New-York tribune., 1910-02-06
NOLONGER ASECRET
Identity of the Anonymous
Princess Is Revealed.

Copyright. 1910 by the Brentwood Company
Princess Mathilde of Saxe-Coburg'
daughter OF Prince Louis of Bavaria, helr
presumptive to the throne of the crazy
King otho. is the authoress OF that re-
marlsable volume of poems which appeared
last December. at Christmas. unoer the
title of "Traum und Leben Gedichte elher
FTuhvollendeten.'' ("Dream and Lie poems
Of One Whose Life Has Been Brought TO a
Premature Close.'o The verses atIacteo
widespread attention not only py thel
exceptional beauty, but also by the II
tensity of their feeling and pathos- III
TACT, they conveyed the conVlcuon tId'
they had been written not with any view
to publication but rather by woman VINO
had found therein the necessary outpouring
of hidden misery. which she was pre-
vented by various considerations from be-
trayine. even to those among her entour-
age. HopeIessly shattered romance de-
struction of all fondest and most poetic
Illusions and the conviction by the author
that her life was bHghted beyond repair
were apparent in every line of the book,
and naturally there was universal specula-
ton as to the identity of the author IL
was ascrfbed to various royal and imperial
ladies'; among others to the late Empress
of Austria and to Princess Isabel of Ba-
varia, Duchess of Genoa, but IS now known
to have been the pensees intimes of Prln-
cess Mathilde Of Bavaria, who, with her
heart given to an officer Of the petty no
bility was prevented by her parents and
her grandfather from wedding the man of
her choice. owing TO their horror Of a
mesaliance. and was compelled TO wed.
sorely against her WISH Prince Louis Of
Saye-Coburg, in 1900.
Prince Louis of Saxe-Coburg Is not
attractive Individual He Is a grandson of
old Dom Pedro, the last Emperor OF Brazil,
his mother having been that monarchs
younger daughter; and his eldest brother.
Prince Peter. has for the last twenty years
been an inmate of the great iunatic asylum
at Doblng, near Vienna, where he has been
kept under restraint ever since his sensa-
tional outbreak of homictdal mania, which
made necessary the siege and storming of
the upper stories of the Coburg Palace at
Vienna by a large force of fremen, police
and sarpers of the engineer corps. before
they could secure the mastery of the spe-
cies of stronghold in which he had in
trenched himself with a perfect arsenal Of
rifles. shotguns and revolvers. Naturally.
the marriage of the Prince and Princess
Louis of Coburg did not turn out very hap
PLY: but the princess kept her sentiments
more o. less under control until the early
spring of 1905. when, her health already
shattered by the decline into which she was
falling, she completely lost control of her
self one evening at a performance at the
Court Theatre at Vienna, where she was
occupying the court box Something in the
piece represented appealed to her as ap-
plying more particularly 70 her own case,
and unable to refrain she burst into pas
sionate weeping which through her efforts
20 cheek herself developed into such fit
Of Mysteries that the entire performance
had to be Interrupted. The news was pub
lished far and wide at the time, and Cabed
to America, where the impression was con-
veyed that her mind had given way and
that she had become a maniac, While she
recovered her senses soon after she had
reached her home in the Coburg palace, her
health failed more rapidly than ever She
went into q. decline. just simply wasting
away and died a year later at St Mor1t5
in Switzerland, OF what the doctors for
want of anything better declared to be
consumption, but which was in reality
misery and broken heart. Her hus-
band. as might have been expected of him,
cid not long mourn her loss, and less than
twelve months after her entombment at
MunlCn--a scene WHICH Bic previously IL
scribed in one of the most beautiful and
powerful Of her poems--he married d.
Countess Trauttmansdorf, OF the media
tized family of that name.
Just who is responsible for the publica-
ton of the volume Of poetry it is difficult
to tell: for it cannot be pleasant reading in
any respect for Prince Louis OF Sake
Coburg, especially now that the identity
of the author has been definitely eStab-
1ished. It is probable. however, that one
of the princess's sisters, perhaps her sister
in-law Princess Marie Gabrielle, sister of
the new Queen of Belgium, has been
party TO the publication, for Princess Ma
thilde and Princess Marie Gabrielle were
great friends. That the publication should
not have been prevented by the authorities
at Munich indicates that the person ec-
countable for the appearance of the book
is a member OF the reigning house of Ba-
-in