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25 January 1888 — San Remo | |
Wednesday. 25th [January 1888]. I was not up to breakfast but got a letter from Seckendorff to say the Cn Princess was coming to us at 10 so I had to get up in a hurry. She came & sat some time telling us all about the Crown [Prince] and she asked me to come up to the Villa Zirio to have a drive with her. She drove me to a hill outside the town called Ospedaletti. It is where there anciently existed a leper hospital & where a gambling house & great hotel had been built by a company. The Italian Govt had happily refused to license it & so the Company failed & the buildings remained unused. We got out of the carriage & walked a good part of the way on foot. She talked a great deal of the Crown Prince’s illness & expressed a firm belief that Sir Morell Mackenzie was right & that HIH was not suffering from cancer but from perichondritis & she said no one could have any idea of all she had gone through & of the brutal behaviour of many of the Germans. She said she knew there was a small party in Germany who detested her & her husband & would be glad to see them dead or put on one side—that abdication has even been proposed at once—but she had taken the matter in her own hands & without saying anything to the Cn Prince she had absolutely refused to listen to it– She had had to keep all this & other worries from her husband for 6 weeks after which she had been obliged to let him know. She evidently had been very unkindly treated by her son P. William—tho’ she did not say much about it. She seems firmly convinced of the Cn Princes ultimate recovery altho’ she seems to accept his not recovering his voice. As we walked I began also to talk of Henry’s book “Early Adventures” of which she spoke in high praise & then I told her of a letter I had received from Sir Wm Gregory in wh he speaks of his wish to see Henry in the House of Lords for his own sake & more especially for the good of the country. HIH agreed with me & I told her that I believed that by her influence this might be accomplished. That though I thought it would be a happy thing for Henry giving him an occupation he much needed, I felt that as his wife it was difficult for me to do anything in the matter. I told her how kind the Queen always is to Henry on the rare occasions on wh she sees him & I felt the Queen alone could do it in this her Jubilee Year– I gave the Pss Sir Wm’s letter to me to read & she asked me for a copy of it & we then drove back to the Villa Zirio & I went on to the Hotel to luncheon. Afterwards Henry, Ola & I went to the Villa garden to see a puppet show & a boy conjuring on the terrace. The Crown Prince came out also & we saw him for the first time. He had grown a little thinner & paler but seemed in excellent spirits laughing heartily at the absurd exhibition– His voice is entirely gone & it was not easy to hear his whisper. Today was his 30th wedding day. In the evening we went up to the Villa again to see the illuminations & fireworks given by the town on the occasion. It was cold & damp & we did not see much. Made the acquaintance of Prince Henry, 2nd son of the Crown P. & Pss also of the Princess of Saxe Meiningen the eldest daughter– She is pretty. | |
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