A Talk with the Crown Prince—Matrimonial Affairs—Bertha Discussed—The Empress and Her Sons
The War Lord had not taken any notice of Frederick the Great’s injunction against "useless beggar princes." At the time of Bertha’s visit six of them, ranging from twenty-one to thirteen years of age, were roaming the palace, and there was a little girl of eleven besides. Only the eldest boy was provided for, by the Crown Prince’s Endowment Fund; the rest were booked to live by the grace of their father’s munificence and such moneys as could be squeezed out of the public in the shape of military and administrative perquisites, unless they contracted advantageous marriages; for while the Prussian allows himself to be heavily taxed for the Civil List, that jolly institution, grants for His Majesty’s sisters, cousins and aunts has no place in his catalogue of loyalty.
Talking one day to his heir, the War Lord broached the subject of a money-marriage.
"But mother didn’t have any money," the _bête noire_, Crown Prince William, had the temerity to interpose.
"No cash, it’s true; but our marriage quasi-legitimatised our acquisition of Schleswig-Holstein, and those provinces are worth something."
"Perhaps I had better marry Alexandra or Olga Cumberland," suggested young William, "so that the possession of Hanover can no longer be disputed. These girls have coin besides."
"Or a Hesse girl of the Electoral Branch."
"And turn Catholic like Princess Anna," cried the War Lord furiously. "Shut up about that Danish baggage. I myself will get you a wife. Trust father to find you the _comme il faut_ wife—_comme il faut_ in every respect: politics, family, religion and personal attractiveness, for we want no ugly women in our family."
The Crown Prince opened his mouth for a pert reply, but William forestalled him by an imperious gesture.
"I am preparing a message for the Ministerial Council."
In the evening William invited his younger brothers—Eitel, Albert, Augustus and Oscar—to his rooms, providing a bottle of beer and two cigarettes per head. Having attained his majority and consequently succeeded to the Dukedom of Oels, the Brunswick inheritance, he might have offered the boys a real treat, champagne and tobacco _ad lib._, but such would have been against Prussian tradition, which stands for parsimony at home and display where it spells cheap glory.