Private Lives of Kaiser William II and His Consort - Secret History of the Court of Berlin; From the Papers and Diaries of Ursula Countess Von Eppinghoven, Dame Du Palais to Her Majesty the Empress-Queen #270864

Viva 13 mi! Croaked the imperial standard floating over the gray old Berlin Schloss when I alighted from my carriage at the Court-marshal's gate to report for duty on June 2 5, 1888, and Long live the King breathed and echoed all the new brooms and old around me in the ante chambers, in the state and in the living and servants' apart ments of that immense pile. Yonder, just across the Pup penbrizcke, at half-mast and draped in black, were seen the flags of two Queens, a widow of three and a half months the one, the other had buried the noblest of husbands but ten days before. Their palaces, which scarcely ever possessed the brazen front of right royal splendor, appeared deserted, gloomy, and melancholy beyond hope as the emblem of death wafted above them; but with us — the new masters — all was life and excitement (being now a sal aried body-attendant of the reigning Empress, I must needs adopt the servant-hall jargon to make myself popular with the rest) — we kept house on a small scale and on scanty ra tions in the little Potsdam Marble Palacel long enough one Court-marshal (major von Liebenau), one Gramz'e Mai tresse (countess Brockdorff), was all we could afford but, presto! There will be First Grand Charges, Grand Charges.