German veneration of laws, German manners and German passivity and
docility. The Princess Hildegarde had been educated in England and
France, which simplifies everything, or, I should say, to be exact,
complicates everything.

She possessed a healthy contempt for that what-d'-ye-call-it that
hedges in a king. Having mingled with English-speaking people, she
returned to her native land, her brain filled with the importance of
feminine liberty of thought and action. Hence, she became the bramble
that prodded the grand duke whichever way he turned. His days were
filled with horrors, his nights with mares which did not have
box-stalls in his stables.

Never could he anticipate her in anything. On that day he placed
guards around the palace she wrote verses or read modern fiction; the
moment he relaxed his vigilance she was away on some heart-rending
escapade. Didn't she scandalize the nobility by dressing up as a
hussar and riding her famous black Mecklenburg cross-country? Hadn't
she flirted outrageously with the French attaché and deliberately
turned her back on the Russian minister, at the very moment, too, when
negotiations were going on between Russia and Barscheit relative to a
small piece of land in the Balkans? And, most terrible of all to
relate, hadn't she ridden a shining bicycle up the Königsstrasse, in
broad daylight, and in bifurcated skirts, besides? I shall never
forget the indignation of the press at the time of this last escapade,
the stroke of apoplexy which threatened the duke, and the room with the
barred window which the princess occupied one whole week.

They burned the offensive bicycle in the courtyard of the palace,
ceremoniously, too, and the princess had witnessed this solemn _auto da