The Carlisle independent., 1917-08-09

klelSC were unknown 10 any
 outside the court circle st Pots
 dam She was indeed 3 queer parsonage. "only less of a parsonage than lis majesty" as Prince Rulow declared to me one day as we sat to- gether ia my room in the Berlin Sekless.
 Frau Kleist was the court dancing mistress. whose fastidious judgment had to be satisfied by any young debu- tante or officer before they presumed to dance before royalty at the state balls. Perhaps she was seventy. Her real age l never knew.
 Truly Frau Kleist. with her neat waist and thin, refined face, was q very striking figure at the Berlin court. The intrieacies of the minuet and gayotte, as well as those of the old-world dances in which she delight ed were taught by the old lady to Prince Joachim and Princess Victoria LuiSe, both of whom always went in deadly fear of her caustic tongue and overbearing manner.
 The emperor never permitted any dancing at court which was not up to q high standard of excellence, and all who sought to dance were compelled to pass before the critical eye of the sharp-tongued old lady in her stiff silkcn gown.
 Whence she had come or who had been responsible for her appointment nobody knew. One thing was quite certain, that though at an age when usually rheumatism prevents agility yet she was an expert dancer.
 The old woman lived in considerable style in fine house close to the Glienicke bridge at Potsdam, beneath the Babelsberg, power to be reckoned with by all who desired to enter the court circle.
 Regarding her, many strange stories were afioat. One was that she was an ex-dancer, the mother of the famous Mademoiselle "Clo-Clo" Durand. pre- lniere danseuse of the Paris opera. and another was that she had been mis- tress of the ballet at the Imperial opera in Petrograd in the days of the Emperor Alexander. But so great a mystery were her antecedents that no- body knew anything for certain, save that, at the age of nearly seventy, she had access at any hour to the kaiser's private cabinet I have often seen her whisper to his majesty strange secrets which she had picked up here and there-secrets that were often trans ferred 10 certain confidential quarters.
 Those at court who secured the be- nignant smiles of Frau Kleist knew that their future path in life would be full of sunshine. but woe betide those upon whom she knit her brows in dis approval Frau Kleist kept her pretty house and her big Mercedes car upon the secret money payments she re ceiyed from those who flor value" begged her favors. With many young officers the payment to Frau Kleist was to open the back door to the eul- peror's favor.
 We in the Neues Palais (New Pal ace) knew it. But surely it did not concern us. for all of us looked askance at those who strove so strenuously and eagerly for "comnands" to court func- lions. and really we were secretly glad if the parvenus of both sexes were well bied before they were permitted by Frau Erna to make their obeisance be- fore royalty.
 The palace world at every European court Is narrow little world of its own. unknown and nnsuspected by the man In the street. There one sees the worst side of human nature without any Ieaven of the best or even nobler side. Tie salary-grabber, the military aGventurer. the pinchbeck diplomat, the commercial paryenu, and the seien- fist, together with their iewel-bedecked