Empress Frederick became very soon imbued with the idea that it was necessary to marry off Charlotte without delay, in order to avert the danger, as she conceived it, of one or another of these girlish flirtations developing into something calculated to compromise both her dignity and her fair name.  Had the princess been less hurried in this matter, it is probable that she would have found a more suitable husband, and above all one calculated to capture the fancy of a young girl, reared at a court which can boast of some of the finest specimens of manhood in the world.  But she was married to the first princelet who happened to catch the eye of Empress Frederick, namely Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen—­aye, and she was hustled into matrimony in such a hurry, too, as to give a sort of foundation for some shameful and base slanders, cruelly unmerited, but which one hears even Germans who profess loyalty to the crown repeating to this day.  Prince Bernhardt, though an excellent man in his way, was very far from meeting the requirements of the “Prince Charmant” fit to be mated to a princess so gay and so brilliant as Charlotte of Hohenzollern.  His appearance is effeminate, his manner finicky and old-maidish to a degree.  He is neither stalwart nor good-looking; he excels neither as a dancer nor as a rider, nor yet as an athlete, and he gives one at first sight the impression of being an artist or a composer, rather than a son of that grand looking old fellow, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

Indeed, there was at the time of the marriage but one voice in Berlin society, condemning it as having been forced upon Princess Charlotte against her inclinations by her mother.  And after the marriage the poverty of the prince rendered him to such an extent dependent upon the financial assistance of his mother-in-law, that he, as well as his wife, was compelled to remain subservient in every respect to her wishes.  Nor was it until William came to the throne and availed himself of his position as head of the family to grant Princess Charlotte an allowance suitable to her rank, that the princess and her husband were emancipated from the strict control of her mother, Empress Frederick.

Young married folks in America can form no conception of the extent of such tyranny, and when, some time after the wedding, Prince Bernhardt and Princess Charlotte secured permission from Empress Frederick—­then only crown princess—­to visit Paris, and to make a stay there of three weeks, she only gave her consent on the condition that they should be accompanied by one of her chamberlains, and one of her ladies-in-waiting who had known the princess from childhood, and whose behests the prince and princess were obliged to obey throughout their sojourn in the French capital, just as if they had been a little boy and girl, instead of grown-up and married people.  Probably the happiest time of Princess Charlotte’s life was the period which elapsed between the death of her lamented father and her exile to Breslau.  She amused herself to her heart’s content, fluttered about in Berlin like a butterfly, took a leading part in every social movement, was admired, feted and petted by everyone, but gave her worthy husband no cause whatsoever for uneasiness, and avoided all scandals, save those contained in the anonymous letters, for which she cannot really be held responsible.