Although Princess Cecilie is not as handsome as her mother, yet she is tall and graceful and most attractive.
The vision of a throne must have had a great deal to do with her choice, I fancy; and she was reputed to have said that she would only consent to marry a “throne”!
At the Russian Court it was rather expected that she might have married the Tzar’s brother, but he never paid her any attention, and she declared to her lady-in-waiting that there were too many bombs in Russia and that she no longer wished to remain there!
One of the favourite games of Grand Duke Michael-Alexandrovitch, the Tzar’s brother and at that time his heir, was to place a potato in a pail of water and then get his friends down on all fours to lean over the pail and with their mouths try to extract the wretched thing--usually with such results as might be imagined, some clumsy jaws sinking so deep into the water as almost to cause their owner’s death by drowning, while the potato seemed to take pleasure in their discomfiture by rising and sinking at every touch to a most alarming degree.
Another visitor staying at the Palace was Prince Cristopher of Greece, brother of ex-King Tino and of Grand Duchess George, who always came with Princess Cecilie to see my aunt. He was a fat boy of about fourteen at the time and full of every conceivable mischief. One of his greatest jokes was to leap with both feet into the middle of a mud puddle so as to splash the Princess and my cousin from head to foot!
My aunt remarked to him once in front of me that he seemed to be very fond of his cousin--Princess Cecilie--upon which he blushed to the roots of his hair and exclaimed “Moi, je n’aime personne!”
The following year Princess Cecilie married the German Crown Prince and three weeks after she sent a telegram to my cousin Olga--they have corresponded for years--saying: “Je suis très heureuse.” I wonder if she is still of the same opinion!
Now, she has become the mother of a large family, and quite “German” I am told.
She had been brought up very severely by her mother, as is so often the way with parents who are not over-particular concerning their own mode of living.
Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, seemingly unconscious of the charms of his beautiful Villa Wenden at Cannes, of the perfume of the lovely roses and all the other exquisite flowers of his garden, was perhaps preoccupied in another direction of life, which must have been full of heavy storm clouds for him, so heavy indeed that he felt unable to bear them and one day threw himself over the parapet of the bridge in his park which traverses the road--and there was found the dead body of the Grand Duke.