Title:  The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe:  William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2)

Author:  Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

Release Date:  June 8, 2004 [EBook #12548]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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SECRET MEMOIRS

William II and Francis Joseph

VOLUME I

[Illustration:  WILLIAM II EMPEROR OF GERMANY From Life]

Secret memoirs
of the
courts of Europe

William II
Germany

Francis Joseph
Austria Hungary

BY

MME. LA MARQUISE DE FONTENOY

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL.  I

ILLUSTRATED

1900

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

The essential qualifications for an author of such a work as the present are an actual acquaintance with the persons mentioned, an intimate knowledge of their daily lives, and a personal familiarity with the scenes described.

The author of William II. and Francis-Joseph, sheltered under the nom de plume of Marquise de Fontenoy, is a lady of distinguished birth and title.  Her work consists largely of personal reminiscences, and descriptions of events with which she is perfectly familiar; a sort of panoramic view of the characteristic happenings and striking features of court life, such as will best give a true picture of persons and their conduct.

There has been no attempt to trammel the subject,—­which embraces religious, official, social and domestic life,—­by following a strictly sequential form in the narrative, but the writer’s aim has been to present her facts in a familiar way, impressing them with characteristic naturalness and lifelike reality.

To this task the author has brought the habits of a watchful observer, the candor of a conscientious narrator, and the refinement of a writer who respects her subject.  Hence she presents a true, vivid and interesting picture of court life in Germany and Austria.  If such merely sensational, and too often fictitious, unsavory tales as crowd the so-called court narratives expressly concocted for the “society” columns of the periodical press are not the most prominent features of the present work, it is because they receive only a truthful recognition and place in its pages.