circles. It is possible that the young emperor
might have remained indifferent to popular clamor about the matter,
had not two other incidents occurred about the same time to cool his
liking for the fair Jenny.
In the first place, she felt herself so much encouraged by the
influence which she believed that she exercised over the emperor, that
when during the annual army manoeuvres Field Marshal Prince George of
Saxony, and other Prussian and foreign royalties were quartered under
her roof, she absolutely declined to hoist either the German flag, or
the Royal Saxon standard, but insisted upon flying the national
colors of Poland from the flag staff that surmounted the turret of
her chateau. Naturally, Prince George and his fellow royal guests
complained of this breach of etiquette to the kaiser, and protested
strongly against it.
Almost at the same time, her husband, the baron, having been invited
to attend the opening of a provincial exhibition in the neighboring
Empire of Austria, was so carried away by enthusiasm, due to the
kindness with which the Poles present were treated by Emperor
Francis-Joseph, that forgetting all he owed to Emperor William,
he publicly hailed Francis-Joseph as "sole sovereign of all Polish
hearts," and as "Poland's future king!" About this time too, the
empress paid a couple of rather mysterious visits to her mother-in-law
at Friedrichkron. Court gossip ascribed these hurried trips to
the fact that the empress had been prompted by her jealousy of the
baroness to invoke the intervention of the strong-minded widow of
Frederick the Noble. But it is far more likely that the empress
visited the Dowager Kaiserin in order that she should call the
attention of her son to the harm which the association of the name of
the baroness with his own was doing him in a political sense both at
home and abroad.
Whatever the cause of these consultations between the two
empresses may have been, the fact remains that almost immediately
afterwards Baron and Baroness Koscielski received from the
Grand-Master-of-the-Court, Count Eulenburg, an official intimation
that their presence at court was not desired in highest quarters until
further notice, and that under the circumstances they would do well
to remain at their country seat. In fact they were virtually banished,
and when both husband and wife travelled all the way to Berlin with
the object of asking for an explanation from the emperor, he declined
to re
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