much of his time at the court of his mother-in-law, Queen Victoria,
and who was aware that she had nursed every one of her numerous
children herself, without permitting this motherly duty to interfere
with the arduous official business of the State, expostulated with
his father, and persuaded him to withdraw his prohibition, much to the
horror of the courtiers, and greatly to the satisfaction of the royal
lady, who is now Empress Frederick.

In Austria one of the principal sources of the domestic unhappiness
of the lamented Empress of Austria, was the small voice that she was
allowed by the sovereign--her husband--to have in the management and
the control of her own children, as long as her mother-in-law, the
late Archduchess Sophia, was alive. It was only after the demise of
the archduchess that Empress Elizabeth first realized in their full
measure the joys of motherhood.

While on the subject of Austria, I may cite the case of the widowed
Crown Princess Stephanie as another illustration of the extent to
which royal parents are deprived of all authority over their children.
Thus when Crown Prince Rudolph died at Mayerling, his little
daughter, at that time barely six years of age, was assigned to the
guardianship, not of her widowed mother, but of her grandfather. A
very general belief prevails that this arrangement about the care of
the little Archduchess Elizabeth, was due to a piece of animosity on
the part of the ill-fated crown prince against his wife, and I have
seen it stated in print that he had left a will confiding his only
child to his father, and directing that its mother should be allowed
no voice in its education. There is no official authority for any such
statement, but no matter whether the crown prince expressed any such
testamentary wish or not, the fact remains that at his death his child