"Helene adores the Princess of Wales [Footnote: Queen Alexandra.]
but not the Prince! [Footnote: King Edward VII.] and says the
latter's rudeness to her brother, the Duc d'Orleans, is terrible.
I said nothing, as I am devoted to the Prince and think her
brother deserves any ill-treatment he gets. I asked her if she was
afraid of the future: a new country and the prospect of babies,
etc. She answered that d'Aosta was so genuinely devoted that it
would make everything easy for her.
"'What would you do if he were unfaithful to you?' I asked.
"PRINCESS HELENE: 'Oh! I told Emanuel. ... I said, "You see? I
leave you ... If you are not true to me, I instantly leave you,"
and I should do so at once.'
"She begged me never to forget her, but always to pray for her.
"'I love you,' she said, 'as every one else does'; and with a warm
embrace she left the room.
"She came of a handsome family: Blowitz's famous description,'de
loin on dirait un Prussien, de pres un imbecile,' was made of a
near relation of the Duchesse d'Aosta."
With the fall of the Government my diary of that year ceases to
have the smallest interest.
CHAPTER IX
MARGOT IN 1906 SUMS UP HER LIFE; A LOT OF LOVE-MAKING, A LITTLE
FAME AND MORE ABUSE--A REAL MAN AND GREAT HAPPINESS
I will finish with a character-sketch of myself copied out of my
diary, written nine weeks before the birth of my fifth and last
baby in 1906, and like everything else that I have quoted never
intended for the public eye:
"I am not pretty, and I do not know anything about my expression,
although I observe it is this that is particularly dwelt upon if
one is sufficiently plain; but I hope, when you feel as kindly
towards your fellow-creatures as I do, that some of that warmth
may modify an otherwise bright and rather knifey CONTOUR.
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