There has been no attempt to trammel the subject,--which embraces
religious, official, social and domestic life,--by following a
strictly sequential form in the narrative, but the writer's aim has
been to present her facts in a familiar way, impressing them with
characteristic naturalness and lifelike reality.

To this task the author has brought the habits of a watchful observer,
the candor of a conscientious narrator, and the refinement of a
writer who respects her subject. Hence she presents a true, vivid
and interesting picture of court life in Germany and Austria. If such
merely sensational, and too often fictitious, unsavory tales as crowd
the so-called court narratives expressly concocted for the "society"
columns of the periodical press are not the most prominent features
of the present work, it is because they receive only a truthful
recognition and place in its pages.




WILLIAM II

AND

FRANCIS-JOSEPH




CHAPTER I