Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1890 — SORROWS IN PALACES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SORROWS IN PALACES.

The Death of Empress Augusta Recalls Princess Rads; will's Romanes. How Wilhelm’s Xove Tor the Polish Princess Was Discovered and Forbidden—Her Sorrowful Fate—A Double Marriage do Covenasee Augusta’s Youth at Weimar. ' At the royal palace in Berlin on Jac. 4th of the current year, occurred the death of the Dowager Empress Augusta. All day the bedside of the aged empress was a scene of sorrow, and Emperor William, Crowu Prince William, Prince Frederick, the grand duke and duchess of Baden were with her until the moment of dissolution, when the lowering of the imperial (flag of the palace told the great crowds which had gathered in the Unter den Liuden that the grand old empress had passed away. Few women in Europe have had a career at once so eventful and romantic as that of Augusta, writes Baron Yon M. from Burlin. She was the daughter of Charles Frederick, grand duke of Saxe-Weimer, and was born in 1811. at a period when that famous court was the most distinguished in Europe for its culture and art. and when the presence of Goethe, Schiller and a host of other bright intellects made it the literary center of the age. Wolfgang von Goethe, the prime minister, was then a,l most at the zenith of his fame. Among his poems i 9 one

dedicated “To the Princess Augusta.” With such surroundings, the youthful princess grew tip a clever, studious girl, but with a strongly romantic strain, which her parents carefully strove to subdue. She had no pet accomplishment like the Emperor Frederick, who is both painter and sculptor, or like the talented queen of Roumania, who has redeemed the reproach that royality is almost incapable of literary effort; but her appreciation of art and letters was keen and early developed. It had been the life task of her grandfather, Duke Carl August, to make Weimar a center of culture and fashion. If there was, as some have declared, a hidden romance in the life of the dis-tinguished-looking but not beautiful girl whom Prince William of Prussia met in the gardens of the grand duke of Weimar when he visited that court in 1825, there was an equally dramatic episode in the prince’s career which was not concealed. The tall and soldierly Prussian, about two years before meeting Augusta, had fallen violently in love with the Princess Radziwfll, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of a nobleman whose family emigrated from Poland to Prussia 200 years before. Emperor Frederich William 111, on being told of this adventure on the purt-af his. son -and the princess, instantly forbade their furthor companionship. Attempts at clandestine meetings were frustrated and the princess afterward died, it was believed from a broken heart This episode cast a gloom over Prince William’s life, and when the formal announcement of his betrothal to Augusta was made it was an open secret at Berlin and Weimar that the union to follow would be loveless, and one of interest and convenience merely. Very old residents in Berlin still recall the interest that was felt in the simultaneons annuncement of the approaching marriage of the brothers, Princes William and Carl, to the sisters Augusta and Elizabeth of SaxeWeimar. Prinoe Carl, the younger brother of Emperor Wilhelm, was the father of the “Red Prince,” Albrecht. When the bride came to the capitol in 1829 there was a season of rejoicing, and Augusta at once became a favorite in Berlin society, securing a popularity whioh was increased by her activity and amiability after she became empress.

There is &n artistic and historic interest surrounding the little palace on the Unter den Linden, in which Wilhelm and August* passed their married lives, the late Kaiser used to point out to his friends a certain panel that played a pan in the harrassing "It was at the time when I had to fiy to England," he said. The mob took possession of'the building and some one wrote in ehalk upon the

panel the word*: «TM* 1* aaftami property, ’’ in large letters across it When matters had quieted down and we had returned, it remained us noticed for three days. Then it Wh* effaced. Ifc was like rubbing out the last vestige?, of the revolution.”

In the kaiseri n’s suite overhead ia the little concert-room, with a seating capacity of less than fifty persons, in which the most famous opera singers, musicians and actors of the past fifty years have rehearsed before royal audiences. Augusta was the most consistent of princesses in her unwavering patronage of the drama and her Thursday receptions were famous. They generally began with a comedy, an operatta or one act of an opera, players being without costumes and occupying a little improvised stage from which they delivered their lines very much after the manner of recitations. Occasionally the leading actors and actresses of the German theaters, and even those of the Theater Francais. would occupy the little stage by invitation, having been brought to Berlin by special train for that purpose. It would be a day of delight in the litte palace when the empress announced that M. Faure, the celebrated singer, the divine Patti, Lucca or Nilsson would appear. On such occasions the concert room was always filled to overflowing. No scenery was used, but at such times costumes were worn hy the performers appropriate to the play. There was no orchestra, but the presence of the famous Meyerbeer, who never failed to respond to the empress’ call and who was for fhany years her favorite conductor, was ample compensation for the lack of other instruments than the grand piano at which the maestro presided. Of late years the concert room has been silent With the old empress’ last illness all festivities at the palace were discontinued. Almost within a year death has robbed Augusta of her husband, son and grandson, and these domestic afflictions tried her sorely. She became a recluse and found pleasure only in her books and her religion. She read and spoke German, English, French, Italian and Russian with equal facility. Although a protestant, she entertained extremely liberal views regarding Catholics. Her summers were passed at Coblentz-on-the-Rhine, the very center of German Catholicism. In the gallery of the great palace ol the Schloss, among other portraits ol the royal Hohenzollerns, is one of the mother-in-law of the late dowager empress, Queen Louise of Prussia, the wife of Friedrich Wilhelm 111. The face is one of remarkable sweetness,

and the portrait is venerated as being that of the guardian angel of the house of Hohenzollern. Louise was the poetic and patriotic ideal of the Germans during the war against Napoleon. Near by is the portrait of Augusta in reception dress, and at a period when she was in the prime ol her beauty and one of the handsomest women in the empire, with a regal aspect and magnificent shoulders. Her Russian descent then, more distinctly than in her later years, coqld be traced in the strongly-marked profile. Her mother, the grand duchess of Saxe-Weimar, was the Princess Marie, a daughter of the Emperor Paul of Russia. The ex-Empress Victoria, daughter of the queen of England, has characteristically German features, and so also has the present empress, Victoria Augusta. The palace in which the dowager empress died is on one of the prominent corners of the Unter den Linden, about five squares distant from the Schloss. Fronting its windows is the heroic statue of Frederick the Great, and almost opposite-are the Royal opera house aud Royal library.

EMPRESS AUGUSTA.

EMPRESS AUGUSTA VICTORIA.

EMPRESS FREDERICK.

QUEEN LOUISE.