LEARNING THE ROPES
When Ferdinand found it was his “sacred duty” to occupy the vacant
Principality without loss of time, he disguised himself and fled from
Vienna. His initial disguise was that of a Viennese cab-driver, but he
changed several times before he arrived in Sofia disguised as a
Bulgarian general. He has lived a substantial portion of his life in
various disguises since that day.
If one had any pity to spare for such a malignant creature, one might
almost pity him his first experiences in Bulgaria. The Bulgars did not
know him, but his reputation had preceded him from the mouth of that
Popoff who had inspected him so critically in the reception-room of his
mother’s summer palace. The envoys were bombarded with questions on
their return, and those most responsible for the choice mustered up
enough courage to describe him as “most diplomatic.”
This was hardly what the Bulgars had been led to expect, and the wise
men noted that Popoff held his speech. This led to direct questions,
and Popoff let out his opinion. “Pah!” says he, “scented like a civet.”
And the Bulgarians, who make scent but do not use it, never forgot the
description.
Ferdinand had been elected to fill the shoes of a prince who had been
kidnapped for his virtues and abilities. The dashing Alexander of
Battenberg is a popular hero of his people, a warrior Prince whom the
rough Bulgarian peasants could understand and love. There comes to take
his place a finicking, fine gentleman with an eyeglass in his eye, who
shows up in the capital for the first time in a general’s uniform, but
riding in a carriage. As a matter of fact, he was in such a state of
nervous terror that it would not have been safe to let him mount a
horse.
And what a country for such an exquisite to rule! Bulgaria in 1915 is
bad enough, but words fail to paint the primitive savagery of the
country in 1887. Sofia, the capital, was little more than a glorified
village, and the new Prince bumped hideously over the ruts in the
streets as his carriage passed to the palace. Nearly twenty years
later, one of the most tactful great ladies of Europe, wishing to pay
Ferdinand a compliment on the great improvement wrought in his capital
since his accession, said sweetly:
“I do love Sofia, the railway makes it so easy to run over to Vienna
for a little gaiety.”
But even that reason for leaving Sofia did not exist when this cuckoo
Prince first drove down its main street.
Bulgarian was one of the few languages his mother had not added to his
list of accomplishments, and his hope that his perfect French would
carry him through triumphantly was only partly justified. He found many
of the most important men of State knew no language but their own, and
these he failed to comprehend as completely as they him.
The motley races of this Principality were of all colours and creeds.
Bulgars, Serbians, gipsies, Turks, Circassians, Jews, Armenians,
Tartars, Russians, Rumanians, Albanians, then as now, were all huddled
together cheek by jowl. They were all as strange to him as would have
been a race of Maoris. But if he felt any misgivings about his new rôle
in life he did not display them. Indeed, he was ready with a cant
explanation of his acceptance of the responsibility, and of his flight
from Vienna in an ignoble guise.
“I did not seek the Bulgarian crown. It was offered to me with the
assurance that I could do much good in the country. The mission was a
noble one, and I accepted it.”
His idea of Royalty was centred in the stateliest pageants of the most
formal Courts of Europe. He had had a wide experience of Courts, and
knew exactly the extreme of outward show that was employed to hedge the
greatest monarchs of Christendom. He established a ceremonial that
outdid them all. It was Ferdinand’s way of asserting his own importance
in a principality where the Prince was treated like an idle and
worthless schoolboy.
For Bulgaria had a real ruler, in spite of the kidnapping of its first
prince and the appointment of a half-pay lieutenant to take his place.
He was a little, fat, dirty man, the son of an innkeeper named
Stambuloff. One can measure Bulgarian character by the stamp of the
greatest man Bulgaria has yet produced. Stambuloff, the patriot
statesman, was not ashamed to admit that he made Sofia the Bulgarian
capital, because he owned large holdings of land there, and could reap
a fortune from the circumstance.
And before his coronation as Prince of Bulgaria Ferdinand had a
sufficing taste of the mastery of this overlord who ruled his new
subjects with a rod of iron. The Prince had designed his own coronation
robe, a tasteful garment in purple and ermine that became him
marvellously. Nicely scented, and jewelled in admirable taste, he
encountered his Prime Minister, who was smoking a black cigar that
smelt like the burning of old boots—what the Americans call a cooking
cigar—and displayed a liberal portion of Bulgarian soil under his long
finger-nails.
Stambuloff looked him over with a loud snort. “I cannot, and will not,
be seen with you, if you don’t take that rubbish off,” he shouted; and
then as a malicious afterthought added: “Why not spend the money on a
trusty body-guard?” And the ruffian laughed aloud as Ferdinand went
livid in his gorgeous purple and ermine robe. For it was an open secret
that Bulgaria held no terror for Ferdinand to compare with his fear of
assassination.
But even the fear of assassination could not scare him off his uneasy
throne. “Mon Dieu!” said he. “As they leave me here I will remain. The
position is not particularly brilliant, but where is a better one to be
found? I am a reigning prince. I have a pretty good civil list, and
rather pleasant shooting. I might as well be here as anywhere else.”
There, you see, is the real Ferdinand, with his habitual cant phrases
laid aside for once.
And he soon found an occupation that pleased him infinitely, and filled
in the gaps of his time very pleasantly while he was making
acquaintance with the language and customs of Bulgaria. He occupied
himself with the organization of such a secret police service as has
disgraced no other country in the nineteenth century. The ranks of this
precious service were recruited from handy foreigners who had
established themselves in Bulgaria for some time. In that service
promotion was rapid—provided that the agent was a good and trustworthy
assassin.
He paid these worthies out of his own pocket, and their work was the
constant espionage on all the leading men of Bulgaria. Thus he got
acquainted with all the peccadilloes of the men who governed the
country for him, while they despised the scented dandy who came among
them with such show of royal state.
Where real misbehaviour could not be discovered, imaginary offences
were invented in plenty, and Ferdinand soon had evidence against every
man of any importance in his realm. How he made use of these secret
dossiers can well be imagined. Those most guilty were made his tools by
threats of exposure and punishment, and he gathered around him the
support of the worst blackguards in Bulgaria.
This work provided congenial employment for the young Prince, who had
been nurtured on the morals of Machiavelli and the traditions of
Talleyrand. His spies made Sofia the most uncomfortable city for the
stranger that Europe possessed, but the habitués of the place paid
little heed to his army of Mouchards. For even before the coming of
Ferdinand, the customs of the Bulgarian capital were nothing very nice.
And thus Ferdinand learned the language of his subjects, and added his
own little improvements to their customs and traditions. But there was
something that worried him beyond the boundaries of his principality,
and as it worried his devoted mother even more, it soon began to occupy
the whole of his attention.
For the Powers of Europe would not recognize his appointment as Prince
of Bulgaria.
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THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
“_What! My nephew Ferdinand! But it is so long since I have seen you
that, like the Powers, I did not recognize you_.” —DUC D’AUMALE.
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