” and
is maintained as the official abode of the
Hungarian Prime Minister, having become
the property of the State. Count Vinzenz
Sandor was a man of very stern demeanour,
and, owing to severe attacks of gout, morose
and difficult to live with. His wife, Anna
Countess Sandor, nee Countess Szapary, an
angel in human form, and remarkably clever,
was the only person who had any influence
over him, and it was always a restraining
influence that she exerted. She did not succeed,
81
r﻿The Days That Are No More
however, in making the tyrant any gentler in
his behaviour towards his children, and a
regular reign of terror prevailed in the Sandor
household. My dear father, who adored his
mother, but unfortunately felt somewhat out
of sympathy with his father, would never
admit in later life that he had much in common
with the latter so far as his temperament was
concerned, and always declared that he took
after his mother. He had, indeed, inherited
his kindness and magnanimity from his mother,
but the tyrannical, despotic side of his nature
he owed to his father. Count Vinzenz Sandor
had a private passage from his house to the
theatre. Every evening he went to the play,
and the order was given out that the children
must every day make a formal request, if they
wanted to be taken. But whenever the request
was made, the only answer they got was :
“ I can’t stand this perpetual cadging for
favours ! ”
Little Moritz decided one day that he would
no longer ask for this privilege, and after this,
regularly at a quarter to seven sharp every
evening, there was a terrible scene, and
punishments rained down upon the stubborn
youngster. This made no difference, however.
He said to his mother: “ I will not ask again.
I don’t want to be called a cadger.”
He was as good as his word. Strange to
say, my grandfather’s appalling strictness was
82﻿COUNT MORITZ SANDOR﻿﻿1 The Sandor ! ’
displayed only in trivial matters. In these he
would pester his children unmercifully, while
with their real upbringing and education he
did not concern himself in the least. Thus it
came about that my father, who was endowed
by Nature with striking abilities, learnt
nothing at all. Not till Count Vinzenz died
and he became, at the age of seventeen, his
own master, did he, on his own initiative, make
up for lost time and attain knowledge by
spontaneous effort.
He began to read, and what he read he
remembered. At first scarcely able to write
German, he acquired in a few months a
German style that was not merely fluent but
admirable, so that his letters might have served
as models of their kind. In the same way,
and also in a remarkably short space of time,
he mastered French and Italian. Then he
turned his attention to the piano ; and, although
he had only learnt to “ strum ” a little, soon
made such progress as to play waltzes and
Hungarian airs, so that in company he was
often asked to strike up a tune for the dance.
Later he took guitar lessons, and composed
little Styrian songs. The best and most faithful
portrait of him in existence represents him
guitar in hand. It is a life-size half-length
portrait by Einsle, painted in the ’forties, and
is now at Bajna Castle. As regards knowledge,
he was able to atone for the deficiencies in
83﻿The Days That Are No More
his upbringing, but not in controlling and
softening his ungovernable temper, which an
unreasoning strictness had made still more
ungovernable.
But, after all, who could or should have
ventured to take in hand this high-spirited
lad, who had become independent too early ?
His mother had been dead for some years
when the news of his father’s death reached
him in Naples. He hastened back with all
speed to Hungary. The guardian appointed
by his father, Gabriel Count Keglevich, hus-
band of his sister Matilda, at once had him
proclaimed to be of age. My father now felt
like a slave liberated from fetters he had worn
for years, and it is certainly remarkable that
he never abused the freedom which burst
upon him with such suddenness. Apart from
his madcap feats of riding or driving, he never
did anything that could in any way have
damaged his reputation or compromised him
socially or financially.
Never did he gamble or drink a drop of
wine. His health was extraordinarily sound.
Apart from an attack of scarlet fever at the
age of four, he had never been ill or even in-
disposed for a single day. When he had to
keep to his bed, it was in consequence of a
broken leg or a sprain. These accidents he
met with very frequently, through falls from
his horse or from a carriage. He fractured
34﻿‘ The Sandor ! ’
his right leg three times, both his arms twice,
and his collar-bone and ribs times without
number. The leg became so weak that on
the slightest provocation it would get dislocated
and have to be set. I cannot tell how many
times this happened ; I only know that “ Papa’s
leg is out of joint again ” became a very familiar
phrase. At the setting of the bone he never
even pulled a wry face, and when they did
not tug hard enough he would quietly say :
“ Don’t be so gentle over it—I’m not made
of glass ! ” For years he wore this unlucky
leg in iron splints, and Velpeau in Paris and
Ashley Cooper in London wanted to amputate
it, declaring that atrophy would set in and
that there was considerable danger of gangrene.
An old peasant of the mountains near Bliimbach
entirely cured my father without an operation.
Count Vinzenz had never consented to let
his son ride, drive, or hunt. In spite of this,
he became—I believe the fact is admitted on
all hands—the best horseman and one of the
finest shots of the day, and was unequalled at
handling the ribbons.
When my father came to Bajna, he at once
took in hand not only the reins of government,
but also those of his horses. Hardly had he
left the carriage before he hurried into the
stables and gave orders that a superb English
thoroughbred, which caught his eye, should be
saddled. His old tutor, one Kosztarovics, who
85﻿The Days That Are No More
had remained in the household and who, so
my father maintained, had already been afraid
of his pupil when the latter was seven years
old, hazarded the remark that riding was a
thing that had to be learnt, that one could not
straightway mount a fiery horse, that his lord-
ship would be thrown at once. “ The man
who has to learn riding,” retorted my father,
“will never be a good rider.” Without more
ado the young count swung into the saddle.
To everyone’s astonishment, he not only kept
his seat quite easily, but seemed to be nailed
to the horse, and made it frisk about as if he
had been doing that sort of thing all his life.
Then he gave orders for a bar to be held up,
jumped over it, and finally directed that the
saddle-girths should be loosened. In fear and
trembling the order was obeyed, and this
most daring of equestrians rode round on
the loose saddle, then suddenly bent down,
wrenched it away, threw it aside and leapt
several times backwards and forwards over a
hurdle, while all stood open-mouthed ! . . .
At last he dismounted, turned to old Kosztaro-
vics, and said to him: “You see I’m a born
rider ; what could anyone have taught me ? ”
From riding he proceeded to driving, and
here too he proved himself a master. From
the first day that he took the ribbons he
became one of the best drivers who ever
handled a team. Here, however, I must retrace
86﻿‘ The Sandor ! ’
my steps and observe that my father once
before, while Count Vinzenz was alive, induced
his head groom to let him drive a coach, and
that with two horses that my grandfather did
not care for, because he had found them too
slow. My father got on the box, but instead
of sitting still there he started the horses,
drove off at lightning speed, to the horror of
the head groom, and vanished out of sight.
Then, from a distance, he caught sight of his
father’s carriage, with its team of six, and
without a moment’s hesitation the young
daredevil overtook it and, respectfully saluting
his parents, swept past. Count Vinzenz could
scarcely believe his eyes. He was trembling
all over with rage. My poor grandmother
was deeply distressed. The coachman was
ordered to turn back, and when they reached
home they found their son at the foot of the
stairs. “ Who let you drive ? ”	“ I got on
the box and started off without asking per-
mission. The head groom isn’t to blame, I
gave him the slip.” “ Who taught you to
drive ? ”	“ Nobody—I taught myself. I feel
it in my bones that every horse must obey me,
because I know how to treat horses. You see
how those horses that you found too slow can
travel when I drive them—I passed you easily.”
“ Silence ! ” thundered the old Count, and had
himself carried upstairs. Hardly had he entered
the room before he turned to my grandmother,
87﻿The Days That Are No More
who was still in a flutter, and said : “ The
young demon is really a marvel with the
ribbons. What a pity my coachmen can’t
learn anything from him ! ” And the expected
terrible scene never came off.
My father’s control over horses was truly
remarkable ; he could do anything he liked
with them. Later, when he had his own
stables and inspected them every day, it was
quite a regular thing, when he appeared and
in his customary manner talked loudly and
called to the animals by their names, for them
to be affected—to put it as delicately as
possible—with a slight gastric disturbance.
They recognised their lord and master.
My father visited England, and there, too,
his unrivalled powers as a horseman excited
universal admiration. He had scarcely been
a fortnight in the country before he was a
notable figure in the sporting world.	At
Melton Mowbray he astonished everyone by
his dash, his dexterity, his amazing fearless-
ness. The horse-dealers would ask him to
try horses that no one dared to mount. One
of the best known among them, Anderson,
showed him a superb animal and said : “ If
you manage to ride that horse at Melton
without being thrown, I’ll let you have him
for a song—for _£ioo.” My father accepted
the deal, and the horse arrived at Melton.
At the meet he had him led aside and swung
88﻿‘ The Sandor ! ’
into the saddle. At once the creature started
to rear, and a moment later he bolted. My
father let him have his head; then suddenly—
presumably owing to the rider’s skill—he
calmed down, and when he was in a sufficiently
chastened mood my father brought him back
to the meeting-place, where the dealer was
waiting, with a face the colour of chalk. My
father came up to him at a canter, and said :
“ He’s a splendid horse ; I’m very grateful to
you for having got hold of him for me ; you’ll
have your money to-morrow.” Anderson
turned to the large company that had assembled
for the hunt and exclaimed : “That is not a
man ; that’s the Devil ! ”
When my father left England he passed
through London, and one day, as he was
walking down Regent Street, he saw a crowd
gathered in front of Ackermann’s well-known
picture-shop. He drew near and observed in
the window a series of pictures representing
a horseman in a red hunting-jacket, with
the inscription : “ Melton Mowbray. Count
Sandor’s exploits.” The whole series is in
my possession.
A year later (it must have been in Sep-
tember 1834, when my father happened to
be in Bajna for the stag-hunting), a gentleman
was announced of whom the valet said that
he seemed to be an Englishman, and had
come up in a fine post-chaise. In those days,
89﻿The Days That Are No More
when it took thirty-six hours to get from
Vienna to Bajna, a traveller was a rara avis.
My father, much astonished, went out to have
a look at the strange visitor, and found a gentle-
man of very distinguished appearance, who
addressed him as follows: “You are Count
Sandor, I believe, who caused such a stir at
Melton Mowbray last year ? I have been told
incredible stories about your riding and driving;
but, as I wanted to find out for myself whether
these reports are true, I have come all the way
from England for this express purpose. I hope
you will be good enough to show me some
specimens of your skill in riding and driving.”
My father was not over pleased at this
somewhat unconventional way of introducing
oneself, but he had been exceedingly well
received in England, and knew that allowance
must often be made for English eccentricities.
Accordingly, like a true Hungarian, hospitable
to the core, he invited the odd visitor into the
castle and promised to do his best for him.
He started off at once, riding like one
possessed, clearing all obstacles, and driving
in such a way that all were speechless with
amazement. The Englishman, whose name
has unfortunately escaped my memory, seemed
to be highly satisfied, but added, with im-
perturbable calmness, after every feat of horse-
manship or driving : “ Splendid !—but I think
I have seen it done before.” This was too
9°﻿COUNTESS LEONTINE SANDOR﻿﻿‘ The Sandor ! ’
much for my father, who had his best and
most fiery team of five harnessed, and invited
his guest to go for a drive with him. At
full gallop they made in the direction of
Visegrad, up a long slope which overlooks
the Danube, and from the top of which one
descends by a very steep, zigzag road. My
father flicked the horses with his whip, and
when the pace was at its hottest flung the
reins on to the horses’ backs and asked his
guest who sat there, trembling and deathly
pale : “ Have you seen that done before ? ”
Of course there was a “ spill.” The English-
man broke a few ribs, the two grooms had
jumped off just in time, and my father, as he
afterwards told the story, came off “ quite
unhurt—he only had the usual broken collar-
bone.”
It was in Vienna that my father got to
know my mother. Wild and untamed as he
was, he at once took a liking to this most
womanly of women. Her quiet, stately,
dignified bearing, her intellect, and her physical
beauty captivated him, and he pressed his suit.
My grandfather was at first reluctant, and
expressed his fears that a couple so divergent
in character would never suit each other. My
mother, however, reciprocated his feeling, and
the marriage was decided upon. It was an
enigma to everyone how my mother’s calm,
reserved personality could inspire love and
91﻿The Days That Are No More
sympathy in my father. I find it easy to
explain the riddle : it is generally the case
in life that people so fundamentally different
feel attracted towards each other. My father,
who had such deep insight, may well have
thought that only a quiet, level-headed woman
would suit him, and on the other hand, as he
was temperamentally an aristocrat through and
through, liked good manners, and set great
store—to a degree, in fact, that I have rarely
seen in anyone else — upon a distinguished
appearance, his choice was in every respect
logical and judicious. To the end of her life
he maintained a deep and unbounded reverence
for my mother, a reverence that she peculiarly
deserved. My parents had only two children
—my brother Leo, who died in early child-
hood, and myself. The death of their dear
little son was a blow from which they never
recovered. Leo and I had to resort to all
sorts of tricks in order to prove our courage
and dexterity. We did all that we were
bidden to do, but the courage was only external,
for we felt mortally afraid, as, for instance,
when my father told us to run on in front,
and set on us his faithful hound Hector (of
which, by the way, we were extremely fond),
shouting to him : “ Fetch them ! ” at the top
of his voice. I still shudder when I recollect
how we heard the hound behind us and
expected every moment to be seized by him
92﻿c The Sandor ! ’
and knocked down. Of course he did not
hurt us, but merely licked us good-humouredly ;
for all that, however, we had some difficulty
in recovering from our panic.
On another occasion we were in a meadow
near the shooting-box at Gyarmath, watching
our father as he took obstacles with one of
his best jumpers. I blurted out the unlucky
confession that I would not do that sort of
thing myself at any price. My father heard
me, and roared : “ Put the child up beside
me ! ” My mother stood there, numb with
terror and amazement. The groom picked
me up, set me on the horse beside my father,
and four times we cleared the great barrier.
Wonderful—but horrible ! I will not tell
here of the hundred and one feats of riding
and driving that my father performed. Most
of them have been illustrated and have appeared
as the Sandor Album, and are therefore suffi-
ciently well known. All that is contained
in that book is strictly true. My father’s two
best friends, Count Edward Clam-Gallas and
Moritz Count Palffy, who had seen and taken
part in many of these performances, often said
to me, just after the album had appeared :
“ It can scarcely be believed, but there is not
the slightest exaggeration in the book ; one
might rather say that it falls short of the
truth.” I believe, too, that no one ever
equalled him in his unheard-of audacities.
93﻿The Days That Are No More
But it was not only with horses that my
father was courageous ; he was no less fearless
in dealing with men. When the Revolution
broke out in Vienna in 1848, he showed
himself in his true colours. Although his
tremendous popularity then stood him in good
stead, he did many things that proved that he
did not know the meaning of fear. I remember
how he once took me with him and led me
by the hand through streets thronged by a
yelling mob, in order, as he said, to show me
that one must never be afraid. When we
reached the Michaelerplatz, where, for I know
not what reason, an enormous crowd had
gathered, the cry suddenly rang out near us :
“ Long live the Republic ! ” Almost before
the words were out of his mouth the speaker
received such a box on the ears that he
crumpled up at the church door, unconscious
and streaming with blood. The box on the
ear was dealt by Sandor’s hand, and as soon
as the blow was struck there was a deafening
roar of “ Good old Sandor ! Bravo, Sandor ! ”
Not till later, when I was grown up, did I
realise to the full my father’s indomitable
courage. This incredibly daring act convinced
me that, by showing a bold front and a
reckless contempt for one’s skin, one can more
easily dominate the masses than by fair words.
The populace—like women—really loves only
those who put the fear of God into its soul.
94﻿‘ The Sandor ! *
My father was “ Kaisertreu ”—loyal to the
Emperor—in the fullest sense of the word.
For his Emperor he would have sacrificed
everything and let himself be hacked into
bits. When the Revolution broke out in
Hungary the revolutionary Government was
disposed to confiscate his estates. This was
told him, and he answered quietly : “ Let
them take them, then. I know my Emperor
will give me and mine a crust of bread, so
that we shall not starve to death.”
His popularity in Vienna, I repeat, had
become a household word, and “ the Sandor ”
had become, so to speak, a bit of old Vienna.
To have been in the Prater and not to have
seen “ the Sandor ” was the same as to have
been in the Stephansplatz, and not to have seen
the tower of St. Stephan’s. He could take
any liberties he chose, and when he tore
through the narrow streets and shouted
“ idiot ! ” and “ blockhead ! ” at the passers-
by who did not get out of his way quickly
enough, all were delighted, treating the matter
as a huge joke. In spite of his hasty manner,
he could be the most friendly and engaging of
men with even the humblest folk. He knew
how to meet the lower orders on their own
level, and no one could possibly be angry with
him. He would talk to anybody, and would
ask any chance stranger who gaped at him in
wonderment to step into his carriage and
95﻿The Days That Are No More
drive with him. It happened once that in
the Prater, where hundreds of people would
always surround his carriage or horse before
he started off, he caught sight of a fat man,
staring open-mouthed, who attracted his atten-
tion because he looked out of his element.
My father asked him : “ What are you staring
at ? ” The crowd laughed. The man replied :
“ I see such a lot of horses here, and I wonder
whom they all belong to.” “ Why, to whom
else but to me ? Don’t you know me ? I’m
‘ the Sandor ! ’ ” The fat man answered :
“ No, I don’t know him—I’m from Krems.”
“ Well,” replied my father, “ you’d better
make his acquaintance. Come up here and
let me take you for a drive.” The crowd
roared with laughter. The fat man painfully
clambered up to his seat in the high phaeton,
and as soon as he had reached it the horses
dashed off at a furious pace. The poor fellow
held on tight, screamed, implored my father
to stop, and at last said : “You can’t stop these
horses, sir—they’re simply running away.”
“Can’t I?” roared my father. “You old
fool, just wait and see ! ” and then, with the
team of four, he drove in and out among the
trees, over the ditches—in a word, he went
“ like the devil.” When the unfortunate
stranger had been subjected to a good half-
hour of this treatment, my father returned to
his starting-point at the same frantic speed.
9 6﻿1 The Sandor ! ’
The fat man shouted several times :	“ You’ll
knock all these people down.” “ Hold your
tongue !” was the only answer he got. No
one in the crowd moved, for all knew that
“ the Sandor ” would halt at the right spot.
And so it turned out. The fat man was put
down, and when asked how he enjoyed the
drive replied :	“ Oh, it was splendid—‘ the
Sandor ’ was such good company and I had
such a jolly talk with him.” The crowd was
electrified ; but he who had been called an
“ old idiot ” and told to “ hold his tongue,”
went back to Krems and represented these
rather harsh terms as examples of “ the
Sandor’s ” geniality.
One must come to the conclusion that my
father’s too lively expressions of anger did not
sound so offensive from his lips as if anyone
else had given vent to them. I remember
that his servants and subordinates not only
revered him and rated him above all other
men, but were almost proud to be called by
him “ old idiot ! ” or “ blockhead ! ” For
instance, an old keeper at Bajna, who after
my father’s death entered my service, never
omitted to say, when we went hunting in the
forest : “ It was here that my late lamented
master called me a donkey ; ” and at another
spot in the woods : “ I shall never forget
that he shouted to me, as I came up to make
a report to him, ‘You’re a darned fool!’”
G
97﻿The Days That Are No More
and the old keeper said all this in a tone of
affectionate reminiscence, baring his head.
In consequence of his frequent falls and a
serious accident that occurred to him at Linz,
where he was flung out of the carriage and
knocked his head against an iron railing, a
malady of the brain set in, and at the end
of 1850 my father had his first fit of insanity
in the Aristocrats’ Club in Vienna. He
wanted to smash everything to pieces, and
had to be tied up before he could be brought
home. Then he had to undergo medical
treatment, and was taken to Dr. Riedl’s private
asylum in Prague, which was then considered
the best. For six weeks on end he was raving,
and it remained a mystery to the doctors that
he survived that terrible ordeal. His vigorous
constitution pulled him through. But from
that time onwards till the end of his days his
mental infirmity never left him, and when,
after a lapse of eighteen months, he was able
to return to his family he was a mere shadow
of the man he had once been. He was not,
indeed, debarred from social intercourse, and
those who merely exchanged a few words
with him did not notice his sad condition.
In a long conversation one observed a trick
of repeating old stories, nothing more. The
Emperor and the whole Imperial Court never
forgot my father’s attitude of loyalty to the
Reigning House. In particular, the Arch-
98﻿4 The Sandor ! ’
duchess Sophia and the Archduke Francis
Charles, despite the state of his health, lost
no opportunity of asking him to come and
see them, so that when he went to Ischl in
the summer he was always immediately invited
to dine at Court. With touching kindness
and consideration the Archduchess Sophia
always arranged that no stranger was invited
on these occasions, in order that, as she charm-
ingly expressed it, “ he might have the pleasure
of being able to tell his old stories undisturbed.”
It was heartrending to see this man, once
so full of the joy of life, bubbling over with
high spirits, and so brilliantly gifted with
intellect, spend the evening of his days in
such a tragic plight. The release came after
twenty-eight years. He passed away on the
23rd of February, 1878. On the threshold
of spring, when his body was borne to its last
resting-place from Vienna to Bajna, four fiery
black horses conveyed it from the station of
Gran. Just before the hearse reached the
church, the horses, for some unknown reason,
took fright and bolted. The old coachman,
who, in his younger days, had so often accom-
panied his master, managed to guide the horses
towards the door of a barn, where they
collapsed. After the funeral service had been
performed at Bajna, the coffin was provisionally
deposited there, pending the completion of the
family vault at Gyarmath. When the building
99﻿The Days That Are No More
of this vault was finished, the coffin was con-
veyed to it with due pomp and ceremony.
Here too, however, the incredible happened.
Another team of horses bolted, and it was only
with the greatest difficulty that they could be
brought under control. It seemed as if all
“ the Sandor’s ” horses wished to pay him the
last honours in their turbulent fashion !
i oo﻿CHAPTER III
OUR FIRST DIPLOMATIC POST
(Dresden)
As soon as Richard received his nomination
as envoy to the Saxon Court, he asked for my
hand in marriage. After the ceremony had
been performed in the Nuntiatur Court chapel
by the Nuncio, Monsignor Viale Prela, we
went off to my mother’s Moravian estate, and
reached our ultimate destination, Dresden, in
the middle of July. In Dresden we moved
into the house rented by Richard and already
fairly well furnished, in the Gewandhausstrasse.
Next day our first visitor was Gustav von
Gersdorff, the royal Master of the Ceremo-
nies, who, as an inimitable type of a courtier
par excellence, merits a detailed description.
Gersdorff was a specialist in his own line,
with a marvellous knowledge of Court eti-
quette, customs, and traditions. In all matters
of social intercourse, and even in the criticism
and designing of ladies’ attire, he was an
undisputed authority.	Gersdorffs patronage
at once stamped a woman as a “ lady of
fashion,” for he never went about with one
IOI﻿The Days That Are No More
who did not know how to dress well. He
had a frank contempt for ill-dressed women,
and could say “ She is very badly turned out ”
in a tone that sent cold shivers down one’s
back. The culprit was condemned as if by
some all-powerful secret tribunal, and irre-
vocably doomed : for Gersdorff, at any rate,
she no longer existed. Accordingly, his first
visit to me was a sort of inspection. He
seemed to be satisfied, for I was told a few
days later that when asked about the new
Ambassadress he replied : “She looks smart
enough ! ” I was in his good graces, and
remained so till the end of his life. He was
always my faithful and devoted friend.
Soon after our arrival I had the honour to
be introduced to Her Majesty the Queen of
Saxony in Pillnitz about half-past six one
evening. The Queen received me in her
private apartments. She was a sickly little
woman, bowed with the weight of care, not
exactly lovable, but kindly. She had already
lost several grown-up children, and her sorrow
at these bereavements could be read in her
face. Nevertheless she fulfilled the duties of
her high station, and I do not think there ever
was a single Court in Europe where so many
banquets and receptions of all kinds were given
as at the Saxon one. After the audience 1 was
conducted into the ball-room, where I found
a large company assembled. The wife of
102﻿PRINCE RICHARD METTERNICH﻿﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
the Prussian Minister, Countess Redern, nee
Odescalchi, introduced me to the ladies, and
soon afterwards their Majesties appeared on
the scene. The Queen’s chief lady-in-waiting,
Frau von Friesen, presented me to the King,
that admirable King John, who won my heart
from the first moment I set eyes on him. His
exterior was not prepossessing, and one would
have taken him for an old professor rather than
for a Sovereign ; but on closer acquaintance
one forgot his lack of outward smartness, and
saw only his kind, yet penetrating eyes. They
shone with such tenderness and benevolence
that their look went straight to one’s heart ;
one felt a childlike affection for the King, and
he left an impression that could never be
effaced.
When the King had asked after my grand-
father and requested me to give the latter his
kindest regards and to say how pleased he was
to see us at his Court, he ordered that the ball
should be opened. My first partner was the
handsome Karl von Liittichau, who had been
introduced to me by GersdorfF, whose personal
friend he was. He was a first-rate dancer, and
it was a real pleasure to whirl round the room
with him. He in his turn introduced me to
several partners, and I had a delightful time.
Towards the close of the evening I danced
again with Liittichau. This friendship, so
quickly formed, lasted without a break for
103﻿The Days That Are No More
thirty years, till it was ended by death. To-
day I still think, with a pang of regret, of one
who died before his time. Together with
him, GersdorfF, Oswald Nostitz, Leonce
Konneritz, Otto Konneritz, Heinrich Nostitz,
Vero Blecinski, Count Vitzthum, Eberhard
Solms, Bonar (an Englishman, brother of the
Baroness WiillerstorfF), the Hohenthals, Hell-
dorf, the Seebachs, and Alexander Miltitz
became regular visitors at our house ; in fact
they would drop in any evening. Another
frequent caller was Herr von Tschirscky,1
one of the cleverest and most agreeable
conversationalists I have ever met.
In our little circle of friends unconventional
gaiety and never-failing liveliness were the
prevailing note. They were glorious days,
and, although forty-four years have passed
since our last meetings, I often look back and
think that it was the happiest period of my
life. I was young and favoured by fortune,
no troubles had yet befallen me, and I saw
everything through rose-coloured spectacles.
We were constantly devising amusements of
every kind :	private theatricals, tableaux,
charades, fancy-dress balls, and in spring and
summer we had delightful excursions in the
charming country round Dresden. Sometimes
in the evening we were asked, or rather com-
1 Director of the Royal Saxon Railways, father or the
German Ambassador in Vienna, who died there in 1916.
104﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
manded, to go to “ King’s,” as they used to
say in Dresden, and at other times to the
Dowager Queen Marie’s, twin sister to our
Archduchess Sophie, and so like her that one
could hardly tell the twTo apart.
The evenings with Royalty were not very
exciting, and I was, of course, too young and
lively to find any enjoyment in them. I am
sorry that I never had any serious, intimate
talks with King John. I remember how once,
when the conversation turned on teaching and
education, his Majesty declared that he had
derived great pleasure from teaching, since he
had given lessons to all his children ! He
added : “ Not in reading and writing ; they
had to know those thoroughly before they
came to me, but after that stage I gladly took
them in hand.” “ I suppose your Majesty was
very strict ? ” I asked. “ Do I look so stern,
then ? ” answered the good King. “ Well, if
you think it very strict to insist upon close
attention, I was strict ; but if anything was
not grasped or clearly understood, and I was
asked to explain it more fully, I praised the
children for their keenness, and repeated my
explanation till I saw that it had gone home.
They, were all good pupils, and Albert was
particularly hard-working. He was exception-
ally quick at taking things in.” “ Ernest was
also a brilliant pupil,” interposed the poor
Queen. “Yes, Ernest was also,” said the
io5﻿The Days That Are No More
King, and they looked at each other, and a long
silence followed. Prince Ernest, a promising
youth, had fallen a victim, some years before,
to an insidious disease. A sudden blood-
poisoning had carried him off, like several
other children of the Royal pair. It was said
to have been a kind of typhus. Grand Duchess
Margaret, the first wife of Grand Duke Karl
Ludwig, Princess Sidonie, Princess Marie, and
Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, all succumbed later
to the same malady. In spite of all the bitter
sorrow that had fallen to their lot, their
Majesties, from a sense of duty, did not give
up the annual Court festivities, and thus in
the course of the carnival, according to its
length, several Court balls, great and small,
took place. The great Court ball opened with
a polonaise, and I often had the honour of
dancing with his Majesty the King. Now it
is only a “ walking ” dance ; in those days one
made a slight bow or curtsey after every three
steps, somewhat after the fashion of a pas de
basque. The King went through the ritual
conscientiously. So, of course, did GersdorfF.
Of those who did not do the prescribed steps,
he would say : “ They are people who have
not lived at Courts : they don’t even know
how to dance a polonaise properly ! ” The
King’s aunt, Princess Auguste, was delightful
in her old-fashioned way. She never missed
any of these festivities, was always dressed as
106﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
became her station, and wore magnificent
jewels. She had a blonde wig with three
little curls on either side, lace headbands with
feathers stuck in them, and a wonderful tiara.
She danced the polonaise with perfect correct-
ness. It was rumoured that the Emperor
Napoleon III. had sought her hand in mar-
riage, and that she had refused him. Princess
Auguste remained single, but held a Court,
gave dinners, and used to say: “ Even if I
have never married, I am none the less a Royal
Princess of Saxony, and as such I have a
position to keep up.” I had a great liking for
the old lady. I have always been a stickler for
forms, and I think Princess Auguste was also.
One of her peculiarities was a terrible dread of
contagious diseases. This went so far that
once she would not visit a friend who was
very ill in confinement because she was afraid
of catching milk-fever ! . . . On the other hand,
the old Princess Amelia, a sister of the reigning
King John, no longer went into society, and
received visitors only at her own house. One
was asked to dinner there at two o’clock, and
this unearthly hour gave rise to much com-
plaint. She was extremely clever and amiable,
and was well known as an authoress. She
wrote several plays, which were performed
at the Royal Court Theatre, the Municipal
Theatre, and elsewhere, and met with success.
These highly moral pieces were bright and
107﻿The Days That Are No More
pleasing, but, strange to say, very bourgeois :
they dealt with life in humble middle-class
circles, and one was really astonished that a
Royal Princess should be so familiar with
the outlook, manners, and customs of this
social stratum.
When the Archduke Karl Ludwig became
engaged to Princess Margaret, and the wed-
ding was announced for November 1856 in
Dresden, we proposed to give a great ball, and,
as our rooms were not large enough, decided
to build a dancing-hall.
The preparations began in October, and this
was the first entertainment on a large scale
that I had occasion to organise. When people
are astonished at the light-hearted way in
which I set about arranging festivities, I can
only point out that after forty-four years’
experience one is not likely to quail before such
a responsibility. The hall, which, by my
design, was decorated with silver ornaments
and blue satin, was universally admired, and I
may say without conceit that the effect was
really charming. A lavish display of flowers
had contributed towards making this hall, as
well as the adjoining drawing-room and the
staircase, look almost fairylike. Everyone was
enchanted, all the more so as in those days
the use of flowers and plants in the decoration
of living-rooms and reception-rooms was not
so widespread as it is to-day.
108﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
We had sent out over twelve hundred invit-
ations. The King and Queen, and all the
Princes and Princesses of the Royal Court and
of all the Saxon Courts, were present. No
one was happier over the success of the ball
than my loyal friend and admirer, Gersdorff.
The series of festivities was closed by a con-
gratulatory levee at Court and a gala perform-
ance at the theatre, and the happy pair went
off on their honeymoon. Princess Margaret,
although she had regular features, could not
be called pretty, for she looked too fresh and
healthy and lacked grace. That fresh look of
hers deceived us all, for very shortly after her
marriage she died, and that, too, as I have said
above, of the same insidious disease—a kind of
blood-poisoning—that had claimed, and was
still to claim, so many victims among the
children of the Saxon Royal House.
The Saxon Court was the only one where
the New Year’s reception was held in the
form that was followed there. On the lines
of the jeu du roi as practised in France in
the time of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and
Louis XVI., card-tables are set up in the
throne-room, and at each of these a member
of the Royal Family, including the King and
Queen themselves, presides. The Diplomatic
Corps, Ministers, and high officials are invited to
form themselves into parties for playing whist
at these tables. On the ist of January, 1857,
109﻿The Days That Are No More
I had the honour of being the King’s partner.
His Majesty asked me whether I often played
whist, whereupon I made the shamefaced
confession that I had not the slightest inkling
of the game. “ Never mind,” said the King,
smiling, “ Gersdorff will stand behind your
chair and show you the cards that you have
to play.” The game started, and Gersdorff
acted as my mentor. For one moment, how-
ever, he forgot to show me how to return my
august partner’s lead, so that as third player
I followed up a two of hearts with a three.
The good King exclaimed:	“You mustn’t
be so modest as that in playing cards ! ” And
Gersdorff, whose attention was once more
directed to my hand, whispered to me :
“ That was very bad play ! ” I was, of
course, covered with confusion, but was con-
soled by the King’s words :	“ Next year
you’ll be a splendid player, especially if
Gersdorff coaches you ! ” The upshot of
this remarkable evening was that I lost five
shillings.
While the game was in progress all who
were present at the reception would walk
past their Majesties, who would continually
look up from their cards and nod graciously
to their profoundly bowing guests. The
aspect of this room, crowded with card-
tables ; the ladies with their Court trains and
tiaras; the gentlemen in gala uniform, and
no﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
wearing all their orders, walking past or
engaged in the game, is exceedingly impres-
sive. The throne-room is in itself so mag-
nificent in its old-world style ; the old red
tapestries on the walls, with the gilt-framed
pictures, the sconces of embossed silver, in
the form of huge mussels, each containing
five tapers (in those days wax candles were
the only means of lighting used at Court)—
all this gave the room a peculiarly imposing
aspect. Beautiful, too, are the old silver
candlesticks that stand upon the card-tables,
and of which the palace possesses hundreds. I
always remember with a thrill of delight this
tradition, handed down from an age that,
alas ! has long since vanished.
The balls, both formal and informal, were
also held at the Saxon Court in accordance
with long-established tradition. Before the
opening of the ball came the introduction
of strangers by members of the Diplomatic
Corps ; then the Court went into the great
ball-room, which afterwards underwent ex-
tensive alterations, and became very bright
and splendid ; whereas, then, with its dull
modern frescoes and dark panelling on walls
and ceiling, it looked ugly and uninviting. As
soon as their Majesties had entered, the famous
polonaise was played, and after this came the
first waltz, which I generally opened with the
Crown Prince, the future King Albert, who
111﻿The Days That Are No More
was an excellent dancer and passionately fond
of the art. The lovely Princess Karola {nee
Princess Vasa of Sweden) also revelled in
dancing, and even the grave, stiff, and none
too genial Prince George would unbend to
some extent on these occasions. At mid-
night all trooped into the supper-room, the
apartment in which the New Year card-
parties were held. Nothing more grand,
beautiful, and truly royal can be imagined
than the arrangement of the supper buffet
at the Dresden Court :	the old-fashioned
room, the gigantic horseshoe-shaped table
with its superb plate, candelabras, branched
candle-brackets, knives, forks, and spoons
with the initials A.R. (Augustus Rex), even
the table-linen with the same enormous letter-
ing, the two sideboards with their beakers
and goblets, and the great golden lion, em-
blazoned with the Saxon coat-of-arms. These
sideboards had been set up in this style in
the time of King Augustus the Strong, and
the magnificent objects with which they
were stocked from ceiling to floor were placed
there in exactly the same way under that
Monarch, who had three designs made which
the arrangement was to follow, and his plans
were maintained until the great war in 1914.
One felt as if one were transported into
another age, an age in which I should have
been glad to live.
112﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
During the ball ices, drinks, and sundry
refreshments were served at a huge buffet
known as the “ sweet buffet.” The Court
confectioners had always constructed some
fancy cake representing a castle with its
gardens, a villa with flower-beds or peasants’
cottages, and it was a recognised amusement
to stroll over there and see what was their
latest device. They did their work skilfully,
and although the decoration was not very
tasteful according to modern ideas, I liked
the old-world air of it all. As far back
as the oldest Dresden Court habitue could
remember, it had always been like this, and
Gersdorff used to say, with a pious glance
heavenwards, “ May it always remain so ! ”
The “ chamber balls ” were distinguished
from the Court balls, first by being held in
the Queen’s private apartments, and by their
strictly limited number of invitations, secondly
by there being a sit-down supper, which was
as bad in King John’s time as it was after-
wards good. The M.C. was Riding-Master
von Mosel, known as “ the ruin of cotillons,”
because he had led the cotillon for genera-
tions. After the cotillon, the great Court
ball was wound up by the so-called “ Grand-
father,” a dance that I always enjoyed above
all others. I danced it with such ardour and
abandon that the stern old stagers, it seems,
took exception. King John, when this came
h	113﻿The Days That Are No More
to his cars, said : “ Leave my little Metternich
alone. She is young and lively and makes
things hum when they are beginning to get
dull.” So I went on dancing merrily, bliss-
fully unconscious that I was arousing adverse
comment.
As colleague in the Prussian Diplomatic
Corps we had the Rederns, who lived in the
beautiful Moczynski Palace. This palace,
unfortunately, is no longer in existence ; the
Moczynskistrasse now cuts across the site
where it once stood. The Rederns gave
excellent dinners, and altogether had a very
large number of visitors.
Redern was on the best of terms with
Richard, so that we often met. The Bavarian
representatives were the Gisers. She was by
birth a Countess Tascher de la Pagerie,
a very clever woman, but rather abrupt in
manner; he was not a man of brains, but
of a very gentle disposition, and played a
somewhat subordinate role as “ mari de sa
femme.”
At the French Embassy were the Forth-
Rouens. She was a Portuguese by birth,
rather gipsy-like in appearance, very lively,
and quite a pleasant woman. He was rather
loud-voiced, a trifle plebeian, and a colourless
personality. The poor man never slept, or
hardly ever, that is, not more than an hour a
night, and his eyes were so weary that one
114﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
felt like going to sleep as soon as one looked
at him.
Russia was at first represented by old Baron
Schrodter, a valetudinarian, who at the last
moment would put off invitations if an east
wind was blowing ; England by Mr. Forbes, a
corpulent bachelor and professed woman-hater,
with a passion for collecting old Saxon china.
One day, at a Court ball, when a gentleman
near him said: “The Countess Hohenthal is
looking remarkably beautiful this evening,”
he replied: “That may be, but I find all
women repulsive!” “You are fortunate in-
deed ! ” exclaimed his companion. Schrodter
soon resigned his post, and was succeeded by
Prince Volkonsky, whose wife, nee Baroness
Lilien, had a perfect craze for entertaining.
In one of her reception-rooms she had a
stage set up, and about once every three or
four weeks a performance was given. She
got together all those in her circle who had,
or fancied they had, any talent for acting,
and organised an amateur dramatic club, of
which Richard and I, as well as Countess
Redern and the Gisers and a host of others,
were members. We had to promise faith-
fully not to leave her in the lurch, and
the theatricals then went on in full swing.
The members were all docile and followed
the directions of the manageress with blind
obedience. I think our company must have
"5﻿The Days That Are No More
been unique. The first piece performed was
“ Embrassons-nous, Folleville,” in which I
took the part of the jeune fille, while Richard
was the bridegroom. We were a tremendous
success, or rather we won tremendous applause
(the King and Queen and the Crown Prince
and Princesses were among the audience),
not so much because of our, no doubt, very
mediocre acting, as because we often had to
kiss each other and did this with gusto, so
that at every embrace the spectators all
clapped loudly, and the good King was heard
to exclaim : “ A pretty pair ! Bravo ! ” The
real success, however, apart from our kissing,
which made no great demands upon our
histrionic powers, was a minuet, which—I
think I may say without laying myself open
to the charge of vanity, now that so many
years have elapsed—we danced exceedingly
well, and for which we had two encores.
Richard excelled himself in graceful and
elegant bowing, and after the performance
Gersdorff rushed up to me and exclaimed, as
with a large handkerchief he dried his eyes
(filled, as usual, with apparent tears—it was
really only water) : “You two still know how
to bow and curtsey ; everyone else has for-
gotten the art ! ” Raising his arms heaven-
wards, he hurried on.
Count Radolinsky, who was madly in love
with good Victoire Redern, but was badly
116﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
treated by her and looked upon merely as a
handy creature for running errands, played
with her in a one-act piece which, so far as I
remember, was entitled “ Lachez Hector!”
He had to make her an ardent declaration
of love, but this seemed so ridiculous to the
audience that everyone roared with laughter,
and Victoire said afterwards: “ I can well
imagine there was something to laugh at.
No one can take poor Radolinsky seriously
in his role as a lover, whether on the stage or
off ! ” Even the kindest of women are cruel
to those whom they do not love. It is said,
by the way, that men are just the same—so
the two sexes can cry quits.
In summer-time, when the evenings were
fine (we did not get leave until the middle of
August), we used to go to Lade’s concerts,
which were held in the large hall of the corner
pavilion on the Briihl terrace. Our friends
would wait for us in front of the confectioner’s,
just in the middle of the terrace. We drove
to the great flight of steps on the Castle
Square, and proceeded to the spot where we
assembled every day. In those days starched
petticoats were worn, and these made a loud
rustling noise when one walked, so that, as I
came up, GersdorfF would say to the other
gentlemen, with moist eyes :	“ I hear the
Metternich rustling.” Then he would run
up to me to inspect my “ get-up.” As I had
1x7﻿The Days That Are No More
innumerable hats and dresses in my trousseau, I
made a point of putting on something new as
often as possible. This was a source of huge
delight to GersdorfF, and, as I afterwards
learnt, to the wives and daughters of the
bourgeoisie, who, in their worsted stockings,
sat there in the concert-room, their “ light
lager ” before them, and gazed at me in
wonder. My appearance in these far too
smart clothes was a great draw for the
women-folk, so that Lade—though I did
not know it at the time—looked upon me
as his mascot, and whenever I came in broke
off the piece that his band had been playing
and struck up a march that was a favourite
of mine. It was, in fact, a puff, and greatly
delighted the frequenters of the place, who
all looked out for this moment with eager
expectancy. GersdorfF was in the seventh
heaven : he revelled in the admiration that
my dresses called forth.
My daughter, Sophie, was born in Dresden
on the 17th of May. Grand-Duchess Sophie,
the Emperor’s mother, was staying at the time
with her sister, Queen Mary, at the latter’s
residence, named the Weinberg, between
Dresden and Pillnitz. She sent to enquire
whether, in the event of the birth of a
daughter, we should like to have her as
godmother. We were, of course, delighted
at this gracious ofFer. When Sophie was
118﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
born and the day of christening was fixed,
the Grand-Duchess deputed her son, Archduke
Ludwig Victor, to act as her representative.
The Grand-Duchess sent me a beautiful
bracelet, with scarabs worked in emeralds,
and with the inscription “ Salve.” As a
result of the confinement I had been seri-
ously ill, and I was sent to Konigswart to
recuperate. The following winter, when I
had lost a good deal of my hair and was
obliged to have the rest cut quite short, a
little entertainment was got up for my birth-
day : my life-story was recited by Otto
Konneritz, in the guise of a street-singer,
explaining living pictures, and at the end a
“ transformation,” in a very pretty casket,
was secretly handed to me by Gersdorff. He
was greatly distressed at the loss of my
beautiful hair, and was afraid that I should
not be able to wear a tiara at Court balls,
so had been urged by our friends and by
Richard to offer me these false tresses. The
evening was one of unusual jollity. The
Hohenthals were our hosts. How we laughed
and gambolled !
Altogether, our life at the time was one
long round of gaiety and merriment. There
was only one thing that damped our good
spirits—that was, when we had to go to
soirees or large evening parties. On these
occasions, our intimates would foregather at
”9﻿The Days That Are No More
our house, and we proceeded in a body to
the unfortunate hosts in question, greeted
them, made a brief tour of the reception-
rooms, and hurried home. GersdorfFs feelings
were divided : he considered our behaviour
in these cases not quite good form, but was
glad to return to the pleasant, homely gather-
ing at our house. It was most amusing to
see him as he went away from such soirees,
half crying, half laughing on the stairs, waving
his handkerchief with a gesture peculiarly his
own, then putting it to his eyes to dry the
flood that streamed from them, and exclaim-
ing :	“ Our little lot—we are really too
absurd! ” At one of these ineffably tedious
parties—it was at Minister von Alschau’s in
the Biirgerwiese, at the corner of the Liitti-
chaustrasse—I remarked to Solms, who was
about to enter a drawing-room in which a
crowd of most boring people had assembled,
“ Don’t go in there—it reeks of Excellencies.”
This indiscretion of mine is still brought up
against me to this day.
With Freiherr von Beust, who was the
Saxon Foreign Minister, and together with
Freiherr von Dalwig, of Hesse-Darmstadt,
played a leading political part in the Con-
federation, we were on very friendly terms,
and I stood well with his wife, a von Jordan
by birth, who figured in the gallery of beauties
belonging to Ludwig I., King of Bavaria.
120﻿PRINCESS PAULINE METTERNICH, lS6l﻿﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
Count Beust was a man of great intellectual
gifts and very witty. He was a most un-
faithful husband, and his wife was far from
tolerant of his infidelities. Thus there were
many quarrels between the two, and as
Mathilde Beust was remarkably outspoken,
these domestic affairs were often thrashed
out in public. She usually had the last word,
as Beust in such cases would silently let the
storm sweep over him. Once, at a big official
dinner that they were giving at the Foreign
Office to the Diplomatic Corps—she was in
a particularly bad temper that day—she asked
her husband, who was sitting opposite her,
and that, too, in a very loud voice, so that the
whole table could hear : “ Why is the sweet
called pudding a la Nesselrode ? ” “ Because
it was invented by Count Nesselrode’s famous
cook.” “ Ah ! ” she snapped, “ then our
cook ought to invent a dish called pork
cutlets h la Beust ! ”1
As may well be imagined, a painful silence
among the numerous guests followed this
bitter taunt. Beust, in his cynical way,
smiled and said : “ By Jove, that’s a good
idea—I’ll suggest it to him ! ” and took no
further notice of the matter, so that all
breathed freely again, and the conversation
1 It is impossible to render the full force of “ cotelettes
de cochon & la Beust,” cochon being a far stronger term
of abuse than “ pig” in English.—Translator’s Note.
121﻿The Days That Are No More
was resumed as if nothing untoward had
occurred. He said to me once : “ Mathilde
is a perfect terror ! When the Queen of
England asked her : 1 Do you like London ? ’
she curtly answered : ‘ Not a bit ! ’ ” With
such women, he held, one must adopt an
attitude of stoicism.
The Beusts were very hospitable and enter-
tained a great deal. Besides dinners, they
gave soirees and dances, among others a
gorgeous fancy-dress ball, with a procession
representing the reception of a French Em-
bassy at the Sultan’s Court in the days of
Louis XV. In the ball-room there was erected
the Sultan’s throne, beautifully draped with
gold embroidery. Edmund Zichy, who had
come to Vienna on a visit, acted as the Sultan,
and was surrounded by his harem and by
officials, guards, and slaves. Then the trumpets
blared, the band started playing a ceremonial
march, and the Embassy made its entry.
Beust, as Ambassador, looked superb, dressed
in velvet and silk, with powdered wig, and
wearing the blue sash of the Order of the
Holy Ghost.1 Around him were a number
of gentlemen in the costumes of the period,
all clean-shaven. Then came musketeers, and
finally a wonderful old sedan chair, in which
I sat, representing the Ambassadress ; it was
1 Instituted by Henri III. of France.—Translator’s
Note.
122﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
carried by sumptuously-clad servants, and
encircled by a crowd of lackeys, runners, and
gentlemen-in-waiting, also by several ladies.
Coming in front of the throne I stepped out,
and the Ambassador addressed a most witty
and clever speech to the Sultan. In intro-
ducing me he said :	“ If your Majesty is
surrounded with beautiful ottomans, I can
pride myself on bringing him a charming
causeuse,”1 and so it went on, one bit after
another. The King and Queen and all the
Princes and Princesses were present. Beust
scored a wonderful success, and was congratu-
lated on all sides. I wore a light blue satin
costume, with silver embroidery, and tucked
up with garlands of roses. It was an exact
copy of an old portrait.
We did not often go to the theatre. It was
dark and gloomy, and the performances were
not always good. We preferred concerts.
Whenever artists of note came to Dresden,
we did not fail to go and hear them. I
remember hearing old Frau Schroder-
Devrient ; the impression left on me was
ineffaceable. An artist, in the true sense of
the word, from top to toe ! Although she
must have been well over fifty, and her voice
had lost a good deal in tone, she held her
audience spell-bound by the power of her
1 This means [a] a woman who talks well, (b) a sort of
easy chair.—Translator’s Note.
123﻿The Days That Are No More
rendering, and anyone who heard her sing,
or rather recite, Schumann’s song, “ Ich
grolle nicht,” will agree with me that no
other singer’s presentment can compare with
hers. It was overpowering : in the words
“ Ich grolle nicht ” (“ I bear no grudge ”)
lay the deepest hatred and the most bound-
less contempt, so that a cold shiver ran
over one, and when the music stopped, one
was almost too dazed to applaud. The
Schroder-Devrient stood there, with flashing
eyes, a picture of revenge, and all who heard
and saw were deeply moved. At that moment,
the old woman looked wonderful, a figure one
could never forget as long as one lived.
Another glorious musical treat, which has
also left a lasting impression on me, fell to
our lot one evening at the house of Grimm,
the Russian State Councillor, who had been
tutor to Alexander II. and his brothers, and
had settled in Dresden. . . . We met there
Jenny Lind, who was good enough to perform
for our benefit, although she assured me that
she never sang at social gatherings, but did
not care to refuse her old friend and his wife,
when they wished to revive “ memories of
youth.” She was no longer young, and far
from beautiful. I felt some qualms as she
went up to the piano and asked her husband,
Herr Otto Goldschmidt, to accompany her,
for I thought, judging by her appearance,
124﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
that we should be grievously disappointed.
A few chords were struck ; then we heard,
as if from a remote distance, a very high trill,
pianissimo, a trill in G and A sharp, which
came ever nearer and nearer, till it filled the
room with a sound like the exultant warbling
of a nightingale ; one saw a transfigured
woman, with shining blue eyes and a smile
hovering on the lips that before were so
primly shut, and with all one’s soul one
shared her joy and exhilaration. In that one
exquisite voice lay happiness, sunshine, spring,
joy of living, and love ! When the song was
ended and all began to applaud, Jenny Lind
raised her hand and said : “ Please don’t, I
have always looked upon applause as the most
distasteful feature of the singing profession,
and in order to escape it I used to leave the
theatre early ; so please spare me that, if you
want me to sing again ! ” Jenny Lind was
a Puritan, and as such a foe to all vanity.
“ God has given me a voice ; is that any
merit of mine ? ” she said to me in the course
of the evening. “ Do they applaud a beautiful
woman when she comes into the room ? No.
Very well then.” Her face, as she spoke,
became quite serious again, her lips looked
as if they could never smile, and happiness
and sunshine, love and joy of living had
vanished, to make way for an unattractive
air of prudery, which enveloped her whole
125﻿The Days That Are No More
person. When the company had promised
not to applaud, she went up to the piano
again and sang divinely Schumann’s “Nuss-
baum ” and “ O Sonnenschein.” At last, by
the request of our hostess, she gave us Schubert’s
song, “ Weiss nicht, warum ich singe,” and
it seemed to me as if I heard all the nightin-
gales in the world warbling and trilling. At
times it sounded so soft and tender ; then
came a loud answering note ; then it went
again dolcissimo, and by turns louder and
softer. . . . Spring had come into the room
in which we sat ; the walls had become bushes,
and the ceiling was a gigantic tree. From
tree and bushes the nightingales sang to each
other ; then suddenly there sounded a mighty
trill, echo answered it, and—all was over ! . . .
I could not help saying to Jenny Lind : “ Well,
they’re not far wrong in calling you the
Swedish nightingale,” to which she quickly
rejoined : “ Yes, they are wrong ; nightingales
sing much better ! ”	“ Why were you never
in Paris all through your artistic career ? ”
asked Richard. “ Because I wasn’t good-
looking enough, and always dressed very badly.
In Paris they want not only to hear, but to
see. Besides, in England and America I had
made enough money to secure my future.
Only vanity would have induced me to go
to Paris—and vanity was never one of my
weaknesses.”
126﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
Jenny Lind was happy in her marriage with
Herr Goldschmidt, who, indeed, so far as
looks were concerned, had no right to cast
a stone at her, but who was on her level from
a musical standpoint, in that he played the
piano remarkably well and was a musician to
his finger-tips. He accompanied her admirably.
Another great artist whom I heard and got
to know in Vienna was Bogumil Dawison,
who very soon afterwards came to the muni-
cipal theatre, where he proved a tremendous
success.
In speaking above rather disparagingly of
the theatre, I forgot Dawison. This was a
great injustice, for he was one of our most
eminent German actors. He was a Pole, and
had mastered the German language in three
years, mastered it to such a degree that he
could speak it on the stage. The practised
German ear could detect just a trace of an
accent, but scarcely enough to jar upon one.
As a matter of fact, I did the Dresden theatre
a serious injustice, for now several names come
back to me as I write, names of excellent
actors and singers :	Emil Devrient, Frau
Bayer-Biirck and others ; for instance, the
famous tenor Tichatschek, who in singing
used to repeat the first syllable of every word,
a trick that annoyed me intensely. It was
such an unpleasant mannerism that I wondered
the whole audience did not boggle at it as
127﻿The Days That Are No More
much as I did ; but it seems that his really
fine voice made up for the defect.
In May 1859, we left our beloved Dresden
and proceeded to Vienna, where Richard had
been summoned to act as A.D.C. on behalf
of the Foreign Office, to his Majesty the
Emperor, at headquarters in Verona. It was
originally intended that when the campaign
was over we should return to Dresden, but
fate decreed otherwise, and we were trans-
ferred to Paris. But I never forgot Dresden
and my Dresden friends, and as often as I
had the opportunity—nor have I yet abandoned
the practice—I visited the Saxon capital.
Nearly every year I try, if possible, to spend
a few days there in January. Liittichau, who
owned a charming little house in the Langen-
strasse, opposite Prince George’s palace, invited
me to put up at his place, an offer which I
gladly accepted. Those were always pleasant,
cheery days, and I shall never forget them. . . .
All our acquaintances assembled there, and we
were such a merry party, so genuinely happy
together, that Gersdorff with his streaming
eyes was like a continuous fountain. . . . He
used to weep just as others laughed ; the more
tears he shed, the more joyful he felt.
Strange to say, young as I still was then,
no one was surprised at my living in a
bachelor’s house, for everyone knew that
Liittichau and I had never flirted for a
128﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
moment. Prince George alone was unable
quite to accept the situation, and said to me :
“ Curious that you always stay at Luttichau’s
when you come here ! ” to which I retorted :
“Very likely, but it’s still more curious that
the most strict and formal people have never
even hinted a doubt as to our friendly rela-
tions.” He bit his lips and changed the
conversation. Gersdorff, who did not like
Prince George, was delighted at my answer.
Whenever I came to Dresden (I always
made use of the time when our household
was moving from Plass to Vienna) I found
there a large number of invitations, first of
all to one of the Court balls. King Albert
and Queen Karola were exceedingly gracious
towards me, and as soon as I arrived I always
sought an audience, which was granted to me
either in the Royal Castle or, even at that
time of the year, at Strehlen, near Dresden,
where their Majesties liked best of all to
stay at their little villa. An audience at the
Saxon Court was a much less ceremonious
affair than at ours, for one was simply admitted
into the Queen’s drawing-room by the groom
who happened to be on duty, and one saw no
chamberlains or maids-of-honour anywhere in
the place. The Queen shook hands heartily
and offered any chair that came to hand, and
the talk proceeded without any restraint. One
did not feel in the least as if a queen were
129
1﻿The Days That Are No More
giving one an audience. Once, for instance,
the Queen remarked that she did not like
having to spend money to get dresses made
for her, whereupon I ventured to suggest that
her Majesty had no idea what a dress cost.
“ Don’t you believe it! ” cried the Queen.
“ I know very well what they cost, and as
the dressmakers are so dear I buy the material
and have all my workaday clothes made by
my own women. They are just now engaged
in making one. Would you care to have a
look?” “Yes, indeed, your Majesty.” She
rose and took me through a boudoir crammed
with knick-knacks; then into a little dressing-
room, where the women were working. They
all got up, and the Queen took from the work-
table a grey woollen body, lined with calico
or huckaback, asked for the skirt, and seemed
quite proud of this dress made in her work-
shop. To be quite candid, it was hideous,
and many a lady’s-maid would have hesitated
to wear it. I did not quite know what to
say, and stammered out something like : “ Yes,
most remarkable ! ” which was scarcely suited
to the occasion.
This little incident occurred at Strehlen.
The King also often appeared at the audiences,
coming in quite unexpectedly from an adjoin-
ing room : “ I have just heard that you were
with my wife, and I didn’t want to miss
you ! ” King Albert always used to say “ my
130﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
wife ” when he spoke of the Queen, whereas
her Majesty always said “ the King ” or
“ Albert.” Both their Majesties took great
pleasure in showing their visitors over the
villa, and so, the first time we were at
Strehlen, they conducted us over the ground
floor and up a small staircase with handsome
wood-carving to the first floor, showing us
all their things, and seeming very pleased
when we expressed our admiration of this or
that. The villa has, in my opinion, two serious
defects. First, it is not well situated ; and
secondly, the rooms are very small, and far
too crowded with furniture and knick-knacks.
The Queen had an enormous amount of bric-
a-brac, and when it was all set out one
would think one were in a shop. Never in
my life have I seen such a quantity of ugly
little vases and china figures as were in the
Royal villa at Strehlen. Yes, ugly china in
the then Saxon Court of all places! Who
would imagine such a thing to be possible ?
Altogether, it is extraordinary how little
many Royal personages understand about objets
ifart, seeing that they spend their lives among
them. . . . “Just fancy,” said the King to
me once at a Court ball, as we were sitting
in the round, so-called porcelain room ;
“ someone wanted to buy that great clock
with its pendant, the big barometer in bronze,
for £32,000. He must have been a fool.﻿The Days That Are No More
People are nowadays all more or less mad.”
I ventured to reply that £32,000 was a high
price indeed, but by no means too high for
two objects of such incomparable beauty. . . .
Moreover, I said I had been told that these
had been made to order by Caffieri for King
Augustus the Strong, and that the mould
had been destroyed, a fact which would
greatly enhance their value. “ Really ! ” said
the King, “ well, I’m not enthusiastic about
them. I set very little store on such things,
but I wouldn’t sell them, for I never sell
anything. I think it’s impudent to make
such offers. There was an Englishman who
visited the castle one summer, and was very
keen on getting hold of that china greyhound
over there ; he said he would give £200
for it.” “ That greyhound wouldn’t tempt
me,” I said, “ especially not in a room that
contained the most beautiful china in the
world, from the famous vases, for which
King Augustus exchanged a regiment, to the
chandeliers with the recumbent figures, which
were mounted on bronze by von Goutieres.
Surely your Majesty will admit,” I added,
“ that King Augustus did wisely in exchang-
ing a regiment for the vases. Where is that
regiment to-day ? The glorious vases, on the
other hand, we still see before us, in as good
condition as ever.” The King was taken
aback at so unmilitary a remark ; it seemed
132﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
to bowl him over completely. At the Court
balls, after the King had talked with the
chief personages present, he liked to converse
with ordinary mortals, and to unbend among
the ladies. We chatted in a free-and-easy
manner on anything that came into our
heads. These talks with his Majesty soon
became quite animated, and he certainly had
a pleasing gift for conversation, without a
trace of pedantry or heaviness. The King
was a man of remarkably wide knowledge,
but did not parade his learning. He used
it merely to add a flavour to the conversa-
tion, just as one takes pepper and salt
at meals. Altogether he reminded me very
much of our late Emperor Francis Joseph I.,
but with the difference that he was less stiff
in his intercourse with people, because he
was used to talking on all manner of subjects,
and without any noticeable reserve. Gersdorff
always used to reproach him with not “ mak-
ing enough of himself,” meaning that he was
not kingly enough in manner. His simple,
modest bearing annoyed Gersdorff, while I
could not help thinking it very distinguished
—in a different sense, indeed—although I
knew quite well what Gersdorff meant. After
all it is always difficult to hit the happy
medium. At one of the smaller Court balls,
when I had the honour 6f sitting by the
Queen’s side on the sofa of the dais during
133﻿The Days That Are No More
the cotillion, King Albert joined us (as a
rule her Majesty had me “engaged for the
cotillion,” as she put it, when I was at the
Court balls). While we were watching
the dancers, and passing little remarks about
them, we saw to our horror that one of the
young ladies dancing was losing her petticoat.
It was getting longer and longer, and the
King was just going to send a chamberlain
to draw the girl's attention to the matter,
when to our joy we saw her flit past us once
more with her dress perfectly in order. When
the cotillion was over, the Queen got up and
left the dais. Suddenly the King, who was
standing near me, exclaimed : “ There it is ! ”
And under a chair near us we saw the fatal
petticoat lying in a heap ! Perhaps this little
story is not very interesting in itself, but it
seemed worth recording as an instance of the
free-and-easy way we used to talk with the
Monarch. In spite of his position, he re-
mained so human, chatted and laughed in
such a simple fashion, that one felt no
strain in his company, and enjoyed oneself
exceedingly.
In spite of his simplicity and unpretending
ways, however, the King had really no idea
of the value of money in everyday life and
of the thousand-and-one little difficulties of
humble households. In this connection, I
cannot refrain from adding one more anecdote
*34﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
to this already rather lengthy causerie. The
episode amused us all immensely, Gersdorff in
particular. One of the Queen’s maids-of-honour
had married an aide-de-camp of his Majesty,
Herr von Minckwitz. It was a love-match,
without much money on either side, and, as
both bride and bridegroom were in high
favour, the wedding was celebrated in the
Chapel Royal. After the ceremony the happy
pair were summoned to the Royal presence,
and their Majesties made the customary wed-
ding-present. As they were leaving, the
King said to the bride : “ The Queen and
I are thinking of paying you a visit, once
you are properly settled in your house at
Oschatz ” (this was the garrison town to
which Herr von Minckwitz had been posted).
“ We’ll let you have notice in good time
beforehand.” Deeply moved at so gracious
a promise, both thanked their Majesties, and
said to each other as they went off: “ That’s
surely a promise that is not likely to be
kept.”
One day, however, about six months later,
there came a note from the Lord Chamber-
lain, announcing the arrival of the King and
Queen on a day in the near future, adding
that their Majesties would come to dinner
with a small retinue of ten persons in all.
Feeling highly honoured, but at the same
time overwhelmed, they looked at each
r35﻿The Days That Are No More
other and wondered how they were going
to entertain twelve guests when they only
had plate for six. Herr von Minckwitz re-
assured his wife, saying that there was only
one thing to be done, and that was to apply
to their friends and acquaintances among their
neighbours, and ask them to help them out
with silver, table-linen, china, glass, lights,
carpets, flowers, and chairs. No sooner said
than done. They sent round requests, and
the requisite articles were willingly supplied.
Throughout the day came one van after
another, and even servants were sent. The
result was beyond all expectations. The little
house was entirely transformed ; one would
not have recognised it :	the modest home
had become a sort of temple of flowers.
Herr and Frau von Minckwitz were amply
rewarded for their trouble, but they were
nearly worn out with their efforts.
The King and Queen appeared. The
neighbours had, of course, sent carriages to
the station, and everything went off swim-
mingly. The dinner, which had been pre-
pared by a cook of Frau von Sahr’s, was very
much to their Majesties’ taste, and every
course was praised to the skies, as also were
the excellent wines, which came from the
mansion of a wealthy neighbour.
After dinner the guests stayed for an hour,
and when the special train back to Dresden
136﻿Our First Diplomatic Post
was announced and their Majesties were
taking leave, the King turned to Frau von
Minckwitz and said : “ Many thanks for your
kind reception, which has delighted my wife
and myself. Everything is charming here.
The dinner was excellent, but what pleased
me more than anything was to see that you
received us quite as ordinary friends, and
did not put yourself out on our account! ’
i37﻿CHAPTER IV
RICHARD WAGNER (I 859-6 i)
As we were passing through Vienna on our
way back to Paris from our Bohemian estates,
we made the acquaintance of Richard Wagner.
I had already been greatly impressed by
“ Tannhauser,” and I was most anxious to
become acquainted with its composer. My
wish was gratified through Liszt’s good offices.
Liszt happened to be in Vienna at the time,
and one afternoon he came with Wagner to
the Rennweg villa, then still surrounded by
a large garden, the so-called “ Metternich
Grounds,” now the Italian Embassy. He
introduced his friend to us with the words,
spoken in French : “ Richard Wagner, the
musician of the future, as they call him.”
Liszt, as is well known, generally used French
in conversation. After the introduction he
began to speak German, and the talk soon
became most animated, for no one knew
better than Liszt how to strike the right
conversational note.
Wagner seemed slightly embarrassed ; at
any rate, he was extremely reserved. He did
138﻿Richard Wagner
not show any of that self-confidence which
was his right as a giant in the musical sphere,
and from his exterior one would never have
looked for the Titan in that small, puny,
pallid man who sat there with a rather
hesitating air. At last his embarrassment
seemingly vanished, and he took part in the
conversation. To my query whether he
played any musical instrument, he replied : “ I
can make myself understood on the piano ;
but, as a matter of fact, I only play the
orchestra!” “Yes, that’s quite true,” inter-
rupted Liszt, laughingly ; “ your piano-playing
isn't worth a brass farthing ! ” This remark
did not seem to strike Wagner as at all
amusing, and he retorted, somewhat nettled :
“ Come, now ! I don’t play so badly as all
that ! ”
When our two visitors took their leave,
Liszt asked us whether he might not come
one evening with his friend Wagner and let
us hear extracts from the Nibelungen trilogy.
Wagner would clear up some obscure points
and incidentally sing certain passages. The
offer was of course eagerly and thankfully
accepted, and the evening was at once fixed.
We invited some friends and acquaintances
whom we knew to be music-lovers, and a few
days after the above meeting we all sat round
the piano in our large reception-room and
eagerly awaited the treat in store for us.
*39﻿The Days That Are No More
Liszt sat down at the piano. The magic
tones as they rang out made one feel as if
transported to some higher sphere. Then
Wagner suddenly lifted up his voice, and like
a croaking raven he screeched Siegmund’s
spring song from the “ Walkiire ” with stupe-
fying effect on us all. Then he asked Liszt
to accompany him in “Wotan’s Farewell.”
After roaring this out he went on to Briin-
hilde’s song. And so on, through a be-
wildering variety of characters, keys, and
registers. As a vocal effort, indeed, it was
atrocious, but, so far as subtle, profound
understanding was concerned, unapproachable.
One lived through his operas with him, and,
although his voice was utterly appalling from
a singer’s point of view, he succeeded in
bringing out all that was best in his music.
One may doubt whether anyone else will
ever show a loftier conception of that music
or give a nobler presentment.
He capered and bellowed and roared out
like a lion the song of the giants in “ Rhein-
gold.” The pale, insignificant little man
whom we had seen a few days before sitting
on the edge of his chair with an apologetic
air seemed even to grow physically to super-
human stature ; he actually became a giant.
Since I saw Wagner perform the Entrance of
the Giants, I have never been satisfied with
any other actors of this scene. Wagner was
140﻿Richard Wagner
a Titan—the others remain men of average
build.
My admiration, my enthusiasm, my delight
knew no bounds. Wagner seemed to be glad
that I had entered into the spirit of the thing
so thoroughly. I said to him : “ Such works
are not meant only for Germany and German-
speaking people ; they belong to the whole
world. They ought to be performed in France,
England, and Italy, in fact, everywhere.”
“You won’t live to see that,” he replied ; “I
shan’t live to see it either ! ”	“ Come to Paris,”
I broke in, “ and we’ll see whether we can’t
break the ice there with ‘ Tannhauser ’ ! ” He
shook his head and declared that his music
would never go down with the Parisians.
When the party, still completely under the
spell of this remarkable performance, broke
up, Wagner took me aside and asked me if it
would be convenient for me if he called for
me on the following morning and took me to
see the first rehearsal, under his direction, of
the Prelude to “Tristan” at the Court Opera
House. Of course I accepted the offer, and
next morning at ten o’clock I was sitting in
box No. 2, waiting for the rehearsal to
begin.
Wagner came in, strode up to the con-
ductor’s place, and was greeted with loud
applause by the whole orchestra. Without
much bowing or any demonstrations of thanks,
141﻿The Days That Are No More
he gave the sign to begin. Our admirable
singers read their parts, and had I not known
that not one of them had had even a glimpse
of the notes previously, I should have believed
that there had been some rehearsals. In the
middle of the glorious Prelude, Wagner
suddenly stopped. He stepped down into
the orchestra, and went from one music-stand
to another, pencil in hand, in order to make
alterations. Profound silence reigned. This
may have lasted twenty minutes ; then he
went back to his place, raised his baton and
started the Prelude all over again. When he
came to the place where he had made correc-
tions, all pricked up their ears in eager
expectancy of what was to come ; the music
did indeed sound more powerful and im-
pressive than before, although it had already
been exceedingly beautiful. We all sat mute
and deeply stirred by the might of genius
which, with a few strokes of the pencil, had
achieved such incredible things. Wagner did
indeed “ play the orchestra.” And how he
played it!
I have never been prone to “ gush,” nor did
I ever go out of my way to burn incense at
Wagner’s shrine. But as I was going away I
said to him, as I hastened to congratulate him :
“ Come to Paris, and you’ll see ! ” I thanked
him whole-heartedly for granting me the
inestimable privilege of hearing this rehearsal.
142﻿Richard Wagner
He shook hands and said gravely : “ Well,
au revoir ! ”	“ In Paris ? ” I queried. “ In
Paris ! ” was his laconic reply. Two days
later we went back to France, and at the same
time Wagner and Liszt left Vienna. It was
about the middle of October.
On the 20th of November we went to
Compiegne for the Emperor’s autumn holiday
there. I told people there that I had made
the acquaintance of Richard Wagner and was
still under the spell of his mighty genius. I
got in reply only sneers, and the solemn
assurance that the horrible “ music of the
future ” would never gain a foothold in France.
France, it was said, loved only melody—pure
melody! To the “musician of the future,”
so absurdly and incomprehensibly admired
and lauded to the skies in Germany, harmony
was an unknown quantity. He could only
make a noise with kettledrums and trumpets ;
every chord rang false ; in a word, the man
was a rank swindler, and his “greatness” was
founded on artful advertisement !
“ It’s as false,” added one hothead, “ as his
chords and his transitions that violate all the
rules of harmony ! ”
To argue with those who held such
ridiculous opinions was out of the question,
but I vowed vengeance upon them, and I
have been avenged beyond all expectation ;
for, if I may include myself among the enthusi-
r43﻿The Days That Are No More
astic devotees of Wagnerian music, I find that
my enthusiasm is exceeded by most French
people. But when I had been told so often
that Wagner’s music would never, never be
accepted in France—particularly in Paris—I
did not dare to take steps to get “Tann-
hauser ” performed, and for the time being I
let the matter drop.
I could not, however, entirely abandon the
idea, and one day, quite unexpectedly, I had
the opportunity of carrying it out. The
occasion was provided by a ball at the
Tuileries. The Emperor Napoleon III. had a
long conversation with me on the subject, and
when the performances at the Opera came up
for discussion, I could not refrain from frankly
declaring to him that it was a pity the
repertory was so limited—a constant round
of “William Tell,” “The Huguenots,” and
“La Favorita.” “How is it,” I asked, “that
they cannot produce successful new works
here as they do in the great Opera-Houses of
Austria and Germany ? ” Then I thought to
myself : “ Now or never is the time to come
out with Wagner and ‘ Tannhauser.’” So I
added : “ By the way, I have a great favour
to ask of your Majesty—a request to make.”
“ What ! ” replied the Emperor, astonished,
but smiling, “ a favour in connection with the
Opera-House ? ” “Yes ; it is about an opera
I am most anxious to see performed here.”
144﻿Richard Wagner
“ And whose is this wonderful opera ? ”
queried the Emperor.
“It is by Richard Wagner, one of the
greatest composers of the day. It is called
‘Tannhauser,’ and is being played in Vienna.
I won’t say that it appeals to everyone,
but all the musical experts consider it a
masterpiece.”
“ ‘ Tannhauser,’ Richard Wagner ! ” said the
Emperor, musingly, stroking his moustache
in his habitual manner, “ I have never heard
of the opera or the composer. And you think
it is really good ? ” I said I did, and the
Emperor turned to his Lord Chamberlain,
Bacciochi, who had charge of the Imperial
theatres, and said to him in his off-hand way :
“ Oh, Bacciochi, Princess Metternich is inter-
ested in an opera called ‘Tannhauser,’ by one
Richard Wagner, and wants to see it performed
here in Paris—will you arrange to have it
done ? ” Bacciochi bowed and replied : “ As
your Majesty commands. But it will take
some time ; a big opera can’t be staged in a
day or so.” And that was how “ Tannhauser ”
found its way to Paris. I was greatly delighted
and not a little astonished at the marvellous
ease with which my request was to be fulfilled.
I had only had to say the word, and yet I
had hesitated long before saying it ! In this
natural way, without any plotting and plan-
ning, Wagner saw his opera introduced to the
K	145﻿The Days That Are No More
Parisians. A simpler method of introduction
could hardly be imagined.
The performance of “Tannhauser” was
fixed for the following year, and notice of
this was given to Wagner. Effusive gratitude
was never in his line, and he accepted the
news without a word of thanks. In late
autumn the rehearsals began. The opera was
to be produced in March. As is well known,
there is scarcely a theatre in the world where
a piece, before it sees the light of day, is
rehearsed and pulled about so much as in the
Paris Opera-House. During the winter of
1863 Wagner arrived to supervise the re-
hearsals. If he had been able to say of himself
that he only “ played the orchestra,” he might
have added that he did not play with the
musicians in the orchestra. He worried them
to death. He was simply insufferable ; and
if the command to perform “Tannhauser”
had not been issued directly by the Emperor,
the whole thing might well have fallen
through. Musicians, singers, members of the
chorus, scene-shifters, even those in charge of
the lighting, I believe, were nearly driven
mad, and often refused to comply with the
great man’s whims and crotchets.
Niemann was summoned from Germany to
take the part of Tannhauser, in accordance
with Wagner’s earnest desire. The day of
the performance drew near, and Wagner
146﻿Richard Wagner
became more and more unendurable. Liszt,
who had come to Paris, was unable to soothe
his friend. One morning Wagner and Liszt
called upon us. When we touched upon the
forthcoming performance, Wagner, in his
usual fashion, got excited, rushed to the piano,
and hastily wrenched it open, merely to show
us how the Pilgrims’ Chorus should be played.
He hacked it about abominably. At last Liszt
could stand it no longer ; he jumped up from
his chair, unceremoniously thrust Wagner
aside, sat down at the piano, and set to work
with a will. The glorious Pilgrims’ Chorus
rang out so vividly that we could see before
us the troop of heavily-laden pilgrims, proudly
marching along. Liszt had the gift of lend-
ing such dramatic force to his playing as I
have never known in the case of any other
player, even Rubinstein. When Liszt rose
from the piano, he said to Wagner: “After
all, I play better than you do ! ” whereupon
Wagner, turning to us, declared in an injured
tone that Liszt had always tried to belittle his
musical abilities. We could not help smiling
at this foolish, small-minded attitude. It was
not his musical endowments that Liszt had
found fault with, but only his poor technique
as a pianist. Wagner’s vanity, however, was
so unbounded that he could not endure the
slightest criticism, no matter whether it was
levelled at his compositions, his taste, his
H7﻿The Days That Are No More
personal appearance, or anything else about
him.
I was bold enough to say to him quite
frankly—and I am not ashamed to own to
the fact—that listening to Mime was no
pleasure to me, that Fricka’s curtain lecture
was far too long-winded, that the Venusberg
scene tended to drag ; in fact that, in my
opinion, he always made his scenes too long ;
and so on. Whether in his heart of hearts
he was angry with me, or whether he appreci-
ated my outspokenness, I cannot tell. I think,
though, that he regarded me as excessively
stupid—a later episode went far to confirm
me in this view. If only his expert friends
and acquaintances could have brought them-
selves at times to offer him genuine criticism,
instead of the false coin of flattery, Wagner
would have made many alterations in his
work ; above all, he would have omitted a
good deal, to the great advantage of the
whole. As it was, the adulation heaped upon
him beyond all measure, strengthened to a
ludicrous degree his conviction that he was
godlike and infallible.
The day of the performance drew near, and
in most quarters was awaited with consider-
able misgivings. Everyone said that protests
would be raised against the horrible “ music
of the future,” and that stormy scenes would
take place in the Opera-House. At all the
148﻿Richard Wagner
clubs the men were up in arms because Wagner
would not have a ballet, except for a few
dancing poses in the Venusberg scene. The
subscribers to the club boxes at the Opera are
accustomed to see a ballet introduced at half-
past nine sharp in every opera (at any rate,
such was the practice in those days). How,
indeed, a ballet could be introduced in the
middle of “ Tannhauser ” was more than any
of us could fathom, and Wagner declared that
he would not meet the wishes of those sub-
scribers, because he could not. In this he was
perfectly right, but his obstinacy was to cost
him dear. On the evening of the 13th of March,
1861, I drove with my husband to the Opera-
House, which was then situated in the Rue
Lepelletier. In front of the entrance there
was a barricade of carriages, as was always the
case on important first nights. With countless
acquaintances we made for the great staircase.
The crowd was enormous, and I was pelted
with a thousand questions, such as, “Well!
Is your Wagner going to be a success?”
“ They say he’s unbearable,” retorted another.
“ Princess,” said someone else, “ prepare to
hear your protege hissed.” “ Why do you
try to force this fellow down our throats ?
He declares war upon all melody,” and so
forth.
On my entering the great box between
the pillars—loge entre les colonnes—opposite
149﻿The Days That Are No More
the stage, all eyes in the house were turned
towards me, and everyone took stock of me,
to see whether I was excited or not. I put
a bold front on the matter, and sat down,
outwardly calm, but inwardly I was in a
whirl. I had a presentiment that things would
go wrong, for before a single note was played
people began trying to whistle on keys. In
short, an atmosphere of violent hostility pre-
vailed, and from the start there seemed to be
a determination to give “Tannhauser” the
coup de grace. This was painfully obvious.
Then there appeared the most tedious of all con-
ductors—the humdrum and lethargic Haindl.
A shrill hiss ran through the house. Haindl,
who belonged to the category of conductors
who merely beat time, raised his long fiddle-
bow (for in France the baton is never used
and seems to be unknown). Then began the
magnificent overture. When it was finished
and had met with a fair measure of applause
a gentleman in the box next to me said aloud :
“ It’s not so bad as I expected.” Later he
might have been one of the most enthusiastic
visitors to Bayreuth. After this, things went
smoothly on the whole. The Venusberg was
endured in rather sulky silence, but when in
the first act the little shepherd’s song was
heard there was loud laughter, and cries came
from the gallery, such as : “ When you’ve
quite finished with your reed-pipe tune, you
15°﻿Richard Wagner
idiot ! ” and the most hideous cat-calls added
to the uproar. So they rang the changes on
hissing, laughing, bawling, and contemptuous
silence, until the Pilgrims’ Chorus. Even
Elizabeth’s beautiful entrance : “ Thee, dear
hall, I greet once more ! ” met with no favour-
able response from the audience. Only when
the march was played was there warm, nay,
enthusiastic applause, and at its conclusion
a large part of the audience turned to the
box in which I was sitting and gave me an
ovation with true Gallic verve, as if I had
composed the Pilgrims’ Chorus !
After this, however, all the glory was over,
and not a hand was raised except to put a key
or a whistle to the mouth ! It was a fiasco
of the first water. I could not possibly say
whether Niemann was good or bad—I think
he was bad ; whether Marie Sasse sang or
someone in the wings sang for her; in a
word, I had lost all faculty for criticism, so
great were my dismay and vexation at the
failure. The famous dramatic critic, Jules
Janin, wrote next day a charming article under
the title “The Fan.” In this article, which
created much stir, he expressed his regret at
my disappointment, and, in order to make the
affair interesting, recounted how, bathed in
tears, I had broken my beautiful and costly
fan. The article began : “ It is broken, the
beautiful fan.” But the fan was not broken—
lSl﻿The Days That Are No More
there is no truth in the pretty story. I held
out till the end of the performance, though I
suffered real agonies through it all. As we
were driving home, I said to my husband :
“ Wagner was right ; his music won’t go
down with the Parisians ! ”
A few more attempts were made to play
“ Tannhauser,” but these performances met
with the same opposition, and there was no
end to the hissing and howling. In the club
boxes the spectators behaved like men pos-
sessed, and before the curtain went up the
hubbub always started in the house. Wagner
therefore decided to withdraw his opera, and
the directors gladly acquiesced in his decision.
Thus, after a brief but painful illness “Tann-
hauser” gave up the ghost. Wagner, how-
ever, was now in an awkward predicament.
He had counted upon the royalties to defray
the expenses of his stay in Paris, and it turned
out that he was short of funds. Happy-go-
lucky, as artists usually are, he had lived far
beyond his means, so that debts of all kinds
had sprung up like mushrooms here, there,
and everywhere. The poor man was at his
wits’ end, and did not know where to turn.
A friend told us in confidence of the distressing
situation, and we decided to make a collection
among his acquaintances and not too numerous
admirers. My husband headed the subscrip-
tion-list with 5,000 francs, and we succeeded
152﻿Richard Wagner
in raising 25,000 francs within twenty-four
hours. The debts were paid ; Wagner still
had a few thousand francs left for his travel-
ling expenses, and left Paris in a very downcast
frame of mind.
After this I saw him two or three times
again in Vienna. In an essay, the title of
which I cannot recollect, he gave to the world
his impressions of his unfortunate sojourn in
Paris. In this essay, by the way, he mentions
his relations with us, expressing himself in
some such terms as the following : “ In Paris
I often visited the house of the Austrian
Ambassador, Prince Metternich. The Prince,
who went in for music in his leisure hours,
once showed me one of his compositions,
which lay spread out on the piano, and
pestered me to do him the favour of looking
through it. The Princess, a cheerful young
lady, said to me once en passant that she had
a great predilection for Bach’s fugues. What
she meant by that, I really don’t know ! ”
So far as my husband’s asking favours was
concerned, the facts of the matter are slightly
different. One evening Wagner happened to
be near the piano, and saw lying on it some
manuscript music. “ Who composes here ? ”
he asked, and took up one of the books in
order to skim through the pages. My husband,
who, although a highly-gifted amateur, was
anything but vain, went over to Wagner and
*53﻿The Days That Are No More
said: “ Please don’t look at that wretched
stuff. I’m a mere dabbler, and write dance-
music for my own amusement.” Wagner,
however, would not give up the sheets : he
sat down at the piano, read them through
cursorily, and said: “You haven’t made any
mistakes, but I suggest leaving out these
chords at the end ; it would sound more
original.” Then he proceeded to play the
music. My husband was of course very
grateful to the Master, and said to him :
“That modest little waltz has been highly
honoured ! ” So much for the “ pestering for
favours ! ”
As for the foolish remark of the cheerful
young lady, which indeed sounds odd in the
way that Wagner introduces it, the reference
is to a discussion that arose on Bach’s fugues.
After Liszt had given a wonderful rendering
of some of these, I ventured to remark that
some people found the fugues terribly dry
and tedious, but that I had been particularly
fond of them even in my early youth—a
thing I really could not explain, as I had
not the faintest notion of counterpoint.
Such, then, were the only recollections of
us that had remained in Wagner’s memory—
the one of my husband’s lack of modesty, the
other of my stupidity !
In his letters to me, I must admit, Wagner
showed us far more indulgence. For the
*54﻿Richard Wagner
endless musical enjoyment that he has afforded,
and still affords me, I shall always be thankful
to him. Thankful in particular because my
name is always coupled with that of “Tann-
hauser,” at any rate in Paris. That is Wagner’s
expression of thanks, his legacy to me. To-
day the works of the immortal composer are
popular in Paris. The French, I have been
told, are the most numerous among the
pilgrims to Bayreuth, and when a Wagner
opera is put on in the Academie National
de Musique, there is always a full house.
Tempora mutantur.
*55﻿CHAPTER V
FRANZ LISZT
I always had a great liking for Franz
Liszt, not only as an artist, but as a man.
Personally he was more sympathetic to me
than Wagner. Liszt was indeed vain—what
great artist is not ?—but he was so infinitely
kind-hearted, so magnanimous, so loyal in his
friendships, that one readily overlooked his
little vanities, when one came into closer
contact with him and got to know him
thoroughly. I like to recall his visits to
Paris, where he was a frequent caller at our
house. During one of these visits it so
happened that Gounod had invited us to an
evening party, and when he heard that Liszt
was in Paris he begged us to ask the latter
in his name to attend the soiree. Strange to
say, Liszt and Gounod did not know each
other, so that my husband and I were the
means of bringing them together. Liszt
accepted the invitation. On our arrival we
were greeted most effusively, Liszt in par-
ticular because he was Liszt, and we because
we had persuaded him to accept Gounod’s
156﻿Franz Liszt
invitation. He already wore the priestly
cassock, and in point of fact was no longer
greatly inclined to enter artistic circles. We
had assured him that he could not refuse with-
out offending Gounod, and his kindness of heart
prevailed over his scruples. He came, saw,
and conquered.
When the formalities of introduction were
over, Gounod sat down at the piano and sang
as he alone knew how to sing : in a weak
and rather muffled voice, it is true, I might
almost say in a voice that would have sounded
ugly to those who can only admire bell-like
tones, but with such an incredible charm of
delivery that all who heard him were in
raptures. He sang various extracts from his
own “ Faust,” and took the parts of soprano,
tenor, and baritone by turn with such con-
summate mastery, that even Liszt could not
get over his astonishment. When Gounod at
last stopped, Liszt told him that he would
gladly play something from “ Faust,” but
must ask for a copy of the music, as he did
not know the opera well enough to play from
memory. Gounod declared that he only had
the orchestral score, whereupon Liszt laugh-
ingly replied that it did not matter, and that,
with the composer to help him out, he would
be quite content with that. The score was
placed on the music-rest, and he opened with
Gretchen’s first meeting with Faust ; then
*57﻿The Days That Are No More
went on to the waltzes, in which, as in the
rest, he introduced marvellous improvisations ;
and so on to the end. All present were
fascinated and delighted. “ That’s enough,”
he suddenly said. “ In honour of the Princess
I’m going to play her favourite piece—Ros-
sini’s ‘ Carita.’ ” He played it exquisitely—as
a matter of fact, I have never heard it played
by anyone but Liszt.
After the Gounod evening there werd some
musical evenings at the Embassy, at which
Liszt was the centre of attraction. Incredible
though it may sound, I cannot resist mention-
ing the fact that Liszt once proposed to me
that he and I should play a waltz of Strauss
as a duet ! The idea of refusing would never
have entered my head, for on such an occasion,
when the gathering was quite an intimate one,
it would have been simply foolish to do so.
“ With the greatest pleasure,” I replied, and
I fearlessly dashed into the fray with the waltz
“ Moths.” I had never played so well in my
life, for of course one could only hear Liszt.
My strumming was like the buzz of a gnat
beside the roar of a lion. At one of these
cheery musical evenings our friend Saint-Saens
appeared. Liszt suggested that they should
play together on two pianos, an offer that was
enthusiastically accepted. It was a memorable
experience to hear such a pair. “ There’s no
doubt about it, we two play remarkably well
158﻿Franz Liszt
together,” said Liszt, and laughed heartily over
this self-praise. Then he turned to Saint-
Saens, and exclaimed : “ It is possible to be
as much of a musician as Saint-Saens ; it is
impossible to be more of one ! ”
The Emperor Napoleon and the Empress
Eugenie had heard of the Liszt evenings at
our house, and wanted to have the great
pianist as their guest. We were ordered to
take him to the Tuileries. The invitation
went out to him and to us in the form of
a little dinner-party. After dinner the Emperor
asked Liszt to play to him. Once more he gave
a rendering of my favourite “ Carita ” ; then
he played a charming waltz of Schubert’s,
which he called “ Backhandel,” but which,
I believe, is not known under that title. He
wound up with the Preghiera from Rossini’s
“ Moi'se.” At the end came a series of
powerful tremolos, and when it was over, the
Emperor said to him : “ How well you
imitate thunder ! ” This praise acted like an
unexpected douche of ice-cold water. The
chilling effect, however, was pleasantly counter-
acted next day, when the Emperor conferred
upon the artist, through my husband, the
Legion of Honour. Finally Count Walewski,
the Minister of Fine Arts at the time, ap-
proached us with the request that we should
persuade Liszt to let us take him to one of
his receptions. This was not such an easy
*59﻿The Days That Are No More
matter, and it needed all the arts of cajolery
to induce the great man to accept the offer.
Liszt was, of course, at once assailed with
entreaties to play, and I may proudly confess
that, if I had not pressed him so hard, not a
single note would have been heard from him
that evening. He was not merely out of
humour, but downright angry, and said to
me: “You’re putting the bear through his
paces ! ” Fortunately Mile. Viardot-Garcia,
the famous singer and incomparable artist—
for grandeur and style in singing, there was
no one but Lilli Lehmann who reminded me
of her—was present, and in her gracious way
she came to my rescue, by asking Liszt to
accompany her for the “ Erlkonig.” And so
it was that I gained my point and heard the
“ Erlkonig” sung by the Viardot with accom-
paniment by Liszt. It would be scarcely
possible to hear a finer, a more impressive,
combination.
Liszt left Paris, and we did not meet him
again until years later in Venice, and that,
too, in 1881. I was alone one evening, deep
in a book. The door opened and “ Herr Liszt ”
was announced. He came from Weimar,
where he had organised a musical and poetic
memorial celebration on behalf of the unfor-
gettable Marie Mouchanow (nee Nesselrode
and a niece of the celebrated Chancellor’s).
In a Grand-ducal summer-house, which he had
160﻿MARIE KALERGIS﻿﻿Franz Liszt
had decorated with flowers and plants, and in
the middle of which he had had a bust of the
dear departed set up, he performed, for the
benefit of her friends and admirers, the pieces
which she had been wont to play with such
rare skill, and ended with an “ Elegy ”
dedicated to her as a farewell greeting. After
speaking to me of Marie Kalergis, he added :
“ I know that you loved her. You ought to
have taken place in our memorial celebration.”
He went up to the piano, opened it, and on
that evening, which I spent alone with him,
he played more beautifully than I had ever
heard him play before. He must have sat
there for two hours, pouring forth the music
of the spheres. In some strange way he seemed
to have assimilated all that was characteristic
in the playing of our dearly beloved friend,
for from time to time he would say, half to
himself : “ That’s how she used to play Chopin ;
that’s how she used to render that phrase.”
When he took his leave, tears stood in his
eyes, and he said : “ Marie Mouchanow in
passing away has left a void that no one and
nothing can ever fill for me. I was deeply
attached to her. Life has lost much of its
savour for me now that she has gone.” Then
he held out both hands to me, said good-bye,
and added : “ I shan’t play any more—you
have heard me for the last time.” And, indeed,
I never heard him play again.
L
161﻿The Days That Are No More
From Paris he once sent me a beautifully
bound copy of the arrangement of “ Lohen-
grin ” for the pianoforte. On the front page
are inscribed the following words, written by
his own hand : “ Copy belonging to Madame
la Princesse de Metternich, as does her very
humble servant, F. Liszt.” Naturally I am
not a little proud of this twofold possession.
162﻿CHAPTER VI
MAITRE LACHAUD1
(Paris, 1862)
One evening I was standing in the middle
of the great drawing-room at the Foreign
Office and conversing with various people,
when the Foreign Minister, M. Rouher, came
up to us to take part in the conversation.
Rouher fairly scintillated with wit ; it was
a perennial joy to chat with him and to listen
to his sallies. He could talk upon any subject ;
he seemed to be interested in everything ; and
under his guidance every conversation became
fascinating. We began an animated talk, and
all sat down in a corner of the drawing-room.
The topic of wit came up for discussion. Of
course I could not resist telling Rouher, in
all sincerity, that in my opinion he was one of
the most witty and amusing men I had ever
met, to which he laughingly rejoined : “ If
you have such a good opinion of me, what
will you say of Lachaud ? ”	“ I don’t know
him,” I answered. (Lachaud was the most
1 In France, the title Maitre is applied to all barristers—
Translator’s Note.
i63﻿The Days That Are No More
famous counsel of the days of the Second
Empire.) Rouher jumped up and said : “ Then
I must introduce him to you. He is here,
and in order to show you how ready-witted
he is, I will do my best to put him out of
countenance, though I assure you it’s next to
impossible.” He went off, and a few moments
later reappeared with a stout gentleman, whose
ruddy complexion and staring eyes made him
no very attractive figure. He introduced me
to him with the words: “ Allow me, Princess,
to present to you the wittiest man in Paris.”
Lachaud, instead of getting embarrassed, as
anyone else would have done in his place,
started off at once like a rocket when the
signal is given to begin a firework display.
The rockets burst into dazzling sparks of wit
and brilliant ideas. We were speechless. How
did he come to think of all these things ?
How pleasantly he rattled on ; what stories
he told ! Bubbling over, yet never wearying
his listeners, stimulating, provocative of argu-
ment, so that he not only talked, but actually
put clever and appropriate answers into one’s
mouth. Never since then have I experienced
anything like it.
Later I often met Lachaud, once while
staying with the French Imperial Family at
Compiegne. I remember an incident which
caused universal merriment and which speaks
volumes for the shrewdness and cunning of
164,﻿Maltre Lachaud
the famous barrister. The Empress Eugenie,
in the evening, after dinner, liked to sit in
a drawing-room, gather round her a little
group of bright talkers, chiefly men drawn
from the most varied social strata, and chat
with them without constraint on all manner
of subjects. One evening I wanted to go
through the drawing-room in which her
Majesty usually sat when Lachaud appeared
in the opposite doorway. We were both about
to withdraw, when the Empress called us to
stay and sit down beside her. I remember
only one gentleman among three or four who
were there. This was the well-known Imperial
procureur (Public Prosecutor), Oscar de Vallee
—a very poetical name for so prosaic a person.
The Empress turned the conversation on to
the law-courts, and encouraged Lachaud to
speak of his experiences at the bar. She told
him how often she had admired his wonderful
speeches, how she envied his powers as an
orator, how splendid it must feel to convert
the judge and jury to express sympathy with
the prisoner, and so forth. “ Ah, your
Majesty,” said Lachaud, “ I play upon the
jury as another man plays upon the violin.”
“ And what about the judges ? ” interrupted
Oscar de Vallee. “I move them to tears,”
was Lachaud’s reply. The Public Prosecutor
grew quite heated at this and declared that
Lachaud’s finest oratorical efforts had never
i65﻿The Days That Are No More
moved him. “ I beg your pardon,” objected
Lachaud ; “ I did once see you with tears in
your eyes,” and he mentioned a speech of his
in defence of some criminal whose name I
forget. “ It wasn’t your magnificent speech
that affected me, Maitre Lachaud,” exclaimed
Oscar de Vallee, “but the unspeakable sorrow
and suffering of his poor old mother, who had
written a letter to you, one of the most touch-
ing I have ever read. Those lines, one may
say, breathed the inexhaustible fullness of
mother-love.” Then Lachaud got up from
his chair. “ And yet it was I, and I alone,
who moved you to tears, for I wrote the letter
myself. The old woman had long been dead.
I resurrected her for the purpose ! ”
On another occasion—it was at the time of
the sensational Troppmann murder case—we
were again at an evening reception at the
Foreign Office. Lachaud, who was Tropp-
mann’s counsel, clung firmly to his belief that
Troppmann had an accomplice, and that the
verdict must somehow be delayed until this
person could be discovered. He actually
managed to have the trial unduly prolonged.
My husband, who was greatly interested in
the case, came across Lachaud in one of the
reception-rooms, accosted him, and took him
over to a window-seat, where they entered
upon a long conversation undisturbed. When
they joined the guests again, everyone rushed
166﻿Maitre Lachaud
up to Richard with the question: “Well,
what did Lachaud tell you ? Has he hopes of
finding the accomplice ? Are they on his
trail ? ” and so on. Richard answered that
the murderer refused to name his associate,
that he would rather mount the scaffold than
commit such an act of treachery ; but that
Lachaud hoped to induce Troppmann to reveal
the truth. A few days later the trial ended,
and the verdict was given. Troppman was
found guilty without extenuating circum-
stances. After all, he had been the sole
culprit. When my husband, soon afterwards,
met Lachaud, he could not help asking him
with a smile : “ Well, what did you do with
the famous accomplice ? ” “ When I had that
long talk with you about Troppmann,” Lachaud
replied, “ I knew that he had no accomplice,
but I also knew that all the quidnuncs would
besiege you, in order to find out what I had
told you. Now if they hear that Lachaud has
told Prince Metternich that he is still con-
vinced of the existence of an accomplice, this
might in some way or other come to the ears
of the jury and influence them in favour of the
accused.” He added : “They’re such a stupid
lot! ”
167﻿CHAPTER VII
COUNT TAAFFE
[An amusing story of the forties. Dedicated to my friend,
Count Hans fVilczeki)
I may claim to be one of the few people left
to-day who—even if the recollection is a very
youthful one—knew the old Vienna of the
eighteen-forties, with its bastions, its city
moat, and its glacis, and who felt perfectly at
home among all these fortifications, and drove
in and out of the Karntnertor [CarinthianGate],
the Stubentor, and the Rotenturmtor every
day, and who lived on the bastions. The front
of my parents’ house was on the so-called
hydraulic bastion, and had a view of the water-
glacis, across the charming gardens of Arch-
duke Charles, situated opposite the city wall,
and still farther to the Haymarket Barracks
and the Schwarzenberg Palace. The back of
it lay on the Seilerstatte, opposite the entrance
to the Annagasse. I don’t know why I relate
all this, for it has nothing to do with the story
of Count Taaffe, but when I look back upon
my childhood’s days, when dear old Vienna is
x 68﻿Count Taafte
in question, I naturally feel inclined, like all
old people, to linger on the past, and to lose
no opportunity of acting up to that admirable
saw: “ Out of the full heart the mouth
speaketh.” The TaafFe story is an amusing
episode of the days of old Vienna towards the
end of the eighteen-forties, an episode which,
so I was told, set the whole city in a ferment
and whose upshot was received with universal
and well-deserved laughter. It was recounted
to me later by my mother in her witty and
graphic way, and I fancy I can still hear her
telling the story. So far as I remember, this
tragi-comic incident must have occurred in
the year 1846.
Count Taaffe, President of the Supreme
Court of Justice, was not merely a high-placed
official personage, but a gentleman of exalted
position in Court society. His wife, nee
Princess Brezenheim, was worthy of him in
every way, and the pair justly enjoyed the
honour and esteem that were their due. They
were, in fact, respected in the full sense of the
word. Count Taaffe was a man of stiff and
formal, but profound, courtesy. Any sort of
familiarity in intercourse with him seemed out
of the question. I recollect seeing him nearly
every day, between two and three o’clock, on
the bastion. He wore a wide-rimmed, so-
called Bolivar hat, a long broadcloth overcoat,
with coat and trousers to match, and a taffeta
169﻿The Days That Are No More
cravat, without white edging, wound twice
round his neck. As he stalked past, he seemed
to embody the law in all its inexorable stern-
ness. Yet ordinary mortals dared to play a
joke upon him.
One day, when he was returning from his
constitutional, he saw standing in front of his
house, which was in the Lowenstrasse, several
vans, from which furniture, lamps, carpets,
and festoons (then made of paper, as the
elaborate floral decorations were then entirely
unknown) were being unloaded. As he passed
through the gateway he asked the porter what
a number of workmen, with their parapher-
nalia, were doing at his house ?	“ Please, your
lordship,” was the answer, “ they have been
ordered to decorate the footpath and the draw-
ing-rooms for to-morrow’s soiree.” “ What ! ”
cried the Count, greatly annoyed, “ I know
nothing of any soiree ; send them all to the
devil. It must be a mistake. I suppose some-
one has given them a wrong address.” After
much wrangling, workmen and vans were sent
about their business.
Next day, early in the morning, when the
Count’s valet entered his master’s room, he
respectfully informed him that there was a
violent altercation going on in front of the
house and in the courtyard, because of the
appearance of twelve vans with baths from
various bathing-establishments, the drivers all
170﻿Count Taafte
declaring that they had been ordered to take
them to his Excellency’s. “ Send them all
away,” said the Count to his man. “ I haven’t
ordered anything of the kind. What’s this
newfangled style—tradesmen pushing their way
into houses and saying that orders have been
given them ? ”
Twenty-four hours elapsed, and then, next
morning, the same luckless valet appeared in
fear and trembling before his master and
respectfully informed him that two dozen
chiropodists were assembled in the ante-
chamber. They were making a terrific din,
each one maintaining that he had the right to
be admitted first, and flourishing the letter in
which the hour of the appointment was stated,
together with a reminder to be punctual. The
horrified servant added: “ Beg pardon, your
Excellency ; they’re already beginning to
come to blows, and have threatened to give
me a hiding ! ” Naturally, Count Taaffe was
furious, and declared that he would take drastic
steps to put an end to these scandalous pro-
ceedings. Strict orders were issued to the
porter that, on pain of dismissal, he was not to
let in anyone whose appointment had not been
notified by his master on the previous
day.
So the fourth day passed without incident.
No one had ventured to approach the palace
in the Lowenstrasse, and the usual solemn calm
171﻿The Days That Are No More
prevailed. Screened by the high bastion wall,
the house seemed like a bulwark against any
dangerous assault ; for they were beginning to
be prepared for the worst. On the fifth day
—a Sunday—profound calm reigned again, and
the inmates began to breathe freely. At five
o’clock in the afternoon the customary little
family dinner was to take place, in its entirely
informal style. Just as the family were about
to sit down to dinner, two rings at the bell
were heard from the porter’s lodge. All
looked at each other, and the question was
asked : “ Who can that be ? A lady, too ;
and we’re all here ; there’s no one missing.”
Then the much-enduring footman, his knees
knocking together, burst into the room, flung
open the folding doors, and called out the
names of Prince and Princess Schwarzenberg.
A moment later there was another ring at the
bell, then another, guests appeared, name after
name was announced : Prince and Princess
Lobkowitz, Prince and Princess Auersperg,
Prince and Princess Windisch-Graetz, and
so it went on endlessly, Counts and Excel-
lencies, and last of all came the names of
Prince and Princess Liechtenstein, the aristo-
cratic beauty and splendour of the Princess,
glittering with diamonds, adding the crown-
ing touch to the universal amazement and
confusion.
The master and mistress of the house, the
172﻿COUNT LOUIS TAAFFE﻿﻿Count Taafte
other members of the family, and the un-
invited guests were completely nonplussed.
All looked at each other without uttering a
word. The visitors, of course, soon realised
that some inexplicable mistake had been made,
and offered their hearty apologies, but Count
Taaffe and his wife already suspected, in the
midst of all their shame, indignation, and
embarrassment, that another rascally trick had
been played. The question again presented
itself, how could all these people have been
led astray ? The explanation was that printed
invitation cards for a dinner had been sent
out. When some sixty Society people had
received these, it was known that a big dinner
was to be given at Count Taaffe’s, and all had
appeared in full evening dress. The master
and mistress of the house did their best to
explain the disgraceful business, and the poor
mystified guests had to withdraw, dinnerless.
It was no easy matter, what with the ordering
of carriages and all the rest of it. Prince
Liechtenstein, well known as an attentive hus-
band, was terribly distressed at the idea that
his wife would get nothing to eat—he was
sure they would have nothing at home ; and
in those days there was no Hotel Sacher, or
Bristol.
When all had left, Count Taaffe burst into
a tremendous rage, and gave orders that the
Chief of Police, Count Sedlnitzky, was to be
173﻿The Days That Are No More
requested to come and see him at once, as he
had a most important communication to make.
The official hurried along, and was highly
indignant when he heard the tale of all these
scandalous proceedings and of the mischief
that had been plotted against the President of
the Supreme Court of Justice. He promised
without delay to take all steps to see that no
further trouble of the kind should arise. “ It
would be unfortunate indeed,” he declared,
“ if we could not at once put a stop to such
unseemly behaviour and bring these mis-
demeanours home to the culprits : all shall
be done to spare your Excellency further
annoyance.”
Nevertheless, the Taaffe household looked
forward with some misgivings to the follow-
ing day : but calm was restored when they
saw that the police had the matter well in
hand, and that the house was carefully
watched. At two o’clock in the afternoon,
Count Taaffe, as usual, went for his daily
walk. The Countess called out to her hus-
band : “Well, to-day, at last, we are in
peace—we really ought to be thankful to
Sedlnitzky. Hope you’ll enjoy your walk ! ”
The valet ventured to remind his Excellency
not to forget to buy a black silk cravat that
he urgently needed. He strolled from the
Lowenstrasse to the Vegetable Market, stood
for a while in front of a small haberdasher’s
i74﻿Count Taaffe
shop, and then went in. “ And what may
your Grace require ? ” “I want a black
silk cravat, similar to the one I am wearing,
to go twice round my neck.” The article
was brought and the customer was pleased
with it. “ Send on the cravat to me to-day,”
said the Count, “ I have no money on me—
you will be paid on delivery.” “ Where shall
we send it, please ? ” “ Count Taaffe, Lowen-
strasse.” With a yell the whole staff jumped
up and repeated the query : “To whom?” “To
Count Taaffe.” The shopman and his wife
shouted to the assistants: “ ‘ Taaffe ! ’ Knock
his hat in—the impostor, the swindler—now
we’ve got him—give it to him—Police ! ” Then
some went into the street, and roared “ Police!”
A policeman came running up, and upon
being told whom they had caught, joined in
thrashing the luckless Count, who vainly tried
to defend himself, and finally collapsed into
a chair, groaning: “But I am Count Taaffe!”
The shopman shouted angrily: “ Oh, yes!
he’s impudent as well, the scoundrel ! ” The
policeman snatched the hat from the head of
the poor Count, who was nearly choking, and
exclaimed in horror : “ Good Lord, it is his
Excellency ! Are you all crazy ? ” More
dead than alive, the victim of an admirably
conceived and conscientiously executed police
order was lifted into a passing cab and taken
to the Lowenstrasse in a sorry plight. So the
i75﻿The Days That Are No More
letter of the law had been observed—but
unfortunately its heavy hand had fallen on
the highest representative of earthly justice !
Dura lex sed lex.1
1 The law is hard, but it is the law.—Translator’s
Note.
176﻿CHAPTER VIII
DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME, THE SPIRITUALIST
(1863)
Who has not heard of the famous spiritualist,
Daniel Home ? I believe he was one of the
first to hold seances ; at any rate I cannot
remember having heard of anyone who prac-
tised spiritualism as a profession, so to speak,
before he did. True, table-rapping was already
in vogue. A number of people used to gather
round a table and establish “ contact ” from
one hand to the next. Sometimes a brief
tapping was heard ; the pencils in the hands
of the “ medium ” began to dance on the
paper, and to scribble what were alleged to be
words, although I never managed to decipher
them. But that was about all. One day there
was announced in Paris the arrival of a noted
spiritualist, a man who disdained the parlour
tricks performed by ordinary mortals, one who
professed to belong to the select company
of “ great mediums,” and in all seriousness
promised to bring those who took an interest
in the subject into communication with the
host of spirits floating through space. This
M	177﻿The Days That Are No More
man came from America, and was named
Daniel Dunglas Home. As he knew that the
Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie
took an interest in the supernatural, he sought,
and obtained, the honour of being allowed to
introduce himself to their Majesties, and to
“ bring them into communication ”—such was
the term he applied to the intercourse between
the living and the spirits, or, as he called them,
“ the departed.” Nothing in the world would
have induced him to speak or allow others to
speak of “the dead.” “ We do not die,” he
would constantly repeat ; “ we merely with-
draw from this world.”
The seances in the Tuileries created a great
sensation, and the Emperor and Empress, as
well as their entourage, never ceased to wonder
at the phenomena they were privileged to
witness. When, as is usual in spring, the
carpets were removed, huge pieces of furniture,
which six men could lift only with difficulty,
began to rock, armchairs and other chairs
flew from one end of the room to the other,
as if driven by a hurricane ; the cut-glass of
the chandeliers started tinkling, on all sides
knocking was heard—in fact, it was a regular
witches’ sabbath. The Emperor had sent for
eminent professors to investigate whether these
phenomena had been caused by electricity
or any other motive power. The men of
science could not find any such explanation,
178﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
and, although they were entirely sceptical,
they confessed themselves baffled by what
they saw with their own eyes. As may well
be imagined, the seances and experiments in
the Tuileries had aroused widespread curiosity,
and everyone wanted to see Home. He lived
in such style that it was impossible to send for
him as if he had been some professional enter-
tainer. One had to approach him through
the agency of a third person, who would
obtain from him permission to admit this or
that acquaintance to the seance he had organ-
ised. In this way Prince Joachim Murat, one
of our friends, arranged for a seance in which
we were to take part. It was held at the
house of M. and Mme. Jauvin d’Attainville,
who lived in the Rue de la Paix, at the place,
in these latter years, occupied by the famous
milliner, Caroline Reboux.
Mme. Jauvin d’Attainville, who was very
religious and did not feel drawn towards
Home’s experiments—looking on them rather
as a sort of black magic—was at first un-
willing to receive the spiritualist at her house.
She could only be persuaded to alter her
decision by being assured that Home, far
from being an unbeliever, prided himself
on being a good Christian ; nay, a good
Catholic, asserting that once, being in love
with a Russian lady (she was a Princess, but
I cannot recall her name) and intending to
179﻿The Days That Are No More
marry her, he insisted on her becoming con-
verted to the Catholic faith, a request with
which she complied. She died, and after she
had received the last Sacrament, she said in
clear tones: “ I swear by the Sacred Host,
which has just been handed to me as my last
earthly food, that all my husband does and
says is the pure and unvarnished truth.”
She was consumptive, and during the last
two years of her life she saw—or fancied she
saw—a woman, who, wearing a long white
veil, appeared every day at her bedside and
pointed to her veil, which was constantly
growing shorter. The woman said to her :
“ When the veil reaches no lower than my
face, your death is near. On the day when you
see my face, you will draw your last breath ! ”
When the dying woman had sworn the oath
upon the Host, she remained silent for a few
moments ; then tried to rise, opened her eyes
wide, and, as a blissful smile spread over her
features, cried out: “Ah! now I see her !”
and passed away. All this was recounted in
these very words by the priests who were
with her in her last moments. I make no
comment. I merely repeat what trustworthy
persons have often told me.
I will now return to the seance at M. and
Mme. Jauvin d’Attainville’s house. The
room was very spacious, comfortably and even
richly furnished, and as brightly lit as if it
180﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
had been day. I lay stress upon this point,
and may add that during the whole seance
the chandeliers and lamps were in full blaze.
Nothing could escape our eyes. The party
numbered some fifteen persons. When we
arrived at an early hour, about a quarter past
nine, Mr. Home was not present. Mme.
Jauvin seemed to be rather excited, and be-
trayed her nervousness by saying with a smile
that it was possible that the spirits would
not answer the call of their comrade or earthly
friend. Half incredulous, yet not quite at
ease, inclined to be angry, and at the same
time disposed to treat the matter as a joke,
she went on talking in this strain. Then the
door opened, and at Prince Murat’s side we
beheld the mysterious, long-awaited hero of
the day, the man who inspired fear and un-
easiness alike, Dunglas Home. Prince Murat
introduced him to Mme. Jauvin, then to us
others, and I had leisure to examine him
closely. He may have been (in 1863) thirty-
six, and cannot have been more than forty.
Fairly tall, slim, well-built, in his dress-suit
and white tie he looked like a “gentleman”
of the highest social standing. His face
was attractive in its expression of gentle
melancholy. He was very pale, with light
china-blue eyes—they were not piercing ;
rather were they inclined to be sleepy—
reddish hair, thick and abundant, but not
181﻿The Days That Are No More
inordinately long, no pianist’s or violin-
player’s “ mop ” ; in short, he was of pleasing
appearance, with nothing striking about him
except, perhaps, the pallor of his complexion,
which, however, seemed natural from its con-
trast with his red hair and beard. Home’s
features reminded one of a certain portrait
of Vandyke’s in the Liechtenstein Gallery in
Vienna, which, if I am not mistaken, is sup-
posed to be a portrait of Wallenstein.
We took our seats, accordingly, in no
prescribed order, at a round table, on which
lay a cloth. Nothing had been prepared—
it was the table round which the family was
always wont to assemble, and which stood in
the same place as always. Some sat close
to it, the others a little farther away—each
as he or she pleased. Home sat in an arm-
chair some three or four yards from the table,
so that any contact between him and the
table was out of the question. “ I don’t
know,” he said, in a muffled voice, “ whether
they are there yet; in fact, whether they will
come at all.” These words made us women-
folk shiver. They, the spirits ! Home rested
his head on the back of the chair and closed
his eyes ... he grew paler and paler. “ The
trance is beginning,” whispered Prince Murat,
in English. Suddenly Home uttered an
English name—Bryan—and asked : “ Bryan,
are you there ? ” At the same moment, from
182﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
the direction of the table, came the sound of
two short, sharp taps in quick succession, and
with such a peculiar rhythm that I fancy I
can still hear them to-day. “ Bryan nearly
always comes when I call him ; he was my
best friend,” exclaimed Home. And at once
the lustres of the chandeliers began to move,
and from the back of the room a chair came,
as if propelled by an irresistible force, and
suddenly stopped in front of us. Home re-
mained in his seat without moving a muscle.
Suddenly he exclaimed : “ They are here.
They’re all round us. They will reveal them-
selves, and everyone of you will be convinced
of their presence.” At the same instant I
had a feeling as if an iron hand was gripping
my knuckles. I uttered a scream ! Others
felt that iron grasp on the nape of their
necks, others on their arms ; but it did not
cause the slightest pain. One detects the
pressure of the fingers, of each individual
finger ; but one must have been through the
experience to realise what it means.
Then the table-cover was gently raised, and
we saw something underneath move towards
us, like hands under a cloth. Instinctively I
shrank back : the gentlemen, and my husband
too, caught hold of these hands and clasped
them firmly so as not to let them slip away ;
but one after the other, despite all efforts,
felt that the object he tried to seize was
i83﻿The Days That Are No More
melting away, as it were, beneath his fingers.
They lifted the cloth as quickly as possible, to
see if there was any conjuring trick involved.
With all their searching—some had even
crawled under the table, in order to keep
watch there—they found nothing. Home
did not move, and merely looked at them
with indifference. After a few minutes the
gentlemen came up from under the table and
resumed their seats. Hardly had they done
so before taps, repeated at brief intervals,
sounded out of the table—I say deliberately
“ out of the table,” for that was the impression
we had. One might have imagined that
someone was sitting under the table and
making these sharp taps. My husband could
stand it no longer ; he declared that he was
going to instal himself under the table, so as
to discover how these taps, apparently coming
from below, were worked. Hardly had he
done so ere he exclaimed : “ Don’t rap on the
table from above—no jokes, if you please! ”
We had to tell him that none of us had made
any movement, and that we had heard the
knocking come from below, just as before.
For a moment all present were speechless—
we could make nothing of the business. My
husband emerged from his hiding-place, and
the experiments proceeded. Suddenly Home,
as white as a sheet, exclaimed : “ The spirits
are all round us. One is quite near you.﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
You surely feel it, like a light breath ? ” And
one and all actually had the feeling of a breath
playing round our shoulders and hair. The
men, who were uncompromisingly sceptical,
could only admit that they were conscious
of it, just as we women were.
At this point, Home, who was now in
complete “trance,” exclaimed:	“There is
one approaching the piano. I’ll ask him to
bring you the bunch of violets that one of
you has left lying there.” His head sank
back on the top of the armchair, and at the
same moment we saw the bunch of violets
glide over the smooth surface, rise, and un-
steadily traverse the empty space that lay
between the piano and the table, until at last
it fell into my lap. My husband seized it
in order to see if he could discover a thread
or a hair to which it might have been fastened.
He found nothing, and handed it back to me,
slightly disappointed. He did not know what
to make of it.
Finally Home asked, in a very faint voice,
if we had a harmonica, a so-called melophone,
an instrument that one holds on one’s knees
and, working the bellows with the left hand,
plays with the right, the keys being similar
to those of the piano. Home added that the
conditions that day were so favourable that
it might be feasible to make them play.
“ They will want to play ; perhaps they will
185﻿The Days That Are No More
be able to do so,” he said. They, of course,
were again the spirits. Two of our friends
offered to go to a music-shop on the Boule-
vard and get a harmonica in accordance with
the wishes of the spirits. The suggestion was
heartily approved., and the pair quickly went
off on their errand. Meanwhile, Home had
risen with some difficulty from his armchair
and had come over to where we were sitting.
The lustres of the chandeliers kept on tink-
ling, on all sides we heard tapping on the
furniture and panels of the walls, but neither
the medium nor we others any longer took
notice of these portents.
Home asked me whether I did not find
this communication with the spirits agreeable.
I answered frankly : “ I prefer to communi-
cate with the living.” “ For all that,” he
rejoined, “ there is something comforting about
it, for nothing more is needed to convince
unbelievers that the soul is immortal.” “ As
I am convinced of that in any case,” I said,
“ I see no necessity for living with the dead ! ”
Home laid a warning finger on my mouth,
and added softly: “You must not speak of
the dead—there are no dead. There are only
those who have vanished from our ken, dis-
appeared from our earthly vision. They live,
just as you and I do, but in other spheres.
Of such a one we must say that he has
departed, not that he is dead.”
186﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
In these alleged spirit revelations (whether
they really were that, or whether it was a
matter of conjuring-tricks, I feel unable either
to affirm or to deny) Home saw irrefutable
proof of an after-life, and seemed very in-
dignant when anyone stigmatised them as
varieties of black magic. He showed a great
reverence for the Holy Father—then Pius IX.
—and from time to time went to Rome to pay
his respects to the Pope. The latter set his
face against spiritualism, and it was said that
he had earnestly recommended Home to
give up his dealings with the spirit-world.
Home, however, had assured his Holiness
that the revelations were entirely independent
of his will; he himself was tired of them,
and wished that they would not manifest
themselves so often. Where does the truth
lie ?
Father Ravignan, one of the most famous
priests and preachers of the day in Paris, knew
Home very well, and was earnestly convinced
that the man acted in all good faith. But
he was no friend of spiritualism, and did his
best to wean Home from these practices.
To go back to the seance. Our friends
had meanwhile returned from their mission,
bearing the melophone like a trophy of
victory. Home asked me to take it in one
hand and hold it high above my head, stand-
ing alone in the centre of the room. I in-
187﻿The Days That Are No More
serted my right hand in the strap by which
the bellows were attached to the instrument,
and waited. Suddenly I felt a tug at the
melophone, as if someone were trying to work
the bellows. Dumbfounded, I suddenly heard,
as did all others present, a sound of marvellous
playing, so soft and melodious that one would
have said it was celestial music. The excite-
ment had reached its highest pitch. As the
notes that rang out from this apparently be-
witched instrument were, or seemed to be,
supernatural, many of us had tears in our eyes.
Seldom will such tones be heard again. With
this musical performance Home’s seance at
Mme. Jauvin d’Attainville’s came to an end.
The spirits seemed to be worn out.
People who never attended any of Home’s
seances have maintained that the so-called
spirit hands were really the medium’s feet.
But I ask how it would be possible for a man
sitting by himself in an armchair, three or
four yards from the table, and within full view
of the whole company, to do such things with
his feet. This theory will not hold water.
That Home may have been a wonderful
conjurer, I will admit; that he was an un-
rivalled hypnotist is not impossible ; but what
I roundly deny is that any of us had any
feeling that we had been hypnotised, or that
any of the customary processes of hypnotism
had been applied to us. The drawing-room,
188﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
as I have said, was as brightly lit as if it were
day, and was never darkened for a single
moment. All that I have recounted took
place in the simplest fashion, without any
preparation. No one was nervous or unduly
excited. The ladies uttered little screams,
indeed, when the “ spirit hands ” touched
them or the “ breath ” grazed their shoulders—
that was all. When the seance was over
Mme. Jauvin d’Attainville invited the guests
to take tea in the dining-room, and Home sat
down at the same table as the rest of us to
restore his energies with a little tea. His
pallor had vanished, and his face had resumed
its normal colour.
A few days later we were invited to the
Tuileries to a private seance, given by Home
in the Empress’s rooms. It was held between
five and six o’clock. I confess that I found it
much less interesting than the one Mme.
Jauvin d’Attainville had provided for us. The
spirits did not seem to be in the right mood.
When in the gardens of the Tuileries the
customary tattoo was played by a regiment
that was marching through, a table began to
knock in the same time and accompanied the
drums in a muffled tone. This was curious,
but rather childish. On the other hand, there
was one phenomenon that struck me then, one
of which no one, not even any professor of
physics, has ever been able to give me an
189﻿The Days That Are No More
explanation. On the little table that had just
played the drum so prettily, there stood a
candlestick with a lighted candle. The table
began to move, to rise, to dance, then to lean
so far forward that under ordinary circum-
stances anything placed upon it would in-
evitably have fallen off. But what happened ?
Not only did the candlestick not fall off, but
the flame, instead of continuing to burn per-
pendicularly—as, of course, normally happens
when one holds a candle at a slant—leant over
at the same angle as the candle and the table.
Let him explain this marvel who can !
Home assured the Empress that he was not
in a condition to establish the desired com-
munication with the spirit-world, and that
there were days on which the revelations
could hardly be obtained at all : on such days
one might fancy that they were angry with
him or making fun of him—in a word, the
seance was a failure.
One day Mr. Home was announced at my
house. I admit that I felt slightly un-
comfortable at the thought of sitting opposite
him alone, and I was on the point of sending
word that I was engaged, when a sense of
shame at my cowardice came over me, and I
told the servant to ask him in. I offered him
a seat opposite me, and we began to chat,
when close by me, a peculiar noise, like that
of big plashing drops, began to fall upon my
190﻿Daniel Dunglas Home, Spiritualist
ear. I pretended at first not to notice it, and
Home went on talking, quite unconcerned.
At last, however, the noise grew so loud that
I could not resist turning my head to the
right, towards the place from which it seemed
to come. The expression of obvious un-
easiness with which I looked at my visitor
made him smile. “ Oh, it’s nothing ! ” he
said. “ That’s one of them quite near you.
This happens nearly always when I am about
the place ; they follow me everywhere ; they
seldom leave me alone entirely. If my little
son is there, they’re more active than ever.
The manifestations are then unusually vigorous.
If you like, Princess, I’ll bring the boy with
me one day ; he’s three years old. I’ll let
him stay alone with you. You will be
astonished and—convinced. For you will
have to acknowledge that a child of that age
can't do conjuring tricks, especially without
any preparation.” I thanked Mr. Home
warmly for his proposal, but told him, without
beating about the bush, that I should certainly
be afraid to be left alone with a child who
was always attended by spirits.
“ One mustn’t be afraid of them” he pro-
tested ; “ it distresses them if one is.” And
with these words he took his leave. In my
collection of autographs I have preserved a
letter from him, and I have often felt tempted
to lay it before me on the table and ask aloud :
191﻿The Days That Are No More
“Bryan, are you there?” Frankly, I have
never had the courage to do so.
When I tell my friends what I have written
here about the famous spiritualist, they usually
declare that all I thought I saw existed only
in my imagination, and that I was actually in
a hypnotic state. They may be right ; but,
if so, it is remarkable that I was never con-
scious of the fact ; that I never for a moment
felt as if I were waking up from a dream-like
condition ; and that my husband—one of the
most clear-headed of men and as inaccessible
to the teachings of occultism as anyone could
be—saw all that I did, and described it in
much the same words that I have used.
Home has long since gone over to the
great company of those whom he called “ the
departed.” Was he a man who could call up
spirits, or was he a mere conjurer, mountebank,
or mesmerist ? I do not care to say definitely
either the one thing or the other. I only
know that both my husband and I always had
the impression that we were being shown
some wonderful and inexplicable feats of
legerdemain, a view that was shared by the
Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress
Eugenie.
THE END.
Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.﻿﻿﻿﻿