Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/139

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ALBRECHT II
123

which his father had worn before him, and on whose thick collar his delicate head now rested, he stepped into his carriage—timid glances were levelled at him, and the cheering was faint and hesitating. For the lower classes felt that with a prince like this there could be no question of cheering him and thereby cheering themselves at the same time. They looked at him, and did not recognize themselves in him; his refined superiority made it clear that they were of different clay from his. And they were not accustomed to that. Was there not a commissionaire posted in the Albrechtsplatz that very day, who with his high cheek-bones and grey whiskers looked a coarse and homely replica of the late Grand Duke? And did one not similarly meet with Prince Klaus Heinrich's features in the lower classes?

It was not so with his brother. The people could not see in him an idealized version of themselves, whom it could make them happy to cheer—as it meant cheering themselves too! The Grand Duke's Highness—his un doubted Highness!—was a nobility of the usual kind, undomestic, and without the stamp of the graciousness which inspires confidence. He too knew that; and the consciousness of his Highness, together with that of his want of popular graciousness, were quite enough to account for his shyness and haughtiness. He began already to delegate as far as possible his duties to Prince Klaus Heinrich. He sent him to open the new spring at Immenstadt and to the historical town-pageant at Butterburg. Indeed, his contempt for any exhibition of his princely person went so far that Herr von Knobelsdorff had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to receive the Presidents of the two Chambers in the Throne-room himself, and not, "for reasons of health," as he was minded, to give place to his brother on this solemn occasion.

Albrecht II lived a lonely life in the Old Schloss; that