Secret Memoirs
THE COURT OF ROYAL SAXONY
1891-1902
This edition, printed on Japanese vellum paper,is limited to two hundred and fifty copies.
No. ________
LOUISE, EX-CROWN-PRINCESS OF SAXONYPhoto taken shortly before her flight from Dresden
THE STORY OF LOUISECROWN PRINCESS
FROM THE PAGES OF HER DIARY, LOST AT THE TIME OFHER ELOPEMENT FROM DRESDEN WITHM. ANDRÉ ("RICHARD") GIRON
BY
HENRY W. FISCHER
Author of "Private Lives of William II and His Consort,""Secret History of the Court of Berlin," etc., etc.
Illustrated from Photographs
BENSONHURST, NEW YORKFISCHER'S FOREIGN LETTERS, INC.PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1912
By HENRY W. FISCHER
Copyright, 1912, applied for by Henry W. Fischer in Great Britain
Copyright, 1912, by Henry W. Fischer, in Germany, France, Austria,
Switzerland, and all foreign countries having international copyright
arrangements with the United States
[All rights reserved, including those of translation]
[Pg i]
EDITOR'S CARD
This is to certify that the Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony,now called Countess Montiguoso, Madame Toselliby her married name, is in no way, either directly or indirectly,interested in this publication.
There has been no communication of whatever nature,directly or through a third party, between this lady andthe editor or publishers. In fact, the publication will beas much a surprise to her as to the general public.
The Royal Court of Saxony, therefore, has no rightto claim, on the ground of this publication, that PrincessLouise violated her agreement with that court as set forthin the chapter on the Kith and Kin of the ex-CrownPrincess of Saxony, under the heads of "Louise's Alimonyand Conditions" and "Allowance Raised and a FurtherThreat."
Henry W. Fischer, Editor.
Fischer's Foreign Letters, Publishers
[Pg ii-iii]
THIS BOOK AND ITS PURPOSE
By Henry W. Fischer
Of Memoirs that are truly faithful records of royallives, we have a few; the late Queen Victoria led the smallnumber of crowned autobiographists only to discourage thereading of self-satisfied royal ego-portrayals forever, but inthe Story of Louise of Saxony we have the main life epochof a Cyprian Royal, who had no inducement to say anythingfalse and is not afraid to say anything true.
For the Saxon Louise wrote not to guide the hand offuture official historiographers, or to make virtue distastefulto some sixty odd grand-children, bored to death by therecital of the late "Mrs. John Brown's" sublime goodness:—Louisewrote for her own amusement, even as Pepys didwhen he diarized the peccadilloes of the Second Charles'English and French "hures" (which is the estimate theseladies put upon themselves).[1]
The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony suffered much inher youth by a narrow-minded, bigoted mother, a Sadistlike the monstrous Torquemada; marriage, sh