caused me moments of cruel embarrassment. I remember that, one
afternoon, when we were driving in the Bois de Boulogne, near the
lakes, Muzaffr-ed-Din noticed a view which he admired, ordered the
carriages to stop and expressed a desire himself to take some snapshots
of the charming spot. We at once alighted. A little further, a group of
smart ladies sat chatting gaily without taking the smallest heed of our
presence. The Shah, seeing them, asked me to beg them to come closer
so that he might photograph them. Although I did not know them, I went
upand spoke to them and, with every excuse, explained the sovereign's
whim to them. Greatly amused, they yielded to it with a good grace. The
Shah took the photograph, smiled to the ladies and, when the operation
was over, called me to him again:
[Illustration: THE SHAH LEAVING THE ÉLYSEÉ PALACE FOR A WALK]
"Paoli," he said, "they are very pretty, very nice; go and ask them if
they would like to come back with me to Teheran."
Imagine my face! I had to employ all the resources of my eloquence
to make the King of Kings understand that you cannot take a woman to
Teheran, as you would a piano; a cinematograph or a motor-car, and that
you cannot say of her, as of an article in a shop, "_Je prends_."
I doubt whether he really grasped the force of my arguments, for, some
time after, when we were at the Opera in the box of the President
of the Republic, we perceived with dismay that His Persian Majesty,
instead of watching the performance on the stage--consisting of that
exquisite ballet _Coppélia_, with some of our prettiest dancers taking
part in it--kept his opera-glass obstinately fixed on a member of the
audience in the back row of the fourth tier, giving signs of manifest
excitement as he did so. I was beginning to wonder with anxiety
whether he had caught sight of some "suspicious face," when the court
minister, in whose ear he had whispered a few words, came over to me
and said, with an air of embarrassment:
"His Majesty feels a profound admiration for a lady up there. Do you
see? The fourth seat from the right. His Majesty would be obliged to
you if you would enable him to make her acquaintance. You can tell her,
if you like, as an inducement, that my sovereign will invite her to go
back with him to Teheran."
"Again!"
Although this sort of errand did not fall within the scope of my
instructions, I regarded the worthy Oriental's idea as so comical
that I asked one of my detectives who, dressed to the nines, was
keeping guard outside the presidential box, whether he would care to
go upstairs and, if possible, convey the flattering invitation to the
object of the imperial flame. My Don Juan by proxy assented and set out
on his mission.
The Shah's impatience increased from moment to moment. The last act had
begun when I saw my inspector return alone and looking very sheepish:
"Well," I asked, "what did she say?"
"She boxed my ears."
The sovereign, when the grand vizier conveyed this grievous news to
him, knitted his bushy eyebrows, declared that he was tired, and
ordered his carriage.
My duty as a conscientious historian obliges me, however, to mention
the fact that Muzaffr-ed-Din did not always meet with such piteous
rebuffs in the field of gallantry upon which he gladly ventured. He
kept up a very fond and regular flirtation in Paris with a French
favourite, a charming and exceedingly beautiful person, who had
been seduced by the bejewelled opulence of the King of Kings. She
had rooms in the monarch's hotel each time he came to France; and
they retained a sort of affection for each other notwithstanding
the mutual disappointment which they had experienced: she, because
she thought that he was generous; he, because he hoped that she was
disinterested. That she was anxious to turn a great man's friendship to
account can, strictly speaking, be imagined; on the other hand, it is
incomprehensible that the Shah, who was so easily moved to generosity
towards the first comer, should display a sordid avarice towards the
woman whom he himself had selected from among so many. Perhaps he was
ingenuous enough to wish to be loved for his own sake. At any rate,
this continual misunderstanding led to intensely funny scenes. The
young woman, exasperated by obtaining nothing but promises each time
she expressed the desire to possess a pearl necklace or a diamond
ring, ended by resorting to heroic methods: she locked her door when
the Shah announced his coming. The King of Kings stamped, threatened,
implored.
"My diamonds first! My pearls first!" she replied, from behind the
locked door.
In vain he offered the worn-out journey to Teheran: it was no good.
Then, resigning himself, he sent for the necklace or the ring. In this
way, she collected a very handsome set of jewellery.
Although, as I have said, her rooms were next to his own,
Muzaffr-ed-Din saw comparatively little of her; he had not the time;
his days were too full of engagements. Rising very early in the
morning, he devoted long hours to his toilet, to his prayers and to his
political conversations with the grand vizier. He worked as little as
possible, but saw many people; he liked giving audiences to doctors and
purveyors. He always had his meals alone, in accordance with Persian
etiquette, and was served at one time with European dishes, which
were better suited to his impaired digestive organs, and at another
with Persian fare, consisting of slices of Ispahan melon, with white
and flavoursome flesh; of the national dish called _pilaf tiobab_, in
which meat cut up and mixed with delicate spices lay spread on a bed of
rice just scalded, underdone and crisp; of hard-boiled eggs and young
marrows; or else of _stilo_ grill, represented by scallops of mutton
soaked in aromatic vinegar and cooked over a slow fire of pinewood
embers; lastly, of aubergine fritters, of which he was very fond. I am
bound, for that matter, to say that Persian cooking, which I had many
opportunities of tasting, is delicious and that the dishes which I have
named would have done honour to any Parisian bill of fare.
After rising from table, Muzaffr-ed-Din generally devoted an hour to
taking a nap, after which we went out either for a drive round the Bois
or to go and see the shops or the Paris sights. To tell the truth, we
hardly ever knew beforehand what the sovereign's plans were. He seemed
to take a mischievous delight in altering the afternoon programme and
route which I had worked out with his approval in the morning. Thanks
to his whims, I lived in a constant state of alarm.
"I want to see some museums to-day," he would say at eleven o'clock.
"We will start at two."
I at once informed the minister of fine-arts, who told off his
officials to receive him; I telephoned to the military governor of
Paris to send an escort.
At three o'clock, we were still waiting. At last, just about four, he
appeared, with a look of indifference and care on his face, and told me
that he would much prefer to go for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne.
One day, after he had spent the morning in listening to a chapter of
the life of Napoleon I, he beckoned to me on his way to lunch.
"M. Paoli," he said, "I want to go to the Château de Fontainebleau
to-day."
"Well, Sir, you see."
"Quick, quick!"
There was no arguing the matter. I rushed to the telephone, warned the
panic-stricken P. L. M. Co., that we must have a special train at all
costs and informed the keeper of the palace and the dumb-foundered
sub-prefect of our imminent arrival at Fontainebleau.
When the Shah, still under the influence of his morning's course of
reading, stepped from the carriage, two hours later, before the gate of
the palace, he was seized with a strange freak: he demanded that the
dragoons who had formed his escort from the station should dismount and
enter the famous Cour des Adieux after him. Next he made them fall into
line in the middle of the great quadrangle, leant against the steps,
looked at them long and fondly, muttered a few sentences in Persian and
then disappeared inside the palace.
Greatly alarmed, we thought at first that he had gone mad; at last we
understood: he had been enacting the scene in which the emperor takes
leave of his grenadiers. It may have been very flattering for the
dragoons; I doubt if it was quite so flattering for Napoleon.
His visit to the Louvre Museum will also linger in my memory among the
amusing episodes of his stay in Paris. M. Leyques, who was at that
time Minister of Fine Arts and in this capacity did the honours of the
museum to the Shah, had resolved carefully to avoid showing our guest
the Persian room, fearing lest the King of Kings, who perhaps did not
grasp the importance of the priceless collection which Mme. Dieulafoy
and M. Morgan had brought back with them, should show a keen vexation
at finding himself in the presence of jewels and mosaics which he might
have preferred to see in his own country.
The minister, therefore, conducted him through the picture and
sculpture-galleries, trying to befog his mind and tire his legs, so
that he might declare his curiosity satisfied as soon as possible.
Lo and behold, however, the Shah suddenly said:
"Take me to the Persian room!"
There was no evading the command. M. Leyques, obviously worried,
whispered an order to the chief attendant and suggested to the Shah
that he should take a short rest before continuing his inspection. The
Shah agreed.
Meantime, in the Persian room, keepers and attendants hurriedly cleared
away the more valuable ornaments and mosaics, so that Muzaffr-ed-Din
should not feel any too cruel regrets; and at last the King of Kings,
far from revealing any disappointment, declared himself delighted to
find in Paris so well-arranged a collection of curious remains of
ancient Persian architecture and art. And he added, slily:
"When I have a museum at Teheran, I shall see that we have a French
room."
For that matter, he was often capable of administering a sort of
snub when we thought that we were providing him with a surprise. For
instance, one day, when, with a certain self-conceit, I showed him our
three camels in the Jardin d' Acclimatation:
"I own nine thousand!" he replied, with a scornful smile.
Our Zoological gardens did not interest him; he only really enjoyed
himself there twice to my knowledge. The first time was when, at
his own request, he was allowed to witness the repugnant sight of
a boa-constrictor devouring a live rabbit. This produced, the next
morning, the following letter from "a working milliner," which I print
"with all faults:"
"_Monsieur le Chah_,--
"You have been to the Jardin d' Aclimatation (_sic_) and watched the
boa-constrictor eating a live rabbit. This was very interesting, so
you said. Ugh! How could the King of Kings, an excellency, a majesty,
find pleasure in the awful torments of that poor rabbit? I hate people
who like going to bull-fights. Cruelty and cowardice go hand in hand.
Are you one of the company, monsieur le Chah?"
The second time that he seemed to amuse himself was on the occasion of
a wedding-dance that was being held in a room next to that in which he
had stopped to take tea. On hearing the music, he suddenly rose and
opened the door leading to the ball-room. The appearance of the devil
in person would not have produced a greater confusion than that of this
potentate wearing his tall astrakhan cap and covered with diamonds. But
he, without the least uneasiness, went the round of the couples, shook
hands with the bride and bridegroom, gave them pieces of Persian gold
money and made his excuses to the bride for not having a necklace about
him to offer her. I was waiting for him to invite her to accompany him
to Teheran; the husband's presence no doubt frightened him.
He seldom left his rooms at night. Sometimes he went to circus
performances or an extravaganza or musical play; he preferred, however,
to devote his evenings to more domestic enjoyments; he loved the
pleasures of home life: sometimes, he played with his little sons,
"the little Shahs," as they were called, nice little boys of seven
to thirteen; at other times, he indulged in his favourite games,
chess and billiards. He played with his grand vizier, his minister of
the ceremonies or myself. The stakes were generally twenty francs,
sometimes a hundred. We did our best to lose, for, if we had the bad
luck to win, he would show his ill-temper by suddenly throwing up the
game and retiring into a corner, where his servants lit his great
Persian pipe for him, the _kaljan_, a sort of Turkish narghileh, filled
with a scented tobacco called _tombeki_. Often, also, to console
himself for his mortification at billiards, he called for music. I then
heard songs behind the closed hangings, harsh, strange and also very
sweet songs, accompanied on the piano or the violin; it was a sort of
evocation of the East in a modern frame; and the contrast, I must say,
was rather pleasing.
6.
The Shah and I grew accustomed to each other, little by little, and
became the best of friends. He refused to go anywhere without me; I
took part in the drives, in the games at billiards, in the concerts, in
all the journeys. We went to Vichy, to Vittel, to Contrexéville. It
was here, at Contrexéville, where he had come for the cure, that I saw
him for the last time. His eccentricities, his whims and his diamonds,
had produced the usual effect on the peaceful population of the town.
A few days after his arrival, hearing that H. I. H. the grand-duchess
Vladimir of Russia had taken up her quarters at an hotel near his own,
he hastened to call and pay his respects and departed from his habits
to the length of inviting her to luncheon.
On the appointed day, the grand-duchess, alighting from her carriage
before the residence of her host, found the Shah waiting for her on
the threshold in a grey frock-coat with a rose in his buttonhole. He
ceremoniously led her by the hand to the dining-room, making her walk
through his rooms, the floors of which he had had covered with the
wonderful kachan carpets that accompanied him on all his journeys. The
princess, charmed with these delicate attentions on the great man's
part, was beginning to congratulate herself on the pleasant surprise
which Persian civilisation caused her when--we had hardly sat down
to table--a chamberlain went up to the King of Kings, bowed low and
handed him a gold salver on which lay a queer-looking and at first
indescribable object. The Shah, without blinking, carelessly put out
his hand, took the thing between his fingers and, with an easy and
familiar movement, inserted it in his jaw: it was a set of false teeth.
Imagine the consternation!
But it was worse still when, about the middle of the meal, the
sovereign, suddenly interrupting his conversation with Her Imperial
Highness, rose without a word, disappeared and returned in five minutes
to resume his place with a smile, after the court minister had taken
care to announce aloud that "His Majesty had had to leave the room."
The grand-duchess, as may be imagined, retained an unforgettable memory
of this lunch, the more so as the Shah, perhaps in order to wipe out
any unpleasant impression that might linger in her mind, did a very
gallant thing; the next day, the Princess Vladimir received a bale of
Persian carpets of inestimable value, accompanied by a letter from the
grand vizier begging her, in the name of his sovereign, to accept this
present, His Majesty having declared that he would not allow other feet
to tread carpets on which Her Imperial Highness's had rested.
I, less fortunate than the grand-duchess, never, alas, succeeded in
obtaining possession of the one and only carpet which Muzaffr-ed-Din
had deigned--quite spontaneously--to offer me.
"My ministers will see that you get it," he said.
When the day for his departure for Persia drew near, I thought that
it would be wise to ask the court minister for my carpet in my most
respectful manner.
"Oh," he replied, "does it belong to you? The only thing is that it has
been packed up, by mistake, with the others. If you want it, they can
give it to you in the train."
As I was to accompany our guest as far as the German frontier, I waited
until we had left Vichy and discreetly repeated my request at the first
stop.
"Certainly," said the minister, "you shall have it at the next station."
I was beginning to feel uneasy. At the following stopping-place, there
was no sign of a carpet. We were approaching the frontier, where my
mission ended. I, therefore, resolved to apply to the minister of
public-works.
"Your excellency."
"Your carpet?" he broke in. "Quite right, my dear M. Paoli. The orders
have been given and you shall have it when you leave us at the other
station."
But here again, alas, nothing! And, as I complained to a third
excellency of this strange piece of neglect:
"It's an omission. Come with us as far as Strassburg, where you will
receive satisfaction."
At this rate, they would have carried me, by easy stages, to Teheran.
I, therefore, gave up all hopes of my carpet. And, taking leave of
these amiable functionaries, I heard the good Shah's voice crying in
the distance:
"Good-bye, Paoli, worthy Paoli! Till our next meeting!"
* * * * *
I never saw him again.
IV
THE TSAR NICHOLAS II AND THE TSARITSA ALEXANDRA FEODOROVNA
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF RUSSIA AND THE GRAND DUKE
ALEXIS]
1.
One morning in June, 1901, I had just reached the Ministry of the
Interior and was entering my office, when a messenger came up to me and
said, solemnly:
"The Prime Minister would like to speak to you at once, sir."
When a public official is sent for by his chief,[1] the first thought
that flashes across his brain is that of disgrace, and he instinctively
makes a rapid and silent examination of conscience to quiet his anxious
mind, unless, indeed, he only ends by alarming it. Nevertheless, I
admit that when I received this message, I took it philosophically. The
Prime Minister, at that time, was M. Waldeck-Rousseau. It is not my
business here to pass judgment on the politician; and I have retained
a most pleasant recollection of the man. To attractions more purely
intellectual he added a certain cordiality. He looked upon events and
upon life itself from the point of view of a more or less disillusioned
dilettante; and this made him at once satirical, indulgent and
obliging. He honoured me with a kindly friendship, notwithstanding the
fact that he used to reproach me, in his jesting way, with becoming too
much of a reactionary from my contact with the monarchs of Europe and
that I once took his breath away by telling him that I had dined with
the Empress Eugénie at Cap Martin.
"A republican official at the Empress's table!" he cried. "You're the
only man, my dear Paoli, who would dare to do such a thing. And you're
the only one," he added, slily, "in whom we would stand it!"
For all that, when I entered his room on this particular morning, I was
struck with his thoughtful air; and my surprise increased still further
when I saw him, after shaking hands with me, himself close the door and
give a glance to make sure that we were quite alone.
"You must not be astonished at these precautions," he began. "I have
some news to tell you which, for reasons which you will understand
as soon as you hear what the news is, must be kept secret as long as
possible and you know that the walls of a ministerial office have
very sharp ears. This is the news: I have just heard from the Russian
ambassador and from Delcassé that the negotiations which were on foot
between the two governments in view of a second visit of the Tsar and
Tsaritsa are at last completed. Their Majesties will pay an official
visit of three days to France. They may come to Paris; in any case,
they will stay at the Château de Compiègne, where the sovereigns will
take up their quarters, together with the President of the Republic
and all of us. They will arrive from Russia by sea; they will land
at Dunkerque on the 18th of September; and from there they will go
straight by rail to Compiègne. The festivities will end with a visit to
Rheims and a review of our eastern frontier troops at Bethany Camp."
The minister paused and then continued:
"And now I must ask you to listen to me very carefully. I want _no
accident nor incident_ of any kind to occur during this visit. The Tsar
has been made to believe that his safety and the Tsaritsa's run the
greatest risks through their coming to France. It is important that
we should give the lie in a striking fashion--as we did in 1896--to
this bad reputation which our enemies outside are trying to give
us. They are simply working against the alliance; and we have the
greatest political interest in defeating their machinations. We must,
therefore, take all necessary measures accordingly; and I am entrusting
this task to Cavard, the chief of the detective service, Hennion, his
colleague, and yourself. You are to divide the work among you. Cavard
will control the whole thing and settle the details; Hennion, with his
remarkable activity, will see that they are carried out and devote
himself to the protection of the Tsar; and I have reserved for you the
most enviable part of the task: I entrust the Empress to your special
care."
The Emperor Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra were very nearly the
only members of the Russian Imperial family whom I did not yet know. At
the time when they made their first journey to Paris, to celebrate the
conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance, I was in Sweden as the guest
of King Oscar, His Majesty having most graciously invited me to spend a
period of sick-leave with him; and it was on the deck of his yacht, at
the end of a dinner which he gave me in the Bay of Stockholm, that the
news of the triumphal reception of the Russian sovereigns had come to
gladden my patriotism and his faithful affection for the country which,
through his Bernadotte blood, was also his.
On the other hand, I had repeatedly had the honour of attending the
grand-dukes; and I was attached to the person of the Tsarevitch George
at the time of his two stays on the Côte d'Azur, in the villa which
he occupied at the Cap d'Ail, facing the sea, among the orange-trees
and thymes. I had beheld the sad and silent tragedy enacted in the
mind of that pale and suffering young prince, heir to a mighty empire,
whom death had already marked for its own and who knew it! He knew
it, but had submitted to fate's decree without a murmur. Resigning
himself to the inevitable, he strove to enjoy the few last pleasures
that life still held for him: the sunlight, the flowers and the sea; he
sought to beguile the anxiety of those about him and of his doctors by
assuming a mask of playful good-humour and an appearance of youthful
hope and zest. Lastly, at the same Villa des Terrasses, I had known the
Dowager-Empress Marie Feodorovna, whom her great green-and-gold train
had brought to Russia with her children, the Grand-duchess Xenia and
the Grand-duke Michael, at the first news of a slight relapse on the
part of the illustrious patient.
For two long months, I took part in the inner life of that little
court; and more than once I detected the anguish of the mother
stealthily trying to read the secret of her son's hectic eyes, peering
at his pale face, watching for his hoarse, hard cough, as he walked
beside her, or dined opposite her, or played at cards with his sister,
or stroked with his long and too-white hands the head of his lively and
slender greyhound, Moustique.
These memories were already four years old. How much had happened
since then! The Tsarevitch George had gone to the Caucasus to die; the
Franco-Russian alliance, the realisation of which was contemplated in
the interviews that took place at the Cap d'Ail between the Dowager
Empress and Baron de Mohrenheim, the Russian ambassador in Paris; this
alliance might almost already be described as an old marriage, in which
the heart has its reasons, of which the reason itself has become aware.