My Own Affairs. By the Princess Louise of Belgium. Trans-
lated by Maude M. C. ffoulkes. (Cassell. 21s. net.)—Princess Louise, the daughter of King Leopold, the divorced wife of Prince Philip of Coburg, and the sister-in-law of the Archduke Rudolf and of ex-King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, has had a very un- happy life, and her memoirs are painful reading. The most interesting pages are those in which she describes the Court of Vienna, to which she wanton her marriage. She found her palace extremely uncomfortable ; " as to a bathroom, there was not a sign of one." The old Emperor, she says, was " an automaton dressed as a soldier," heartless and weak, interested only in petty scandal. She declares that the Archduke Rudolf was not murdered but committed suicide, because he was tired of life. The authoress is naturally prejudiced, but the Viennese court must have been a very unpleasant place, and the Austrians did well to sweep it out of existence. The ex-Kaiser, she says, once said to her, by way of compliment, " You would make a fine Prussian Grenadier." He joked with difficulty.
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