It requires little power of imagination to picture how the world looks
to the eyes of a young, immensely wealthy scion of royalty. The court
treated Prince Louis with marked distinction, the ladies petted him,
gentlemen showed him the most flattering attention.
Precocious, as people become in the hot-house atmosphere of
aristocratic society, reflective and shy, as only children, who are
reared among grown people, without intercourse with companions of their
own age, almost always are, endowed, moreover, with a critical mind,
which always confronted appearances sceptically and anxiously went to
the bottom of everything, Prince Louis, unlike so many of his equals in
rank, did not accept the tokens of consideration offered him on all
sides as a matter of course, but constantly asked himself their cause.
He was honest with himself and admitted that he owed his sovereign's
clasp of the hand, the wooing smiles of the ladies, the cordial
advances of men of rank and distinction, not to his own personality,
but to his title and his wealth.
"What do they all know about me?" he often said to himself, when he
returned from an entertainment at court to his splendid palace,
tenanted only by servants.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126