In the Berlin great world the princess has always been popular, not merely by reason of her devotion to society, but because a certain amount of sympathy was felt for her in connection with the treatment which she had received at the hands of her mother.  For some strange reason or other, Princess Charlotte was never appreciated by her mother, who showed her preference for her younger daughters in a very marked manner.  Charlotte was always treated with a far greater degree of strictness than any of the other girls, in spite of her being vastly superior to them in intellect and in looks.  Princess Charlotte is still a very charming woman, and was in her younger days a singularly attractive girl, one of the fairest indeed of all Queen Victoria’s numerous descendants, but her sisters are inclined to be homely, absolutely deficient in feminine elegance or chic, and, while accomplished, are extremely dull, and not a bit sparkling or witty.

Empress Frederick always declared that her daughter Charlotte was frivolous, and as much inclined to be forward and rebellious to discipline and control as her eldest son, the present emperor.  Therefore, as I have already stated, Charlotte and William were treated by their mother with exceptional severity, were snubbed on every occasion, often in the most humiliating manner, and were made to feel that Prince Henry and their younger sisters held a higher place in the maternal heart than they.

Sad is it to add that the youth of neither William nor Charlotte was a particularly happy one, and thus it is not astonishing that one as well as the other should have felt inclined to run a bit wild, like young colts, when first emancipated from the school-room.  It was during the very few years that intervened between his leaving the university at Bonn and his marriage, that William obtained his reputation for dissipation.  His shortcomings, due to the exuberance of youth, were exaggerated until they were transformed from very venial offences into the most mortal of sins, while in the same way the delight manifested by Princess Charlotte at the admiration and homage to which her comeliness gave rise—­a very natural feeling when one recalls the snubbings and humiliations to which she had been subjected until then—­were construed into frivolity and deep-dyed coquetry, altogether unworthy of a royal princess.  She was taxed, too, with an absence of that simpering modesty, more or less affected, which is de mise with so many young girls in Germany and in France, when they make their debut in society, and even her most harmless flirtations were condemned by her mother as grave indiscretions.