THE SHAH COMPROMISES ME IN PUBLIC
Has only eyes for me at the grand manoeuvres, and I can't drive
him from my carriage--Ignores the King and the military
spectacle--Calls me his adored one--Court in despair--Shah ruins
priceless carpets to make himself a lamb stew.
DRESDEN, _December 1, 1894_.
I am in disgrace again and that uncouth animal, the Shah, is
responsible.
The dinner episode was bad enough, but he carried on worse at the grand
parade next day.
Six or eight regiments, Horse, Foot and Artillery, had been moved to do
him honor, but he flatly refused to accept a mount for the occasion.
Like the ladies of the royal family, he drove to the parade field in a
coach and four, and no sooner did he clap eyes on me at the rendezvous
in another vehicle than he left his and shambled over to me. He stood at
the carriage door, chanting love and devotion, and if I hadn't been all
ice, I have no doubt he would have jumped in and ordered the coachman to
drive to a hotel.
Meanwhile the King trotted around the manoeuvre field in honor of his
"sublime guest." Evolutions, _Parade-marsch_, attacks, saluting the
colors, Persian and Saxon, what not? Imagine the feelings of the old
King when he rode up to the Shah's gala coach and found it empty.
The marching past had begun, and still the "King of kings" turned his
back on it all, while trying to persuade me to be Queen of his seraglio.
Our courtiers, the princes, the Queen, the generals were in despair.
They took counsel with each other, disputed, advised, got red in the
face. The Shah's gentlemen alone kept cool. They probably argued: If our
master prefers the company of a pretty woman to looking at ten thousand
men, he shows his good taste.
I tried to shake him off. He stood his ground and smiled.
"The Grand March has begun, Your Majesty."
"Bother the Grand March."
The King began to bombard me with ungracious, glances, and of course
everybody stared. Three times I asked the big booby to return to his
carriage to oblige his host. "Not while I may look at you, adored one."
His love-making became desperate. The Crown Princess of Saxony, the
Imperial Highness of Austria, the "adored one" of this butcher, who was
ruining twenty-five thousand marks' worth of carpets in his apartments
at our palace by using them as a shambles to prepare his breakfast of
lamb stew. It was contemptible,--nay, ridiculous. Surely there was
nothing to do but laugh. And I laughed and laughed again.
Only when the last battalion had marched by and the music ceased, the
"King of kings" returned to his carriage and drove back to Dresden with
the most bored looking visage of the world.