her his postcards, it goes without saying that she at once read the
superscriptions and saw that they were addressed to the Queen Mother at
San Sebastian, to the Infanta Doña Paz, to the Infanta Maria Theresa,
to the prime minister.
"Why, it's the King himself!" she exclaimed, quite overcome.
Alfonso XIII was already far on his road.
The most amusing adventure, however, was that which he had at Dax. One
morning, he took it into his head to motor away to the parched and
desolate country of the Landes, which stretch from Bayonne to Bordeaux.
After a long and wearing drive, he decided to take the train back from
Dax. Accompanied by his friend Señor Quiñones de Leon, he made for the
station, where the two young men, tired out and soaked in perspiration,
sat down in the refreshment-room.
"Give us some lunch, please," said the King, who was ravenously hungry,
to the woman at the bar.
The refreshment-room, unfortunately, was very meagerly supplied. When
the two travelling-companions had eaten up the sorry fare represented
by a few eggs and sandwiches, which had probably been waiting more than
a month for a traveller to arrive and take a fancy to them, the King,
whose appetite was far from being satisfied, called the barmaid, a fat
and matronly Béarnaise, with an upper lip adorned with a pair of thick
moustachios.
"Have you nothing else to give us?" he asked.
"I have a _pâté de foie gras_, but it's very expensive," said the
decent creature, whose perspicacity did not go to the length of seeing
a serious customer in this famished and dusty young man.
"Never mind, let's have it," said the King.
The woman brought her _pâté_, which was none too fresh; but how great
was her amazement when she saw the two travellers devour not only the
liver, but the fat as well! The pot was emptied and scraped clean in
the twinkling of an eye.
Pleased with her successful morning's trade and encouraged by the
King's ebullient good-humour, the barmaid sat down at the royal table,
and began to tell the King her family affairs and questioned him with
maternal solicitude. When, at last, the hour of departure struck, they
shook hands with each other warmly.
Some time afterwards, the King was passing through Dax by rail and, as
the train steamed into the station, said to me:
"I have an acquaintance at Dax. I'll show her to you: she is charming."
The plump Béarnaise was there, more moustachioed than ever. I will not
attempt to describe her comic bewilderment at recognising her former
customer in the person of the King. He was delighted and, giving her
his hand:
"You won't refuse to say How-do-you-do to me, I hope?" he asked,
laughing.
The thing turned her head; what was bound to happen happened: she
became indiscreet. From that time onwards, she looked into every
train that stopped at Dax, to see if "her friend" the King was among
the passengers; and, when, instead of stepping out on the platform,
he satisfied himself with giving her a friendly nod from behind the
pane, she felt immensely disappointed: in fact, she was even a little
offended.
The Cambo post-mistress and the Dax barmaid are not the only people who
boast of having been taken in by Alfonso XIII. His turn for waggery was
sometimes vented upon grave and serious men. Dr. Moure, of Bordeaux,
who attended the young monarch when his nose was operated upon, has
a story to tell. He was sent for, one day, to San Sebastian and was
waiting for his illustrious patient in a room at the Miramar Palace,
when the door opened quickly and there entered a most respectable
lady, dressed in silk flounces and wearing a wig and spectacles. Not
having the honour of her acquaintance, he made a deep bow, to which she
replied with a stately courtesy.
"It must be the _camerera-major_," he thought to himself. "She looks
tremendously eighteenth-century."
But suddenly a great burst of laughter shook the venerable dowager's
frame from head to foot, her spectacles fell from her nose, her wig
dropped likewise and a clarion voice cried:
"Good-morning, doctor! It's I!"
It was the King.
The chapter of anecdotes is inexhaustible. And it is not difficult
to picture how this playful simplicity, combined with a delicacy of
feeling and a knightly grace to which, in our age of brutal realism, we
are no longer accustomed, made an utter conquest of the pretty English
princess. When, after several days of familiar and daily intimacy, it
became necessary to say good-bye--the princess was returning to England
to busy herself with preparations for her marriage, Alfonso to Madrid
for the same reason--when the moment of separation had come, there
was a pang at the heart on both sides. And, as I was leaving with the
princess for Paris:
"You're a lucky man, M. Paoli, to be going with the princess," said the
King, sadly, as I was stepping into the railway-carriage. "I'd give
anything to be in your place!"
While the Court of Spain was employed in settling, down to the smallest
particular, the ceremonial for the King's approaching wedding, Princess
Ena was absorbed, at one and the same time, in the charming details of
her trousseau and in the more austere preparations for her conversion
to Catholicism. This conversion, as I have already said, was a _sine
quâ non_ to the consent of Spain to her marriage.
The princess and her mother, accompanied by Miss Cochrane and Lord
William Cecil, went and stayed in an hotel at Versailles for the period
of religious instruction which precedes the admission of a neophyte
within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church; and it was at Versailles,
on a cold February morning, that she abjured her Protestantism in a
sequestered chapel of the cathedral. Why did she select the town of
Louis XIV in which to accomplish this important and solemn act of her
life? Doubtless, because of the peaceful silence that surrounded it
and of the past, filled with melancholy grandeur, which it conjured
up; perhaps, also, because of the association of ideas suggested to
her mind by the city of the Great King and the origins of the family
of the Spanish Bourbons of which it was the cradle. The heart of woman
sometimes provides instances of this delicacy of thought.
The last months of the winter of 1906 were spent by the engaged pair in
eager expectation of the great event that was to unite them for good
and all and in the manifold occupations which it involved. The date of
the wedding was fixed for the 31st of May. A few days before that I
went to Calais to meet the princess. It was as though nature, in her
charming vernal awakening, was smiling upon the royal bride and had
hastily decked herself in her best to greet the young princess, as she
passed, with all her youthful gladness. But the princess saw nothing:
she had bidden a last farewell to her country, her family and her home;
and, despite the happiness that called her, the fond memory of all that
she was quitting oppressed her heart.
"It is nothing, M. Paoli," she said, when I asked the cause of her
sadness, "it is nothing: I cannot help feeling touched when I think
that I am leaving the country where I have spent so many happy days to
go towards the unknown."
She did not sleep that night. At three o'clock in the morning, she
was up and dressed, ready to appear before her future husband, before
the nation that was waiting to welcome her, while the King, at the
same hour, was striding up and down the platform at Irun, in a fever
of excitement, peering into the night so as to be the first to see
the yellow gleams of the train and nervously lighting cigarette upon
cigarette to calm his impatience.
Then came the whirlwind of festivals at which the King invited me to
be present, the sumptuous magnificence of the marriage-ceremony in the
ancient church of Los Geronimos. It was as though the old Court of
Spain had regained its pomp of the days of long ago. Once more, the
streets, all dressed with flags, were filled with antiquated chariots,
with heraldic costumes, with glittering uniforms; from the balconies
draped with precious stuffs, flowers fell in torrents; cheers rose from
the serried ranks of the crowd; an intense, noisy, mad gaiety reigned
in all men's eyes, on all men's lips, while, from behind the windows
of the state-coach that carried her to the church, the surprised and
delighted princess, forgetting her fleeting melancholy, now smiled her
acknowledgments of this mighty welcome.
A tragic incident was fated brutally to interrupt her fair young
dream. Finding no seat in the church of Los Geronimos, the dimensions
of which are quite small, I took refuge in one of the Court stands
erected along the route taken by the sovereigns; and I was watching the
procession pass on its return to the palace, when my ears were suddenly
deafened by a tremendous explosion. At first, no one realised where it
came from. We thought that it was the report of a cannon-shot fired to
announce the end of the ceremony. But suddenly loud yells arose, people
hustled one another and rushed away madly, shouting:
"It's a murder! The King and Queen are killed!"
Terrified, I tried to hasten to the street from which the cries came.
A file of soldiers, drawn up across the roadway stopped me. I then ran
to the palace, where I arrived at exactly the same moment as the royal
coach, from which the King and the young Queen alighted. They were
pale, but calm. The King held his wife's hand tenderly in his own and
stared in dismay at the long white train of her bridal dress, stained
with great blotches of blood. Filled with horror, I went up to Alfonso
XIII:
"Oh, Sir!" I cried, "at least both of you are safe and sound!"
"Yes," he replied. Then, lowering his voice, he added, "But there are
some killed. Poor people! What an infamous thing!"
Under her great white veil, the Queen, standing between Queen Maria
Christina and Princess Henry of Battenberg, still both trembling, wept
silent tears. Then the King, profoundly moved, drew nearer to her and
kissed her slowly on the cheek, whispering these charming words:
"I do hope that you are not angry with me for the emotion which I have
involuntarily caused you?"
What she replied I did not hear: I only saw a kiss.
Notwithstanding the warm manifestations of loyalty which the people
of Spain lavished upon their sovereigns on the following day, Queen
Victoria is said to have been long haunted by the horrible spectacle
which she had beheld and to have retained an intense feeling of terror
and sadness from that tragic hour. But, God be praised, everything
passes. When, later, I had the honour of again finding myself in
attendance upon the King and Queen at Biarritz and in Paris, I
recognised once more the happy and loving young couple whom I had known
at the time of their engagement. Alfonso XIII had the same gaiety, the
same high spirits as before; and the Queen's mind seemed to show no
trace of painful memories or gloomy apprehensions.
In the course of the first journey which I took with them a year after
the murderous attempt in Madrid, the King himself acquainted me with
the real cause of this happy quietude so promptly recovered. Walking
into the compartment where I was sitting, he lifted high into the air a
pink and chubby child and, holding it up for me to look at, said, with
more than a touch of pride in his voice:
"There! What do you think of him? Isn't he splendid?"
III
THE SHAH OF PERSIA
1.
Must I confess it? When I was told, a few weeks before the opening of
the International Exhibition of 1900, that I should have the honour
of being attached to the person of Muzaffr-ed-Din, King of Kings and
Shah of Persia, during the whole duration of the official visit which
he contemplated paying to Paris, I did not welcome the news with the
alacrity which it ought doubtless to have evoked.
And yet I had no reason for any prejudice against this monarch: I
did not even know him. My apprehensions were grounded on more remote
causes: I recalled the memories which a former Shah, his predecessor,
had left among us. Nasr-ed-Din was a strange and capricious sovereign,
who had never succeeded in making up his mind, when he came to Europe,
to leave on the further shore, so to speak, the manners and customs
of his country or to lay aside the troublesome fancies in which his
reckless despotism loved to indulge. Was it not related of him that,
while staying in the country, in France, he caused a sheep or two to
be sacrificed every morning in his bed-room, in order to ensure the
Prophet's clemency until the evening? And that he had the amiable habit
of buying anything that took his fancy, but neglecting to pay the bill?
Lastly, this very delicious story was told about him. The Shah had
asked whether he could not, by way of amusement, be present at an
execution of capital punishment during one of his stays in Paris. It so
happened that the occasion offered. He was invited to go one morning
to the Place de la Roquette, where the scaffold had been erected. He
arrived with his diamonds and his suite; but, the moment he saw the
condemned man, his generous heart was filled with a sudden tenderness
for the murderer:
"Not that one. The other!" he ordered, pointing to the public
prosecutor, who was presiding over the ceremony.
Picture the magistrate's face, while the Shah insisted and thought it
discourteous of them not at once to yield to his wishes.
I therefore asked myself with a certain dismay what unpleasant
surprises his successor might have in store for me. He seemed to me to
come from the depths of a very old and mysterious form of humanity,
travelling from his capital to the shores of Europe, slowly, by easy
stages, as in the mediæval times, across deserts and mountains and
blue-domed dead cities, escorted by a fabulous baggage-train of rare
stuffs, of praying-carpets, of marvellous jewels, an army of turbaned
horsemen, a swarm of officials, a harem of dancing-girls and a long
file of camels.
I asked myself if I too would be obliged to assist at sacrifices of
heifers and to console unpaid tradesmen, all to be finally pointed out
by His Majesty as a "substitute" under the knife of the guillotine.
However, I was needlessly alarmed: in Persia, thank goodness, the Shahs
succeed, but do not resemble one another. I became fully aware of this
when I was admitted into the intimacy of our new guest. Muzaffr-ed-Din
had nothing in common with his father. He was an overgrown child,
whose massive stature, great bushy moustache, very kind, round eyes,
prominent stomach and general adiposity formed a contrast with his
backward mental condition and his sleepy intelligence. He had, in fact,
the brain of a twelve-year-old schoolboy, together with a schoolboy's
easy astonishment, candour and curiosity. He busied himself exclusively
with small things, the only things that excited and interested him.
He was gentle, good-natured, an arrant coward, generous at times
and extremely capricious, but his whims never went so far as to take
pleasure in the suffering of others. He loved life, was enormously
attached to it, in fact; and he liked me too with a real affection,
which was spontaneous and, at times, touching:
"Paoli, worthy Paoli," he said to me one day, in an expansive mood,
fixing his round pupils upon me, "you ... my good, my dear domestic!"
When I appeared surprised and even a little offended at the place which
he was allotting me in the social scale:
"His Majesty means to say," explained the grand vizier, "that he looks
upon you as belonging to the family. 'Domestic' in his mind means a
friend of the house, according to the true etymology of the word, which
is derived from the Latin _domus_...."
The intention was pretty enough; I asked no more, remembering that
Muzaffr-ed-Din spoke French with difficulty and employed a sort of
negro chatter to express his thoughts.
2.
At the time of his first stay in Paris, he had the privilege of
inaugurating the famous Sovereigns' Palace, which the government had
fitted up in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne for the entertainment
of its royal visitors. The house was a comparatively small one;
on the other hand, it was sumptuously decorated. The national
furniture-repository had sent some of the finest pieces to be found
in its historic store-rooms. In fact, I believe that the Shah slept
in the bed of Napoleon I and washed his hands and face in the Empress
Marie-Louise's basin; things that interested him but little. Great
memories were a matter of indifference to him; he infinitely preferred
futile realities in the form of useless objects, whose glitter pleased
his eye, and of more or less harmonious sounds, whose vibrations
tickled his ears.
His tastes were proved on the day of his arrival by two quick
decisions: he ordered to be packed up for Teheran the grand piano which
adorned his drawing-room and the motor-car which awaited his good
pleasure outside, after hearing the one, trying the other and lavishly
paying for both. He would not be denied.
His amazement was great when he visited the exhibition for the first
time. The wonderful cosmopolitan city that seemed to have leapt into
existence in the space of one of the thousand and one nights of the
Persian legend stirred his eastern imagination, strive though he might
to conceal the fact. The splendour of the exotic display exercised an
irresistible attraction upon him; the glass-cases of jewellery also
fascinated his gaze, although he himself, doubtless without realising
it, was a perambulating shop-window which any jeweller might have
longed to possess. On his long Persian tunic with its red edges and
ample skirts creased with folds he wore a regular display of precious
stones and one did not know which to admire the most, the gleaming
sapphires that adorned his shoulder-straps, the splendid emeralds, the
exquisite turquoises that studded the baldrick and the gold scabbard
of his sword, the four enormous rubies that took the place of the
buttons of his uniform, or the dazzling and formidable diamond, the
famous Daria-Nour, the Sea of Light, fastened on to his _Khola_, the
traditional head-dress, whence jutted like a fountain of light a
quivering aigrette in brilliants. Thus decked out, Muzaffr-ed-Din was
valued at thirty-four million francs net; and even then he was far from
carrying the whole of his fortune upon his person: I have in fact been
assured that, in the depths of the iron trunk of which four vigilant
Persians had the keeping, there slumbered an equal number of precious
stones, no less fine than the others and content to undergo the rigour
of a temporary disgrace. At all events, in the guise in which he showed
himself in public, he was enough to excite the admiring curiosity of
the crowds.
In his solemn walks through the various sections of the exhibition,
where my modest frock-coat looked drab and out of place among the
glittering uniforms, he was attended by the grand vizier, the only
dignitary entitled, by the etiquette of the Persian court, to carry a
cane in the presence of his sovereign, who himself always leant upon a
stick made of some precious wood. He was invariably followed by a grave
and attentive Persian carrying a hand-bag. This person puzzled me at
first. His fellow-countrymen treated him with respect and addressed him
in deferential tones. I had concluded from this that he filled some
lofty function or other and felt the more justified in so thinking as
the Shah from time to time made him a little sign, whereupon, promptly,
all three--the Shah, the Persian and the hand-bag--disappeared for
a few moments into a dark corner. However, I soon learnt that these
mysterious meetings had no political significance: the Persian was
merely a confidential body-servant; as for the hand-bag, it held simply
the most homely and the most intimate of all the world's utensils and
the Shah was frequently obliged to have recourse to it. This little
drawback, however, did not damp his eagerness to know, to see and to
buy things. He bought everything indifferently: musical instruments,
old tapestries, a set of table-cutlery, a panorama, a "new-art" ring, a
case of pistols. He looked, touched, weighed the thing in his hand and
then, raising his forefinger, said, "_Je prends_," while the delighted
exhibitor, greatly touched and impressed, took down the order and the
address.
Nevertheless, Muzaffr-ed-Din was not so rich as one would be inclined
to think. Each time, in fact, that he came to Europe, where he spent
fabulous sums, he procured the money needed for his journey, not only
by raising a loan, generally in Russia, but also by a method which
was both ingenious and businesslike. Before leaving his possessions,
he summoned his chief officers of State--ministers, provincial
governors and the like--and proposed the following bargain to them:
those who wished to form part of his suite must first pay him a sum
of money which he valued in accordance with the importance of their
functions. It varied between 50,000 and 300,000 francs. In return, he
authorised them to recoup themselves for this advance in any way they
pleased. Here we find the explanation of the large number of persons
who accompanied the Shah on his travels and the quaint and unexpected
titles which they bore, such as that of "minister of the dockyard,"
though Persia has never owned a navy, and one still more extraordinary,
that of "attorney to the heir apparent." Although they sometimes had
romantic souls, they invariably had terribly practical minds. Eager
to recover as quickly as possible the outlay to which their ambition
to behold the West had induced them to consent, they practised on a
huge scale and without scruple or hesitation what I may describe as the
bonus or commission system. Notwithstanding my long experience of human
frailties, I confess that this proceeding, cynically raised by these
gentlemen to the level of an institution, upset all my notions, while
it explained how the Shah was able to spend eight to twelve million
francs in pocket-money on each of his trips to France.
As soon as the people about him knew what shops His Majesty proposed
to visit in the course of his daily drive, a bevy of courtiers would
swoop down upon the awestruck tradesman and imperiously insist upon his
promising them a big commission, in exchange for which they undertook
to prevail upon His Majesty graciously to honour the establishment with
his custom. The shopkeeper as a rule raised no objection; he was quite
content to increase the price in proportion; and, when the good Shah,
accompanied by his vizier and the famous hand-bag, presented himself a
few hours later in the shop, his suite praised the goods of the house
so heartily that he never failed to let fall the traditional phrase,
"_Je prends_," so as to give no one even the slightest pain. Nor, for
that matter, did any of those who surrounded him dream of making a
secret of the traffic in which he indulged behind his sovereign's back:
it was a right duly acquired and paid for.
I am bound to say, however, that the grand vizier--no doubt because he
was already too well-off--appeared to be above these sordid and venial
considerations. This important personage, whose name on that occasion
was His Highness the Sadrazani Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Emin es Sultan,
combined an acute understanding with a superior cast of mind; the Shah
showed him a very noteworthy affection and treated him as a friend.
These marks of special kindness were due to curious causes, which an
amiable Persian was good enough to reveal to me. It appears that, when
the late Shah Nasr-ed-Din was shot dead at the mosque where he was
making a pilgrimage, the grand vizier of the time, who was none other
than this same Mirza Ali Asghar Khan, pretended that the Shah's wound
was not serious, had the corpse seated in the carriage and drove back
to the palace beside it, acting as if he were talking to his sovereign,
fanning him and asking occasionally for water to quench his thirst, as
though he were still alive.