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She loved the King, but the honour of the family still weighed more with her than love. She set rigorous conditions to her capitulation: a left-handed marriage, the written consent of the Queen, and the removal of the titular mistress, Madame Rietz. On this last point the King was inflexible; he gave in on the other two.
We did the twenty-four miles up and down the mountain roads in two hours and a half, with our valiant little pair of horses; it is incredible how they go. We stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside belonging to a ci-devant slave, one Christian Rietz, a WHITE man, with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey eyes, and NOT woolly moustaches.
All the same, she was no more successful than Mademoiselle de Voss in getting rid of Madame Rietz. This favourite, who had been given 70,000 crowns to take her departure, remained, took an officer as her lover, and even got the King to promote him.
"The moment that you, my dear lord and master, have inscribed your name," said Wilhelmine, handing him the pen, and pointing to the paper. The prince wrote the desired signature, quickly throwing the pen across the room, shouting, "Long live Wilhelmine Rietz, who has rescued me from perjury and sin!
A venerable and distinguished teacher and composer is James C.D. Parker, who was born at Boston, in 1828, and graduated from Harvard in 1848. He at first studied law, but was soon turned to music, and studied for three years in Europe under Richter, Plaidy, Hauptmann, Moscheles, Rietz, and Becker. He graduated from the conservatory at Leipzig, and returned to Boston in 1845.
Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal, but SO pretty! a dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with beautiful eyes, and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice blacks; and, though old and fat, still graceful and lovely in face, hands, and arms.
This person, who managed always to retain the favour, if not the love, of Frederick William, was the daughter of a humble musician. She married the Prince’s valet de chambre, became Madame Rietz, and was afterwards made Countess of Lichtenau.
The cottage was thus: One large hall; my bedroom on the right, S-'s on the left; the kitchen behind me; Miss Rietz behind S-; mud floors daintily washed over with fresh cow-dung; ceiling of big rafters, just as they had grown, on which rested bamboo canes close together ACROSS the rafters, and bound together between each, with transverse bamboo a pretty BEEHIVEY effect; at top, mud again, and then a high thatched roof and a loft or zolder for forage, &c.; the walls of course mud, very thick and whitewashed.
They were of a talented family, for her grandfather was the famous song-writer, Robert Lindley. In 1856 she was sent to the Leipsic Conservatory, studying piano with Moscheles, ensemble playing with David and Rietz, and harmony with Richter. Her singing, by which she first became famous, was begun with Goetze and finished at Berlin under Frau Zimmermann.
Rietz produced a German "Faust," founded on Goethe, at Dusseldorf, in 1836; Lindpainter in Berlin, in 1854; Henry Rowley Bishop's English "Faustus" was heard in London, in 1827; French versions were Mlle. How often the subject has served for operettas, cantatas, overtures, symphonies, etc., need not be discussed here.
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