misfortunes, that the first
love affair with which I was brought into intimate connection and
confronted at an age still so impressionable, should have been of the
shallow and somewhat artificial character betrayed by the romance of my
sister and Baron Fritz. She was a headstrong girl; longing to exercise
power over men, surprised when a temporary gust of feeling carried her
into an emotion unexpectedly strong; he was a self-conscious fellow,
hugging his woes and delighting in the picturesqueness of his
misfortune. The notion left on my mind was that there was a great deal
of nonsense about the matter. Baptiste strengthened my opinion.

"I ask your pardon, sire," he said with a shrug, "but we know the
sentimentality of the Germans. What is it? Sighs and then beer, more
sighs and more beer, a deluge of sighs and a deluge of beer. A Frenchman
is not like that in his little affairs."

"What does a Frenchman do, Baptiste?" I had the curiosity to ask.

"Ah," laughed Baptiste, "if I told your Majesty now, you would not care
to visit Paris; and I long to go to Paris with your Majesty."

I did not pursue the subject. I was conscious of a disenchantment, begun
by Victoria, continued by the Baron. The reaction made in favour of my
mother. I acknowledged the wisdom of her firmness and an excuse for her
anger. I realized her causes for annoyance and shame, and saw the
hollowness of the lovers' pleas. I had thought the Princess very hard; I
was now inclined to think that she had shown as much self-control as
could be expected from her. Rather to my own surprise I found myself
extending this more favourable judgment of her to other matters,
entering with a new sympathy into her disposition, and even forgiving
some harsh thing which I had never pardoned. The idea suggested itself
to my mind, that even the rigours of the Styrian discipline had a
rational relation to the position which the victims of it were destined
to fill. She might be right in supposing that we could not be allowed
the indulgence accorded to the common run of children. We were destined
for a special purpose, and, if we were not made of a special clay, yet
we must be fashioned into a special shape. It is hard to disentangle the
influence of one event from that exerted by another. Perhaps the loss of
Owen, and the consequently increased influence of Hammerfeldt over my
life and thoughts, had as much to do with my new feelings as Victoria's
love affair; but in any c