accompanied him, to embark on board the British royal yacht, which was
to take him to England. As we approached the town in the early morning,
the presidential train was shunted on to the special line that leads
direct to the dockyard. Suddenly, while we were running pretty fast, a
short stop took place, producing a violent shock in all the carriages.
The reader can imagine the excitement. The railway-officials, officers
and chamberlains of the court sprang out on the permanent way and
rushed to the royal saloon.
"Another attempt?" asked the King, calmly smiling, as he put his head
out of the window.
We all thought so at the first moment. Fortunately, it was only a
slight accident: the rear luggage-van had left the rails through a
mistake in the shunting. I hastened to explain the matter to the King.
"You'll see," he at once replied, "they will say, all the same, that it
was an attempt on my life: I must let my mother know quickly, or she
will be frightened."
The King was right. Someone, we never discovered who, had already found
means to telegraph to Queen Maria Christina that a fresh attack had
been made on her son. There are always plenty of bearers of ill-news,
even where sovereigns are concerned and especially when the news is
false!
I took leave of the King at Cherbourg and joined him, the week after,
at Calais, whence I was to accompany him to the Spanish frontier, for
he was returning direct to his own country. This time, the official
journey was over; and I once more found the pleasant, simple young man,
in the pale-grey suit and the soft hat. The warm welcome which he had
received in England had not wiped out his enthusiastic recollection of
France.
"By George," he declared, "how glad I am to see this beautiful country
again, even through the windows of the railway-carriage!"
A violent shower set in as we left Calais. The train went along a line
in process of repair and had to travel very slowly. At that moment,
seeing some gangs of navvies working under the diluvial downpour and
soaked to the skin, the King leant out of the window and, addressing
them:
"Wait a bit!" he said. "I'm going to give you something to smoke. This
will warm you."
And the King, after emptying the contents of his cigarette-case into
their horny hands, took the boxes of cigars and cigarettes that lay on
the tables, one after the other and passed them through the window,
first to the delighted labourers and then to the soldiers drawn up
on either side of the line. They had never known such a windfall: it
rained Upmanns, Henry Clays and Turkish cigarettes. When none were
left, the King appealed to the members of his suite, whom he laughingly
plundered for the benefit of these decent fellows. They, not knowing
his quality, shouted gaily:
"Thank you, sir, thank you! Come back soon!"
We had but one regret, that of remaining without anything to smoke
until we were able, at the next stop, to replenish our provisions of
tobacco which had been exhausted in so diverting a fashion.
When, on the following morning, we reached Hendaye, which is the
frontier station between France and Spain, a very comical incident
occurred that amused the young traveller greatly. By a purely
fortuitous coincidence, they were waiting, as we pulled up, for the
train of King Carlos of Portugal, who was also about to pay an official
visit to France; and the authorities and troops had collected on the
platform in order to show the usual honours to their new guest. Our
sudden arrival, for which nobody was prepared, as Alfonso XIII was not
now travelling officially, utterly disconcerted the resplendent crowd.
Would the King of Spain think that they were there on his account and
would he not be offended when he discovered his mistake? It was a
difficult position, but the prefect rose to the occasion. As the King
of Portugal's train was not yet signalled, he gave orders to pay the
honours to King Alfonso XIII.
The moment, therefore, that our train stopped, the authorities and
general officers hurried in our direction and the band of the regiment,
which had been practising the Portuguese royal anthem, briskly struck
up the Spanish anthem instead. But the King, who knew what he was
about, leant from the window and chaffingly cried:
"Please, gentlemen, please! I know that you are not here for me, but
for my next-door neighbour!"
At Irun, the first Spanish station, where I was to take leave of
our guest, a fresh surprise awaited us. There was not a trace of
police-protection, not a soldier, not a gendarme. An immense crowd
had freely invaded both platforms. And what a crowd! Thousands of
men, women and children shouted, sang, waved their hands, hustled
one another and fired guns into the air for joy, while the King,
calm and smiling elbowed his way from the presidential to the royal
train, patting the children's heads as he passed, paying a compliment
to their mothers, distributing friendly nods to the men who were
noisily cheering him. And I thought of our democratic country, in
which we imprison the rulers of States in an impenetrable circle of
police-supervision, whereas here, in a monarchical country, labouring
under a so-called reign of terror, the sovereign walks about in the
midst of strangers, unprotected by any precautionary measures. It was a
striking contrast.
But my mission was at an end. Still laughing, the King, as he gave me
his hand, said:
"Well, M. Paoli, you can no longer say that you haven't got me in your
collection!"
"I beg your pardon, Sir," I replied. "It's not complete yet."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, Sir, I haven't your portrait."
"Oh, that will be all right!" And, turning to the grand master of his
court, "Santo Mauro, make a note: photo for M. Paoli."
A few days after, I received a photograph, signed and dated by the
royal hand.
Five months later, Alfonso XIII, returning from Germany, where he
had been to pay his accession-visit to the Berlin Court, stopped to
spend a day incognito in Paris. I found him as I had left him; gay,
enthusiastic, full of good-nature, glad to be alive.
"Here I am again, my dear M. Paoli," he said, when he perceived me at
the frontier, where, according to custom, I had gone to meet him. "But
this time I shall not cause you any great worry. I must go home and I
sha'n't stop for more than twenty-four hours--worse luck!--in Paris."
On the other hand, he wasted none of his time while there. Jumping
into a motor-car the moment he was out of the train, he first drove to
the Hôtel Bristol, where he remained just long enough to change his
clothes, after which he managed, during his brief stay, to hear mass in
the church of St. Roch, for it was Sunday, to pay a visit to M. Loubet,
to make some purchases in the principal shops, to lunch with his aunt,
the Infanta Eulalie, to take a motor-drive, in the pouring rain, as far
as Saint-Germain and back, to dine at the Spanish Embassy and to wind
up the evening at the Théâtre des Variétés.
"And it's like that every day, when he's travelling," said one of his
suite to me.
The King, I may say, makes up for this daily expenditure of activity
with a tremendous appetite. I have observed, for that matter, that the
majority of sovereigns are valiant trenchermen. Every morning of his
life, Alfonso XIII has a good rumpsteak and potatoes for his first
breakfast, often preceded by eggs and sometimes followed by salad and
fruit. The King, on the other hand, never drinks wine and generally
confines himself to a tumbler of water and _zucharillos_, the national
beverage, composed of white of egg beaten up with sugar.
In spite of his continual need of movement, his passionate love of
sport in all its forms and especially of motoring, his expansive,
rather mad, but very attractive youthfulness, Alfonso XIII, even
in his flying trips, never, as we have seen, loses the occasion of
improving his mind. He is very quick at seizing a point, possesses a
remarkable power of assimilation and, although he does not read much,
for he has no patience, he is remarkably well-informed as regards the
smallest details that interest him. One day, for instance, he asked me,
point-blank:
"Do you know how many gendarmes there are in France?"
I confess that I was greatly puzzled what to reply, for I have never
cared much about statistics. I, therefore, ventured, on the off-chance,
to say:
"Ten thousand."
"Ten thousand! Come, M. Paoli, what are you thinking of? That's the
number we have in Spain. It's more like twenty thousand."
This figure, as I afterwards learnt, was strictly accurate.
As for business of State, I also noticed that the King devoted more
time to it than his restless life would lead one to believe. Rising
winter and summer at six o'clock, he stays indoors and works regularly
during the early portion of the morning and often again at night. In
this connexion, one of his ministers said to me:
"He never shows a sign of either weariness or boredom. The King's
'frivolity' is a popular fallacy. On the contrary, he is terribly
painstaking. Just like the Queen Mother, he insists upon clear and
detailed explanations, before signing the least document; and he knows
quite well how to make his will felt. Besides, he is fond of work and
he can work no matter where: in a motor-car, in a boat, in the train,
as well as in his study."
But it was especially on the occasion of the event which was to mark
an indelible date in his life, a fair and happy date, that I had
time to observe him and to come to know him better. The reader will
have guessed that I am referring to his engagement. The duties which
I fulfilled during a quarter of a century have sometimes involved
difficult moments, delicate responsibilities, thankless tasks, but they
have also procured me many charming compensations; and I have no more
delightful recollection than that of witnessing, at first hand, the
fresh and touching royal idyll, the simple, cloudless romance, which
began one fine evening in London, was subsequently continued under the
sunny sky of the Basque coast and ended by leading to one of those rare
unions which satisfy the exigencies both of public policy and of the
heart.
Like his father before him, Alfonso XIII, when his ministers began to
hint discreetly about possible "alliances," contented himself with
replying:
"I shall marry a princess who takes my fancy and nobody else. I want to
love my wife."
Nevertheless, diplomatic intrigues fashioned themselves around the
young sovereign. The Emperor William would have liked to see a German
princess sharing the throne of Spain; a marriage with an Austrian
archduchess would have continued a time-honoured tradition; the
question of a French princess was also mooted, I believe. But the
political _rapprochement_ between Spain and England had just been
accomplished under French auspices; an Anglo-Spanish marriage seemed
to correspond with the interests of Spain; and it so happened that the
Princess Patricia of Connaught had lately been seen in Andalusia. Her
name was on all men's lips; already, in the silence of the palace,
official circles were preparing for this union. Only one detail had
been omitted, but it was a detail of the first importance: that of
consulting the two persons directly interested, who did not even know
each other.
When the King went to England, no one thought for a moment but that
he would return engaged--and engaged to Patricia of Connaught. The
diplomatists, however, had reckoned without a factor, which, doubtless,
was foreign to them, but which was all-powerful in the eyes of Alfonso
XIII: the little factor known as love.
As a matter of fact, when the two young people met, they did not
attract each other. On the other hand, at the ball given in the King's
honour at Buckingham Palace, Alfonso never took his eyes off a young,
fair-haired princess, whose radiant beauty shed all the glory of spring
around her.
"Who is that?" asked the King.
"Princess Ena of Battenberg," was the reply.
The two were presented, danced and talked together, met again on the
next day and on the following days.
And, when the King returned to Spain, he left his heart in England.
But he did not breathe a word about it. His little idyll, which took
the form of an interchange of letters and postcards as well as of
secret negotiations with a view to marriage--negotiations conducted
with the English royal family by the King in person--was pursued in the
greatest mystery. People knew, of course, that the princess and the
King liked and admired each other; but they knew nothing of the young
monarch's private plans. Moreover, he took a pleasure in mystifying
his entourage. He who had once been so expansive now became suddenly
contemplative and reserved.
Soon after his return, he ordered a yacht; and, when the time came to
christen her, he made the builders paint on the prow in gold letters:
PRINCESS ...
The comment aroused by these three little dots may be easily imagined.
The moment, however, was at hand when the name of the royal yacht's
godmother and, therefore, of the future Queen of Spain was to be
revealed. One morning in January, 1906, I received a letter from
Miss Minnie Cochrane, Princess Henry of Battenberg's faithful
lady-in-waiting, telling me that the princess and her daughter,
Princess Ena, were leaving shortly for Biarritz, to stay with their
cousin, the Princess Frederica of Hanover, and inviting me to accompany
them. This kind thought is explained by the fact that I had known the
princess and her daughter for many years: I had often had occasions to
see Princess Beatrice with the late Queen Victoria, to whom she showed
the most tender filial affection; I had also known Princess Ena as a
little girl, when she still wore short frocks and long fair curls and
used to play with her doll under the fond, smiling gaze of her august
grandmother. She was then a grave and reflective child; she had great,
deep, expressive blue eyes; and she was a little shy, like her mother.
When at Calais, I beheld a fresh and beautiful young girl, unreserved
and gay, a real fairy princess, whose face, radiant with gladness, so
evidently reflected a very sweet, secret happiness; when, on the day
after her arrival at Biarritz, I unexpectedly saw King Alfonso arrive
in a great state of excitement and surprised the first glance which
they exchanged at the door of the villa, then I understood. I was,
therefore, not in the least astonished when Miss Cochrane, whom I had
ventured to ask if it was true that there was a matrimonial project on
foot between the King and the princess, answered, with a significant
smile:
"I think so; it is not officially settled yet; it will be decided here."
3.
The Villa Mouriscot, where the princesses were staying, was a
picturesque Basque chalet, elegantly and comfortably furnished.
Standing on a height, at two miles from Biarritz, whence the eye
commanded the magnificent circle of hills, and buried in the midst of
luxuriant and fragrant gardens, intersected by shady and silent walks,
it formed an appropriately poetic setting for the romance of the royal
betrothal.
The King came every day. Wrapped in a huge cloak, with a motoring-cap
and goggles, he would arrive at ten o'clock in the morning from San
Sebastian in his double Panhard, which he drove himself, except on the
rare occasions when he entrusted the steering-wheel to his excellent
French chauffeur, Antonin, who accompanied him on all his excursions.
His friends, the Marquis de Viana, the young Conde de Villalobar,
counsellor to the Spanish Embassy in London, Señor Quiñones de Leon,
the charming attaché to the Paris Embassy, the Conde del Grove, his
faithful aide-de-camp, or the Marquis de Pacheco, commanding the
palace halberdiers, formed his usual suite. As soon as the motor had
passed through the gates and stopped before the door, where Baron von
Pawel-Rammingen, the Princess Frederica's husband, and Colonel Lord
William Cecil, Princess Henry of Battenberg's comptroller, awaited him,
the King hurried to the drawing-room, where the pretty princess sat
looking out for his arrival, as impatient for the meeting as the King
himself.
After the King had greeted his hosts at the villa, he and the princess
walked into the gardens and exchanged much lively talk as they strolled
about the paths in which, as Gounod's song says, "lovers lose their
way." They returned in time for the family lunch, a very simple repast
to which the King's tremendous appetite did full honour. He used often
to send for Fraülein Zinska, the Princess Frederica's old Hanoverian
cook, and congratulate her on her culinary capacities, a proceeding
which threw the good woman into an ecstasy of delight. After lunch,
the young people, accompanied by Miss Cochrane as chaperone, went
out in the motor, not returning until nearly dark. On rainy days,
of course, there was no drive; but in the drawing-room of the villa
the Princess Frederica had thoughtfully contrived a sort of recess,
furnished with a sofa, in which the engaged couple could pursue their
discreet flirtation at their ease. When they took refuge there, the
young Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who had joined his family at
Biarritz, used to tease them:
[Illustration: THE KING AND QUEEN OF SPAIN AND BABY]
"Look out!" he would cry to anyone entering the room. "Be careful!
Don't disturb the lovers!"
In the evening, at dinner, the suite were present. The King changed
into evening-clothes, with the collar of the Golden Fleece. At
half-past ten, he left for the station and returned to San Sebastian by
the Sud-Express.
After a few days, although they were not officially engaged, no one
doubted that the event was near at hand.
"She's nice, isn't she?" the King asked me, point-blank.
A significant detail served to show me how far things had gone. One
day, the two young people, accompanied by the Princesses Frederica and
Beatrice and the whole little court, walked to the end of the grounds,
to a spot near the lake, where two holes had been newly dug. A gardener
stood waiting for them, carrying two miniature fir-plants in his arms.
"This is mine," said the King.
"And this is mine," said the princess, in French, for they constantly
spoke French together.
"We must plant the trees side by side," declared the King, "so that
they may always remind us of these never-to-be-forgotten days."
No sooner said than done. In accordance with the old English tradition,
the two of them, each laying hold of a spade, dug up the earth and
heaped it around the shrubs with shouts of laughter that rang clear
through the silent wood. Then, when the King, who, in spite of his
strength of arm, is a poor gardener, perceived that the princess had
finished her task first:
"There is no doubt about it," he said, "I am very awkward! I must put
in a month or two with the Engineers!"
On returning to the villa, he gave the princess her first present: a
heart set in brilliants. It was certainly a day of symbols.
On the following day, things took a more definite turn. The King came
to fetch the princesses in the morning to take them to San Sebastian,
where they met Queen Maria Christina. Nobody knew what happened in
the course of the interview and the subsequent private luncheon at
the Miramar Palace. But it was, beyond a doubt, a decisive day. At
Fuentarabia, the first Spanish town through which they passed on their
way to San Sebastian in the morning, the King said to the princess:
"You are now on Spanish soil."
"Oh," she said, "I am so glad!"
"It will soon be for good."
And they smiled to each other.
The frantic cheering that greeted her entry at San Sebastian, the
hail of flowers that fell at her feet when she passed through the
streets, the motherly kiss with which she was received at the door of
Queen Maria Christina's drawing-room must have given Princess Ena to
understand that all Spain had confirmed its sovereign's choice and
applauded his good taste.
Twenty-four hours after this visit, the Queen Mother, in her turn, went
to Biarritz and took tea at the Villa Mouriscot. The King had gone on
before her. Intense happiness was reflected on every face. When the
Queen, who had very graciously sent for me to thank me for the care
which I was taking of her son, stepped into her carriage, she said to
the princess, with a smile:
"We shall soon see you in Madrid."
Then, taking a white rose from the bouquet with which the Mayor of
Biarritz had presented her, she gave it to the princess, who pressed it
to her lips before pinning it to her bodice.
That same evening, the King, beaming all over his face, cried to me
from a distance, the moment he saw me:
"It's all right, Paoli; the official demand has been granted. You see
before you the happiest of men!"
He was indeed happy, so much so that his gaiety infected everybody
around him. Each of us felt that he had some small part in this
frank happiness, in this touching romance; and we felt all its charm
as though our hearts were but twenty years old again. The English
themselves, forgetting that their princess was about to marry a
Catholic sovereign and that she would have to forswear the Protestant
faith--an essential condition of the marriage--the English, usually so
strict in these matters, greeted this love-match with enthusiasm. One
of the British ministers gave vent to a very pretty phrase. Someone
expressing surprise, in his presence, at the acquiescence shown in this
connexion by King Edward's government:
"Mankind loves a lover," he replied. "Especially in England."
The days that followed upon the betrothal were days of enchantment for
the young couple, now freed from all preoccupation and constraint. One
met them daily, motoring along the picturesque roads of the Basque
country or walking through the streets of Biarritz, stopping before the
shopwindows, at the photographer's or at the pastrycook's.
"Do you know, Paoli," said the King to me, one day, "I've changed the
princess's name. Instead of calling her Ena, which I don't like, I call
her Nini. That's very Parisian, isn't it?"
The royal lover, as I have already said, prided himself with justice on
his Parisianism, as witness the following scrap of dialogue, which took
place one morning in the street at Biarritz:
"M. Paoli."
"Sir?"
"Do you know the tune of the _Maschich_?"
"Upon my word, I can't say I do, Sir!"
"Or of _Viens, Poupoule_?"
"No, Sir."
"Why, then you know nothing. Paoli ... you're a disgrace!"
Thereupon, half-opening the door of the confectioner's shop where
Princess Ena was making a leisurely selection of cakes, he began to hum
the famous air of _Viens, Poupoule_!
It will readily be imagined that the protection of the King was not
always an easy matter. True, it was understood that I should invariably
be told beforehand of the programme of the day; but the plans would be
changed an hour later; and, when the young couple had once set out at
random, nothing was more difficult than to catch them up.
I remember one morning when the King informed me that he did not
intend to go out that day. I thereupon determined to give myself a few
hours' rest. I had returned to my hotel and was beginning to enjoy the
unaccustomed sense of repose when the telephone bell rang:
"The King and the Princess have gone out," said the voice of one of my
detectives. "It's impossible to find them."
Greatly alarmed, I was hurrying to the Villa Mouriscot, when, at a bend
in the road, I saw the fugitives themselves before me, accompanied by
the Princess Beatrice.
"I say!" cried the King, in great glee. "We gave your inspector the
slip!"
And, as I was venturing to utter a discreet reproach:
"Don't be angry with us, M. Paoli," the princess broke in, very
prettily. "The King isn't frightened; no more am I. Who would think of
hurting us?"
The great delight of Alfonso, who is very playfully inclined, was to
hoax people that did not know who he was. One day, motoring into Cambo,
the delicious village near which M. Edmond Rostand's property lies, he
entered the post-office to send off some postcards. Seeing the woman in
charge of the office taking the air outside the door:
"I beg your pardon, madame," he said, very politely. "Could you tell
me if the King of Spain is expected here to-day?"
"I don't know anything about it," said the little post-mistress in an
off-hand way.
"Don't you know him by sight?"
"No."
"Oh, really! They say he's very nice: not exactly handsome, but quite
charming, for all that."