“Aux arrets,” or confinement to one’s quarters, is the most common form of punishment inflicted by Old World monarchs upon those of their kith and kin who have failed to comply with their behests, and there is scarcely a single sovereign or prince of the blood, who has not been subjected to this species of discipline at one time or another of his career.  Thus the late Emperor Frederick, prior to his accession to the throne, but long after his marriage, was sentenced to several weeks’ detention in his palace under strict arrest, as a punishment for a little joke which he had played during the course of a military inspection.

He had been protesting for a long time against the tightness of the uniforms, and of the belts of the rank and file of the infantry, declaring that it impeded the movements and play of the muscles of the men, to such an extent as to deprive them of more than fifty per cent, of their usefulness.  One day, during an inspection of the division of guards at Potsdam, while the troops happened to be standing at ease, he walked along the front rank of the first regiment, accompanied by a number of officers, with whom he had just been discussing this very question of equipment; suddenly, he stopped short in his walk, and extracting a piece of gold from his pocket, dropped it on the ground, and told the men nearest him to pick it up, adding that whoever got hold of it first, might keep it!  Several of them made frantic attempts to bend down in order to get the money, but so tight were their uniforms and belts that they found it absolutely impossible to reach, the coin, which Emperor Frederick ultimately picked up himself, and handed to them.

“And how do you expect to win battles with soldiers hampered to such an extent as that in their movements?” he exclaimed contemptuously to the officers around him.  “What greater demonstration than this is needed to prove the justice of my argument?”

The incident was reported to the then Minister of War, who immediately lodged a complaint with Frederick’s father, the result being that “Unser Fritz,” at that time Crown Prince of Prussia, was placed by old Emperor William for several weeks under arrest in his palace!

Prince Rupert of Bavaria, the heir apparent to the ancient throne of the Wittelsbachs, was sentenced by his grandfather, the prince regent, to no less than three months’ close arrest in his quarters at Munich, for having left the kingdom without permission, in order to spend three days at Paris, in fair but frail company; while the widowed Duchess of Aosta on one occasion was placed under arrest in her palace of Turin by her brother-in-law, King Humbert, because she had ventured to appear in public on her wheel wearing a pair of bloomers!

Prince and Princess Frederick-Leopold, the latter a younger sister of the Empress of Germany, have both been condemned on several occasions by the kaiser to close confinement in their palace under the most stringent kind of arrest, for having disobeyed his majesty’s commands with regard to the management of their household.  Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, the brother of the empress, has been subjected to more numerous orders of arrest by his imperial kinsman than any prince of the blood now living.