Excerpt from The Secret of an Empress Two questions have often been asked me by people who have known part only of my life-story; and it seems to me that before I begin to tell the whole of that story I should do well to answer them. The first question is, Why did the Empress Elisabeth wish to bring me up as she did, away from the Court? The second is, Why does the Emperor Francis-Joseph refuse me recognition? Why, then, did the Empress bring me up as she did? It is, I suppose, fairly well known that the Court of Vienna is still under the rule of a code of etiquette which dates from the sixteenth century. But I doubt whether more than a very few outside the Court itself realise how crushing the code is. I shall have occasion later to refer to it in some detail, and shall here speak only of that portion of it which concerns the Empress's position. In Austria the sovereign's wife is a person standing entirely by herself. The Emperor himself is above her, and she is not permitted to go to see him as she wishes. There are always the ceremonies of asking permission before a meeting, and of announcing the approach. All the rest of the Court is below the Empress, and not one of her relatives even may see her without obtaining leave some time beforehand, through the Grand Mistress or her deputy. This may not be considered a great hardship so far as ordinary relatives are concerned, nor indeed anything out of the way in a high rank of society. But, in so far as the rule applies to the intercourse of mother and child, it becomes tragic in its cruelty. Mere archdukes and archduchesses may associate freely with their children, who are of the same status as themselves. The Emperor and Empress, on the other hand, are hedged round with restrictions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.