Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-08-30

Nile CleFef InLIlSueS OL ffdu
Kleist were unknown to any
outside the court circle at Pots
dam. She was indeed queer
parsonage, "Only less of q parsonage
than his majesty" as Prince BulOw
declared to me one day as we sat to-
gether in my room in the Berlin
Schloss.
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 | never knew.
Truly Frau Kleist, with her neat
waist and thin, refined face, was
very striking figure at the Berlin
court. The intricacies of the minuet
and gavotte 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
0verbearing manner.
The emperor never permitted any
dancing at court which was not up to
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
silken 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 a 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-CIo" Durand, pre-
miere 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. / have often seen her
whisper to his majesty strange secrets
which she had picked up here and
there-secrets that were often trans
ferred to 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-
ceived from those who ''fOr value"
begged her favors. With many young
officers the payment to Frau kleist
was to open the back door to the en-
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 commands" to court func-
tons, and really we were secretly glad
If the parvenus of both sexes were well
bled 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 unsupported by the
49,
worst side of human nature without
any leaven of the best or even nobler
side. The salary-grabber. the military
adventurer, the pinchbeck diplomat
the commercial parvenu, and the scien-
fist, together with their jewel-bedecked