PRINCESS LOITISE OF PRUSSIA.*
THESE interesting Memoirs were originally written in French, the language of Courts, and have been arranged for publication by Princess Radziwill, whose husband was the grandson of their writer, and who is well known in the literary world in connexion with the Memoirs of her own brilliant grandmother, the Duchesse de Dino.
It cannot be said that Princess Louise of Prussia, with her royal birth, fine character, and undoubted talents, was able to exercise at Court or in society the singular influence of that other great lady, her god-daughter. But the whole circum- stances of her life were romantic, and she lived through the most critical times of the Prussian Monarchy and suffered losses and griefs which saddened all her later years, though she may well have found compensation in the affection of her children and of a most noble and charming husband. She was the daughter of Prince Ferdinand of Prussia, youngest brother of Frederick the Great, and at thetime of her birth her elder brother Frederick, who died young, was heir-presumptive to the Crown. Very curious and very uncomfortable is the Princess's account of her childhood, a German eighteenth- century Court mixture of homely roughness in the bringing up of the children, cold severity on their mother's part, good- natured indulgence on their father's, extreme etiquette joined with lax principles and ideas material to vulgarity ; sentiment and meanness, a succession of more or leas incapable tutors and governesses, neglect of the ordinary rules of health, the vaguest sort of religious teaching. Even Princess Amelie, the King's unhappy, strong-minded sister, the heroine of the Trenck romance, was shocked at her niece's ignorance of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
Princess Louise found mental and moral salvation in her marriage, at first bitterly opposed by her mother, with Prince Anton Radziwill, a Polish grandee of the noblest, though not of royal extraction, a high-minded man with a genius for music, described by Goethe as "the first and only veritable troubadour I have ever known." He lived till 1833, and his wife survived him only three years. After the Napoleonic wars—in the course of which, adding a point of bitter sorrow to the political misfortunes of her country and family, the Princess lost her favourite, heroic brother, Prince Ludwig- Ferdinand, killed at Saalfeld—the Xing of Prussia appointed Prince Anton his Lieutenant-General in that part of Poland which had been absorbed by Prussia. For thirteen years, from the seat of government at Posen, the Prince and Princess reigned in ever-increasing popularity. This very popularity among his fellow-countrymen became a cause of displeasure at the Prussian Court, and the Prince's conscientious and beneficent career as Governor in Poland was brought to an end by the resignation he found necessary in 1828.
A number of interesting and unfamiliar portraits, a genea- logical table of the Prussian Royal Family from Frederick William I. to the Emperor William I., and a particularly full and complete index, add much to the attractiveness of this handsome book.
Previous page
