Evening star., 1901-05-11
Dowager Empress of Germany Most
Unhappy Woman.
DYING, ALONE And DESERTED
Gloomy Evening of a Life Which
Dawned So Brightly.
INDOMITABLE
Written for The Evening Star.

|
Every now and then one sees i'm the morn
| ing papers telegram dated from Berlin or
| from Frankfort-on- Main announcing the
| speedily approaching death of the Dowager
Empress of Germany. For many months
| the wife of Frederick the Noble" and
mother of the present kaiser has been given
| up periodically by the doctors. Cancer IS
| slowly destroying her; any day II may touch
| vital part. She is as much under sentence
| of death as a condemned murderer. but she
| has resource that the murderer has
not. She can and does every day stave of
| her death by the exercise of her indomitabe
| resolution. An English doctor who recently
assisted for a brief period the regular ply
sician to her imperial majesty's court said
| recently at a medical congress in Paris:
| The dowager empress ought TO have died
| months ago; but even death cannot pierce
| at one stroke through the defense of her
| granite will: he has to bore slowly to get at
| the citadel of that life"
This empress with the formidable will is
| one of the most unhappy women in the
| world She clings desperately to life. but
| her heart was broken long ago. and her
| last days are stepped In bitterness. Her
whole career has been a brilliant misery
| Now that she is dying slowly-a widow, an
| abandoned mother and an ex-Soyereign de-
| tested by the people she tried faithfully to
| serve--she may well have said, as Is re-
ported:
| Il mean to live long as / can: but
| when I die, no one will be sorry. least of all
| myself"
Cause of All Her Misery.
| This iron WILL which keeps her alive now,
has been directly and indirectly the cause
| of all her misery. No doubt it came to her
| from her mot ther. the late Queen of Eng
land. Anyhow. it is certain that very early
| in life the present Dowager Empress Fred
erick of Germany. then Princess Victoria.
| Princess Royal of England. came often
/ into conflict with her mother. When she
| was only six years old she dared to oppose
the will of her queen mother. Queen Vic
| toria, the Prince ConSort Albert the prin-
cess royal and the present King of England
| We're present in state at a review at Alder
| shot. the military camp near London. A
| brilliant cavalcade of officers galloped by
| the side of the stage coach as royal guards.
| The little princess dropped her handker-
chief to the ground for the pride of seeing
! field marShalS and generals pulling up their
horses and dismountipg to restore the Oh
! ject. The queen observed the incident and
| sternly motioned to the officers not to graf
| ify the tiny tyrant. Then she stopped the
carriage and turned to the princess:
| Get out, my child, and pick up your
| handkerchief" The little girl refused.
Mamma, can't: I'd be ashamed
The queen insisted. the prince consort en-
| treated, but the princess pouted, blushed
and refused this time fatty.
| 81 won't"
| Her majesty had to let the carriage drive
! ahead. leaving the handkerchief on the
| ground 1t is said the rebeIlious princess
| had a hard time of 1t when home was
| reached.
Opposed by Bismarck.
In 1865 the princess royal was married at
| the age Of seventeen to the ''Kron Prinz"
| OF Prussia, Frederick. the son and heir of
| King Wilhelm. 1t was a brilliant mar
riage. But happy though it was for the
! princess in the nnfa{lipD ho
| tween herself and her Fritz" it was made
bitter by the intense hatred she excited in
! bismarck. From beginning to end the iron
chancellor sought to thwart 'the English
| woman" he called her 1t was a bitter
| blow to him that the heir of the house of
| Hohenzolern should have made marital
| alliance with princess of his eneny's
! country.
She has poisoned" said he, the Hohen-
| zollern blood at it's source"
| And through the press. which he held in
| the hollow Of his hand, he stirred the whole
| people Of Prussia against the crown prin-
| cess. She was represented as a traitor on
| the steps of the throne, an interloping for
eigner bent on destroying the Prussian ma
| tlon by insidiously angltciZing 1t. This was
| the more readily believed in that the crown
| princess was really trying to introduce into
Prussia many liberal ideas prevalent in
England. =,
| Her Work for Women.
Herself woman Of the very strongest
| ia oiiA po"Si hdDly educated she
sought to procure for women in Prussia
! an enlightened system of education and
some considerable degree of political inf,u-
| ence. She had set her face against MANY
| anttquated survivals Of feudai privileges
! still lingering in Prussia and practically
proclaimed herself a democrat
The English woman" said Bismarck.
lis not only 'rights-of-man' woman; she
| Is also rights-of-woman woman which
| Is worse. Ii Is red revolution enthroned
| at Berlin
She was hissed in the streets of Berlin.
stones We're thrown at her carriage; she
could not appear at a public function even
by the side of the Kron PrinZ, whom the
people adored, without risk of the grayest
| insult. A curious complaint of hers has
been recorded. From an early age she had
been diligent student of the works of
John Stuart Mill. the great English repub-
lican philosopher and advocate of ''wo-
mans rights" One year in the height of
her unpopularity at Berlin she wrote to
him and invited him to pay a visit to her
self and the kron Prinz Mill declined In
a respectful letter he explained that such
meeting would do harm both to him and
to her: people would charge him with SELL
| ing his republican principles for royal
smiles and would say of her that she al
| lowed philosophical "faddisms'' to lower
the royal dignity.
Unhappy woman that am" she cried
| to her secretary, the chancellor and my
| future subjects hate me because they think
me democrat, and the democrats will
have nothing to do with me because may
one day be queenr' 1t is said that she
wrote a letter to the English philosopher.
which he would never show to any one,
| and of which he did not like to speak
pr Obably 1t was not gentle.
Battled for Her Husband.
In all her struggles with the autocratic
chancellor and with the stupid malevolence
Of the people she was morally sustained by
Fritz" The Kron-Prinz, though obliged
for state reasons to keep on saying moth
ing" was much more liberal in his ideas
than either Bismarck or old Wilhelm, and
as far possible he defended his wife's
ideas. 1t is a curious fact in history that
| 1t was her energy. determination and as
tuteness that made him emperor for three
months. All the world remembers that
when the old Emperor Wilhelm lay on his
deathbed the Kron-Prinz was already af-
fcted with the virulent throat disease
which was to kill him In the flower Of his
age. This was Bismarcks chance of graft
flying his deadly hate of the English wo-
man and preventing her mounting the i'm
periaI throne with power practically to
govern the empire in the place Of her sick
10 la w in fbo,