who in this case happened to be her grandfather.  Gentle and soft-hearted as is Emperor Francis-Joseph, he nevertheless exercised his authority over his grandchild in a way that cannot but have been galling in the extreme to its mother, a way, in fact, which I imagine would be beyond the endurance of any American woman.  Thus he insisted upon himself appointing and selecting her governesses and teachers; he nominated her entire household without consulting her mother, and its members, as well as the girl’s instructors made their reports not to Crown Princess Stephanie, but to him, from whom, also, they alone took their instructions.

It was the emperor who decided where his grandchild was to stay, where she was to spend this part of the year, and where another season, and finally he strictly prohibited her from leaving his dominions.  The position of the Crown Princess of Austria since the death of her husband has been so extremely unpleasant and painful, that she has spent much of her time—­indeed, at least nine months of the year—­in foreign travel.  The imperial family, the court and the people, hold her responsible for that domestic wretchedness which drove her so universally popular husband to his tragic death at Mayerling.  Of a jealous disposition and of a temper that even at its best is difficult, she is generally understood to have driven him by her violence and injustice to seek, away from his home, the pleasures that he could not find by his own fireside.

It had been known that she had been strangely lacking in dignity in her complaints concerning his behavior, and after his death she gave cruel offence both to his parents and to the people of her adopted country by her indifference to his terrible fate, and by the frivolity with which she bore her widowhood, not a little of which was spent at the gaming tables of Monte-Carlo in the gayest mourning costumes possible; a circumstance which horrified Queen Victoria, who was at that time at Nice, and naturally cruelly embittered the bereaved and sorrowing mother, Empress Elizabeth, who, robed in deepest black, was at Cap-Martin, endeavoring to recover her health, which had been absolutely shattered by the tragedy.

All these things led to the crown princess being regarded with deep disfavor in Austria.  Difficulties were raised with regard to her rank and precedence at court, and the animosity manifested towards her was such at Vienna, and elsewhere in the dual empire, that she found it preferable to spend the greater part of her time abroad.  She was not, however, permitted to take her little daughter with her, and thus the young archduchess may be said to have grown up altogether away from her mother, whom she saw for barely two months of the year, and then more as a visitor and a stranger, than as a relative who had any voice in the ordering of her life.