eman. The Russian Czars, Paul, Nicholas
I, and Alexander III, were brought up with the knout, their preceptors
used the boys at their sweet pleasure. The first turned out a madman;
the second a brute; the third his people's executioner.

Czar Paul would run a mile to cane a soldier who had a speck of dust on
his boots. My grand-uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, sometimes
travels tens of miles to box the ears of a member of his family.

Francis Joseph had a cruel bringing up.

At the Royal Library in Berlin I saw the manuscript of _Les Memoires de
ma vie: la princesse de Prusse, Frederice Sophie Wilhelmine, qui epousa
le Margrave de Bayreuth_,--the original, unedited save by the
corrections of the authoress. A good many passages of this "most
terrible indictment of royalty" reminded me of home. There is even a
parallel, or a near-parallel, of my own case just recorded. The Princess
Wilhelmina's all-powerful governess was Madame Leti, who pummelled the
child "as if she had been her mother." This Leti was undoubtedly a
Sadist; to inflict torture, to practice refined cruelties was a joy to
her. Not content with whipping the little girl, she added, shortly
before her dismissal, some poisonous matter to Wilhelmina's wash water
"that gnawed the skin and made my face all coppery and inflamed my
eyes." This species of wickedness, at last, resulted in the discharge of
Leti, "but she decided to leave me a few souvenirs in the shape of
fisticuffs and kicks. She had told my mother that I was suffering from
nose bleed and punched my nose whenever she was unobserved. During the
last week of her stay at the palace I sometimes bled like an ox, and my
arms and legs were blue, green and yellow from her kicks and cuffs. I am
sure if she could have broken my legs with impunity, she would not have
hesitated a moment to do so."

History and the court gossip of the day afford plenty of precedents for
what happened to me and my brothers and sisters in Salzburg. Indeed,
Prince Albert, Consort of the late Queen Victoria, was the only royal
father of the first half of the century that used the rod in moderation.
To my mind that is one of the reasons why English kings and princes are
so far superior to the Continental kind.

But to return to Salzburg.

Leopold had it all his own way for a quarter of an hour, as none of the
servants would interfere in favor of the hated chaplain and mother was
engaged in her oratory in a far away part