princesses, etc., which no one could possibly have known about, save
members of the imperial family, and which were just the sort of thing
that Princess Charlotte would have written in her diary, in her witty
and sarcastic manner.

In fact there was so much of the phraseology and style habitual to
Princess Charlotte in the letters, that they would inevitably have
been, as I remarked above, positively ascribed to her had it not been
for the grossly improper and even disgusting twist and construction
that was invariably added to her well-known manner of writing.
Although a terrible flirt as well as a daring coquette, the princess
has never been charged with anything more serious than trivial
_affaires de coeur_, excepting by the writer of the anonymous letters.

Then too, as I have also already stated many of these letters assailed
the princess herself, in the most unscrupulous fashion; an abominable
and impossible story, picked up from the filthiest of Berlin gutters,
impugning the legitimacy of the only child of the princess, being thus
circulated far and wide. This vile fabrication alleged that Charlotte
had been married off in a hurry to Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen,
in order to avoid a public scandal. It is only necessary to recall the
fact that the sole child of Princess Charlotte, Princess Fedora, now
married to Prince Henry of Reuss, was born twelve months after her
mother's marriage, in order to show how utterly without foundation was
this shameful slander. At least a dozen anonymous letters sent to the
emperor and to various other personages dealt with an episode said to
have taken place during a trip undertaken by the princess in Norway
and Sweden. She was attended on that occasion by a Captain von Berger,
and his wife, who were her gentleman and lady-in-waiting, and there
was also in her suite a diminutive officer holding the rank of