KAROLINE BAUER.*

THIS is a strange, yet singularly interesting book,—a book not, perhaps, the less interesting that it is impossible to feel implicit confidence in all its statements,—written by a woman no longer living, though its object is to clear her memory, so far as it can be cleared, and avenge bitter wrongs suffered, as she declares, • Posthumous Memoirs of Karelia. Bauer. From the German. London: Remington and Co.

half a century ago at the hands of men who in their time stood high in the world's esteem, and died full of years and honour.

Thus it opens, in a style somewhat too melodramatic to inspire trust:--

"The pen trembles in my band, for my heart—this old storm.

beaten, tired heart—still must tremble Ett the thought that when the eyes of strangers read these lines, it—this heart—will have ceased to beat, this hand will rest stiff and cold under the earth ! Dust—ashes of my life ! This poor human heart, which once bloomed and laughed, so full of youthful gaiety, like a flower of spring in the first sunshine, which the young heart, bright with joy, took for an everlasting one, and which since then has erred and failed so much, suffered and wept !"

The book is the autobiography of Karoline Bauer, once a popular actress ; it contains also much curious information about the lives and doings of some socially illustrious and technically honourable personages. Her father was an officer in the army of the Grand Duchy of Baden, and equerry to Prince Alexander of Wiirtemberg ; her mother a Stockmar, and nearly akin to the Freiherr Christian von Stockmar, who in after-years won the confidence and enjoyed the friendship of the Royal houses of England, Prussia, and Belgium. Karoline was born at Heidelberg in 1807. Two years later her father fell at the terrible battle at Aspern. In 1822, she went with her mother to Coburg, the latter's native place, and there the family settled. In her early days, Fran Bauer, then Christelchen Stockmar, had been on intimate terms with the Grand Ducal family, and the playmate of the young Princes Ernst, Ferdinand, and Leo- pold, and of the Princesses Sophie, Antoinette, Juliana, and Victoria. Ernst was afterwards Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and father of the Prince Consort; Leopold became King of the Belgians ; Juliana married the brutal Grand Duke Con- stantine of Russia; Antoinette, the hardly less brutal Prince Alexander of Wfirtemberg. But for Victoria a happier fate was in store; she became the wife of the Duke of Kent, and lived to see her daughter Queen of England. In 1795, the Here- ditary Princess Sophia, mother of these Princesses, took the three elder ones to St. Petersburg for a "bride show," at the invitation of the Empress Catherine, who wanted her son Constantine to choose a wife. It was rather a for- lorn hope, for the Russian Prince had already seen and rejected two Princesses of Baden and three of Darm- stadt; but the Coburgs of that age were very poor, and the Hereditary Princess was as anxious to get off her daughters and find rich spouses for her sons as the most match-making of Bel- gravian matrons. Constantine refusing to make a selection, the Czarina chose for him the youngest, Juliana, though the poor girl was only in her fifteenth year. The marriage turned out badly ; the Grand Duke treated his wife so abominably, that she was compelled to leave him and return to Coburg.

Alexander of Wfirtemberg made hardly a more desirable husband than the Russian Prince. He had thin legs and a bloated body ; the expression of his face was "brutish," and his forehead was disfigured by a huge wen. He was also a fearful glutton. "When the young bride (the Princess Antoinette) awoke on the morning after the wedding-day, horror-stricken she saw her husband beside her, gnawing a big ham-bone with brutish ferocity,—a sight which the unfortunate Princess could never forget."

Friiulein Bauer has also much to say about the brothers, and she tells the story of Duke Ernst's amour with the lady known as "La Belle Grecque," whom he met in Paris when he went to do homage to the Emperor Napoleon. In short, she spares neither the faults nor the foibles of the Coburg family ; she had, it must be admitted, little reason to be grateful to them, and the moral character of many of the Princes of that time was so bad that it is hardly possible to exaggerate their vices. George IV.

was by no means the exception he is generally supposed to be. If he had few equals in wickedness, be had many imitators, and sinners of the royal caste seemed to be of opinion that moral obligations existed for the lower orders alone.

In 1823, Karoline Bauer—Lina, as her kinsfolk called her

—made her debut on the stage with great success. Pretty, sought after, and lionised, she became the enfant gate of the

Karlsruhe Theatre. In her new career she met with some trials and many temptations, but her mother was her constant com- panion; she had sound sense and a strong will, and came triumphantly out of all, save one ; and if she succumbed in the end, she can hardly, when the circumstances are considered, be held to have incurred the whole responsibility for her fall. In 1824, being then eighteen, she accepted an engagement at the

Berlin Court Theatre, and was well received, both by the public and the King, who took a personal interest in his players of both sexes, and always treated them with great kindness. But she ran great danger from the admiration of the Royal Princes, one of whom, August, a son of the youngest and least distin- guished brother of Frederick the Great, was famous for his gallantries, and popularly known as "Don Juan." For the most part, Don Juan did his wooing more like a Turkish Pasha than a Christian Prince. After making Fraulein Bauer an un- welcome visit, in the company of his aide-de-camp, he offered her 100,000 thalers to become his mistress ; this being refused, he made his bid 200,000 thalers (230,000), a furnished house, and the title of Baroness. She was assured further that the King would give his consent, and that her children should be recognised. This proposal being also declined, the Prince tried to effect his object in another and even less honourable way, and Karoline had to appeal to the King for protection, which was readily granted, for Friedrich Wilhelm der Cute, though not a very wise monarch, was a far better man than most of the princes of his time. Friiulein Bauer had also an unpleasant experience with the soi-disant Count Alexander Samoilov, who pretended to be a Russian noble of great wealth, was recognised as such by the Russian Ambassador, introduced at Court, and associated with the highest personages of the Prussian capital. He paid his addresses and became betrothed to Frfiulein Bauer, and was proposing to settle on her unheard-of sums, when he was suddenly haled off to prison as an impostor. All Berlin was in a ferment, and everybody showed the greatest sympathy for Karoline and her mother. During an entr'acte the King went behind the curtain, and said to her, in a quiet and fatherly manner, "Poor child ! Don't vex yourself—vexing business— very vexing ! Mauvais sujet ! Forget him,—soon have better chance."

Some time after this Friiulein Bauer went to St. Petersburg to fulfil an engagement there, and her descriptions of the journey in mid-winter—particularly a perilous passage of the Dvvina- and of the Court of Russia, are graphic and entertaining; but the part of her memoirs which will be read with the greatest interest in this country is the account of her relations with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, once husband of the Princess Charlotte of England, and afterwards King of the Belgians. In September, 1828, the Prince was at Potsdam, and one day, after Line had played before the Court as "Countess Florentin," in the Hottentottin, the Prince visited Karoline and her mother in their lodgings. They were old friends,—Baron von Stockmar, their kinsman, was his almost inseparable companion,—and the conversation naturally took a friendly and familiar turn. Leopold evidently admired Lina, whom he had not seen for some time, and, before leaving the house, asked for a igte-fi-tete.. This was granted, and he there and then made the young lady an offer of his love and his left- band. She and her mother asked time to consider, and it was agreed that they should all meet within a fortnight at Coburg. Before taking his leave, the Prince protested that the affection he had conceived for Line when he first saw her had turned into passionate love; but neither then nor afterwards was his conduct that of a passionate lover. So to Coburg they went, and there they found Cousin Christian (the Baron), who laid before them his scheme for making Lina his master's mistress, for that is what it amounted to. There was to be a morganatic marriage, and she was to receive the title of Countess of Montgomery, "of course quite privately," for if the matter were trumpeted abroad, "the enemies of the Prince might raise an alarm about this union in the English newspapers, and perhaps even in Parliament, and Prince Leopold might, in consequence, even lose his annual allow- ance." If the Prince should become King of Greece, as was thought possible, the secret bond which alone could unite Lina to the Prince would require to be untied again as privately as it would have to be tied. She should have a settled income, just enough to keep her and no more, "for Christian Stockmar's cousin would be expected to be less exacting than a stranger." After long and painful hesitation, the proposal on those condi- tions was accepted ; and in May, 1829, Fraulein Bauer, accom- panied by her mother, went to England to be morganatically married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. A house had been taken for them in a retired part of Regent's Park, and there they lived for several weeks devoured by ennui, for they were kept like French prisoners under examination, as secret. The Prince and Stockmar, being mortally afraid of the affair getting wind, went to the house as

rarely as possible, and always muffled up like conspirators.

The lady describes herself as "a poor, petted, and daintily-fed bird in a golden cage " :-

"'I had followed,' she says, in loving confidence, the decoy of Prince Leopold of Kobuirg, under the guarantee of his confidant and my own cousin, Christian Baron von Stockmar ; I had left my beloved Berlin stage, and with my mother undertaken the mysterious journey to England. I was justified in expecting to find in the Prince an affectionate fiancé, and to see our union speedily con- summated, although not before men, for my prince and cousin feared them more than God ; at any rate, in God's presence, in the presence of my kindred, and to the satisfaction of my moral consciousness.

And what did I find P For the whole of the month of June, the Prince remained the same extraordinary suitor that he had been during the last days of May. He came driving up daily for a call of an hour or two, dignified, cold, reserved, and deadly weari- some. We had music, sang from " Anion " or Italian duets ; I played the piano untiringly, and read aloud Henrietta Hanke's prosy Perien, whilst Prince Leopold of Coburg, the widowed [sic] Prince Consort of Great Britain, Field-Marshal of England, and candidate for the Greek Crown, diligently and indefatigably drizzled.'"

"Drizzling," it is, perhaps, as well to inform the possibly puzzled leader, was invented in France, where they called it farfilage, and introduced into England by the French emigres. Ladies begged gentlemen's cast-off gold and silver epaulets, hilt-band, galloons, and tassels, picked out the threads and sold them. When ladies went on a visit, they carried with them "picking-bags," and " drizzled " the whole evening. Then men took to the practice ; instead of giving away their old epaulets, they sold the threads, and bought presents with the proceeds. At the time in question, Prince Leopold was " drizzling " for a soup tureen, of which he afterwards made a present to the Princess Victoria.

On July 2nd, 1829, the union, such as it was, took place in the house in Regent's Park. It consisted merely in the signing of a contract :—

• "No clergyman placed his hand on my head to invoke a blessing; no bridal wreath adorned my locks. Christian Stockmar had drawn up the marriage contract. He and his brother Charles, who looked after the Prince's money matters, and another witness whom I dare not name even to-day, signed the marriage contract. In it I received the title of Countess Montgomery, and a modest annual allowance was settled on me. My mother pressed me to her heart amid tears of joy."

The connection lasted less than a year, and long before that time the "Countess Montgomery" was utterly weary of her bonds, for the Prince paid her scant attention, and both he and the Baron insisted on her living in the strictest seclusion. Her lover visited her only at long intervals ; and the precautions which on these occasions he took to avoid being seen were almost ludicrous. Then there came a desperate quarrel and a final rupture :—

!' I told them that they had abused my confiding credulity when with deceitful promises they allured me to England, in order to sweeten a few weary hours to a blasé Prince ; that it bad been a downright crime to snatch me into an equivocal relationship, and to keep secret from me that the Prince was at the same time aiming at the Crown of Greece, which, as they well knew, must, as a matter of course, put a speedy termination to our alliance, ruining my reputa- tion for ever."

This was the last time she saw either the Prince or her cousin. She returned to Germany and the stage, and Leopold became King of the Belgians. Stockmar's passion was to live at Court and control the great, and, according to Fraulein Bauer, who, however, writes under vindictive feeling, sacrificed his cousin to increase his influence with his "most gracious master," as he was wont to call him. At the same time, Fraolein Bauer was far from being the helpless victim she tries to make out, for at an early stage of the negotiations she was informed, as she herself admits, that, in the event of the Prince becoming King of Greece, their "union" would have to be dissolved. Being, moreover, an actress, and not a simple country maid, she could hardly suppose that the contract signed by herself and her royal lover made her in any sense his wife, or that the title he pretended to confer upon her was other than a mauvaise plaisanterie. There is, indeed, a consideration which, as it appears to us, throws grave doubt on the lady's truthfulness, and renders all her statements in this regard more or less untrustworthy. Leopold may, as she avers, have been a villain,—and it is impossible not to despise as well as condemn his conduct, if there be any truth at all in Frittlein Baner's statements,—but she nowhere suggests that he was a fool; and not being a fool, and having so shrewd a man as Stockmar to advise him, it is hardly conceivable that he should have pretended to confer on his mistress an already existing title. As yet, moreover, we have only heard one side of the story, told by a revengeful woman, smarting under a sense of neglect and real or imaginary wrongs.

In addition to personal matters, the book, as vcc: have already remarked, contains much that is interesting ; waile curious as a psychological study, it shows us several historic . characters in a new light, and gives some striking pictures of the Court and theatrical life of fifty years ago. But it is quite evident that the object of the author in writing her Memoirs was rather to avenge her wrongs than to vindicate her memory. More than forty years after her mock marriage her hatred of Prince Leopold and her cousin was as great as ever, and of that hatred this book is the outcome.