important trump in the game of our policy as against the rest of
Europe: it supplied the ready answer which we felt called upon to
make from time to time to those who were anxiously waiting for the
least event capable of disturbing the intimacy of the Franco-Russian
alliance, with a view to exploiting any such event in favour of a
rupture.
The reader will easily, therefore, imagine the importance which M.
Waldeck-Rousseau attached to his watchword: "No accident nor incident
of any kind!"
The measures of protection with which a sovereign is surrounded when
he happens to be Emperor of Russia are of a more complicated and
delicate character than in the case of any other monarch. Guarded in a
formidable manner by his own police, whose brutal zeal, tending as it
does to offend and exasperate, is more of a danger than a protection,
the Tsar is, unknown to himself, enveloped by the majority of those who
hover round him in a network of silent intrigues which keep up a latent
spirit of distrust and dismay.
It does not come within my present scope nor do I here intend to frame
an indictment against the Russian police. For that matter, tragic
incidents and regrettable scandals enough have revealed the sinister
and complex underhand methods of that occult force in such a way as to
leave no doubt concerning its nature in men's minds. I will content
myself with confessing that, although the numberless anonymous letters
which we used to receive at the Ministry of the Interior before the
Tsar's arrival mostly failed to agitate us, the appearance, on the
other hand, of certain tenebrous persons, who came to concert with us
as to "the measures to be taken," nearly always resulted in awakening
secret terrors within us. I became acquainted in this way, with some
of the celebrated "figures" of the Russian secret police: the famous
Harting was one of their number; and it is also possible that I
may have consorted, without knowing it, with the mysterious Azeff.
My clearest recollection of my relations with these gentry--always
excepting M. Raskowsky, the chief of the Russian police in Paris--is
that we thought it wise to keep them under observation and to hide from
them as far as possible the measures which we proposed to adopt for the
safety of their sovereigns!
As I have shown above, the responsibility of organising these measures
on the occasion of the Tsar's journey in 1901 was entrusted to M.
Cavard, the head of the French political police; but the honour of
ensuring their proper performance was due above all to M. Hennion,
his chief lieutenant, who has now succeeded him. In point of fact, M.
Cavard's long and brilliant administrative career had not prepared him
for such rough and tiring tasks. An excellent official, this honest
man, whose high integrity it is a pleasure to me to recognise, had a
better grasp of the sedentary work of the offices. Hennion, on the
contrary, "knew his business" and possessed its special qualities.
Endowed with a remarkable spirit of initiative and an invariable
coolness, eager, indefatigable and shrewd, fond of fighting, with a
quick scent for danger, he was always seen in the breach and he knew
how to be everywhere at one time. This was an indispensable quality
when the zone to be protected extended, as it did in this case, over a
length of several hundred miles and embraced almost half France.
In what did these measures consist? First of all, in doubling the
watch kept on foreigners living in France and notably on the Russian
anarchists. The copious information which we possessed about their
antecedents and their movements made our task an easy one. Paris, like
every other large city in Europe, contains a pretty active focus of
nihilism. This consists mainly of students and of young women, who are
generally more formidable than the men. Still, these revolutionary
spirits always prefer theory to action and were, consequently, less to
be feared than those who, on the pretext of seeing the festivities,
might come from abroad charged with a criminal mission.
We had, therefore, established observation-posts in all the frontier
stations, posts composed of officers who lost no time in fastening
on the steps of any suspicious traveller. But, however minute our
investigations might be, it was still possible for the threads of a
plot to escape us; and we had to prepare ourselves against possible
surprises at places where it was known that the sovereigns were likely
to be. A special watch had to be kept along the railways over which
the imperial train would travel and in the streets through which the
procession would pass. For this purpose, we divided, as usual, the
line from Dunkerque to Compiègne and from Compiègne to the frontier
into sections and sub-sections, each placed under the command of the
district commissary of police, who had under his orders the local
police-force and gendarmery, reinforced by the troops stationed in the
department. Posted at intervals on either side of the line, at the
entrance and issue of the tunnels, on and under the bridges, sentries,
with loaded rifles, prevented anyone from approaching and had orders
to raise an alarm if they saw that the least suspicious object had,
unknown to them, been laid on or near the rails.
We also identified the tenants of all the houses situated either along
the railway-line or in the streets through which our guests were to
drive. As a matter of fact, what we most feared was the traditional
outrage perpetrated or attempted from a window. On the other hand, we
refused (contrary to what has been stated) to adopt the system employed
by the Spanish, German and Italian police on the occasion of any visit
from a sovereign, the system which consists in arresting all the
"suspects" during the period of the royal guest's stay. This proceeding
not only appeared to us needlessly vexatious, for it constitutes a
flagrant attempt upon the liberty of the individual, but we thought
that, with our democracy, there was a danger of its alienating the
sympathy of our population from our august visitors. We had, therefore,
to be content to forestall any possible catastrophes by other and less
arbitrary means.
2.
Our vigilance was naturally concentrated with the greatest attention
upon Compiègne. We sent swarms of police to beat the forest and search
every copse and thicket; and the château itself was inspected from
garret to basement by our most trusted detectives. These precautions,
however, seemed insufficient to our colleagues of the Russian police. A
fortnight before the arrival of the sovereigns, one of them, taking us
aside, said:
"The cellars must be watched."
"But it seems to us," we replied, "that we cannot very well do more
than we are doing: they are visited every evening; and there are men
posted at all the doors."
"Very good; but how do you know that your men will not be bribed and
that the 'terrorists' will not succeed, unknown to you, in placing an
explosive machine in some dark corner?"
"But what do you suggest, then?"
"Put men upon whom you can rely, here and now, in each cellar, with
instructions to remain there night and day until Their Majesties'
departure. And, above all, see that they hold no communication with the
outside. They must prepare their own meals."
The solution may have been ingenious, but we declined to entertain it;
we considered, in point of fact, that it was unnecessary two weeks
before the coming of the Emperor and Empress, to condemn a number of
decent men to underground imprisonment, a form of torture which had not
been inflicted on even the worst criminals for more than a century past.
On the other hand, we mixed some detectives with the numerous staff of
workmen who were engaged in restoring the old château to its ancient
splendour. The erstwhile imperial residence, which had stood empty
since the war, now rose again from its graceful and charming past
as though by the stroke of a fairy's wand. The authorities hastily
collected the most sumptuous remains of the former furniture now
scattered over our museums. Gradually, the deserted halls and abandoned
bed-rooms were again filled, in the same places, with the same objects
that had adorned them in days gone by. The apartments set aside for the
Tsar and Tsaritsa were those once occupied by the Emperors Napoleon
I and Napoleon III and the Empresses Marie-Louise and Eugénie. As we
passed through them, our eyes were greeted by the wonderful Beauvais
tapestries of which the King of Prussia, one day, said that "no
king's fortune was large enough to buy them;" we hesitated before
treading on the exquisite Savonnerie carpets, with which Louis XIV
had covered the floors of Versailles; in the Tsarina's boudoir, we
admired Marie-Louise's cheval-glass; in her bed-room we found the proud
archduchess's four-poster; in Nicholas II's bed-room, we discovered
a relic: the bed of Napoleon I, the beautifully-carved mahogany
bedstead in which the man whom a great historian called "that terrible
antiquarian" and whom no battle had wearied, dreamt of the empire of
Charlemagne. Was it not a striking irony of fate that thus awarded the
conqueror's pillow to the first promoter of peaceful arbitration?
While upholsterers, gardeners, carpenters, locksmiths and painters were
carrying out the amazing metamorphosis, the ministry was drawing up
the programme of the rejoicings and calling in the aid of the greatest
poets, the most illustrious artists, the prettiest and most talented
ballet-dancers. Rehearsals were held in the theatre where, years ago,
the Prince Imperial had made his first appearance; the carriages were
tested in the avenues of the park; a swarm of butlers and footmen
were taught court etiquette in the servants' hall; and certain
ministers' wives, trusting to the discreet solitude of their boudoirs,
took lessons in solemn curtseying. It was so many days and weeks of
feverish expectation, during which everything had to be improvised for
the occasion; for this was the first time since its advent that the
Republic was entertaining in the country.
And then the great day came. One morning, on the platform of the Gare
du Nord, a gentleman dressed in black, with beard neatly-trimmed,
followed by ministers, generals and more persons in black, including
myself, stepped into a special train. He had been preceded by a valet
carrying three bags. The first--is it not a detective's duty to know
everything?--was a dressing-case containing crystal, silver-topped
fittings; the second, which was long and flat, held six white shirts,
twelve collars, three night-shirts, a pair of slippers and two broad
grand-cross ribbons, one red, the other blue; and in the third were
packed a brand-new dress-suit, six pairs of white gloves and three
pairs of patent-leather boots. M. Loubet, calm and smiling, was
starting for Dunkerque to meet his guests.
3.
My first impression of the young sovereigns was very different from
that which I expected. To judge by the fantastic measures taken in
anticipation of their arrival and by the atmosphere of suspicion
and mystery which people had been pleased to create around them, we
were tempted to picture them as grave, solemn, haughty, mystical and
distrustful; and our thoughts turned, in spite of ourselves to the
court of Ivan the Terrible rather than to that of Peter the Great.
Then, suddenly, the impression was changed. When we saw them close at
hand, we beheld a very united couple, very simple and kindly, anxious
to please everybody and to fall in with everybody's wishes, obviously
hating official pomp and ceremony and regretting to be continually
separated by impenetrable barriers from the rest of the world. We
perceived that they liked to be unreserved, that they were capable of
"soulful outbursts" and of endless delicacy of thought, especially
for their humbler fellow-citizens. We detected in the laughter in
_his_ eyes a frank and youthful gaiety that disliked restraint; and
we suspected in the melancholy of _hers_ the secret tragedy of an
ever-anxious affection, of a destiny weighed down by the burden of a
crown in which there were all too many thorns and too few roses. And
I confess, at the risk of being anathematised by our fierce democrats,
that autocracy, as personified by this young couple, who would clearly
have been happier between a samovar and a cradle than between a
double row of bayonets, that autocracy, under this unexpected aspect,
possessed nothing very terrifying and even presented a certain charm.
I think, besides, that an erroneous opinion has been generally formed
of the Tsar's character. He has been said and is still said to be
a weak man. Now I should be inclined, on this point, to think with
M. Loubet that Nicholas II's "weakness" is more apparent than real
and that in him, as formerly in our Napoleon III, there is "a gentle
obstinate" who has very strong ideas of his own, a being conscious of
his power and proud of the glory of his name.
Nicholas II, at the time of his second visit to France, had met M.
Loubet before. When the Emperor first came to France, in 1896, the
future President of the Republic was president of the Senate and,
in this capacity, had not only been presented to the sovereign, but
received a visit from him. In this connexion, the late M. Félix Faure
used to tell an amusing story, which he said that he had from the Tsar
in person.
[Illustration: THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA AND THE GRAND DUCHESS MARIE]
It was after a luncheon at the Élysée. Nicholas II had told President
Faure that he would like to call on the president of the Senate and
expressed a wish to go to the Palais du Luxembourg, if possible,
_incognito_. A landau was at once provided, without an escort; and the
Emperor stepped in, accompanied by General de Boisdeffre. At that hour,
the peaceful Luxembourg quarter was almost deserted. The people in the
streets, expecting the Tsar to drive back from the Russian Embassy, had
drifted in that direction to cheer him.
Wishing first to find out if M. Loubet was there, General de Boisdeffre
had ordered the coachman to stop a few yards from the palace, opposite
the gate of the Luxembourg gardens. He then alighted to go and enquire
and to tell the president of the Senate that an august visitor was
waiting at his door.
The Tsar, left alone in the carriage and delighted at feeling free
and at his ease, looked out of the window with all the zest of a
schoolboy playing truant. He saw before him one of those picturesque
street-Arabs, who seem to sprout between the paving-stones of Paris.
This particular specimen, seated against the railings, was whistling
the refrain of the Russian national hymn, with his nose in the air.
Suddenly, their eyes met. The wondering street-boy sprang to his feet;
he had never seen the Emperor, but he had seen his photographs; and
the likeness was striking.
"Suppose it is Nicholas?" he said to himself, greatly puzzled.
And, as he was an inquisitive lad, he resolved to make sure without
delay. He took an heroic decision, walked up to within a yard of the
carriage and there, bobbing down his head, shouted in a hoarse voice to
the unknown foreigner:
"How's the Empress?"
Picture his stupefaction--for, in point of fact, he only thought that
he was having a good joke--when he heard the stranger reply, with a
smile:
"Thank you, the Empress is very well and is delighted with her journey."
The boy, then and there, lost his tongue. He stared at the speaker in
dismay; and then, after raising his cap, stalked away slowly, very
slowly, to mark his dignity.
Nicholas II retained a delightful recollection of this private
interview with a true Parisian and long amused himself by scandalising
the formal set around him with the story of this adventure.
4.
If, on his second stay, he did not have the occasion of coming into
contact with the people, he none the less enjoyed the satisfaction of
being admirably received.
The episodes of the first day of this memorable visit, from the
moment when, on the deck of the _Standart_, lying off Dunkerque,
the sovereigns, as is customary whenever they leave their yacht,
received the salute of the sailors and the blessing of the old priest
in his violet cassock: these episodes have been too faithfully
chronicled in the press for me to linger over them here. It was a
magnificent landing, amid the thunder of the guns and the hurrahs of
the enthusiastic populace. Then came the journey from Dunkerque to
Compiègne, a real triumphal progress, in which the cheers along the
line seemed to travel almost as fast as the train, for they were linked
from town to town, from village to village, from farm to farm. At
last came the arrival, at nightfall, in the little illuminated town,
followed by the torch-light procession, in which the fantastic figure
of the red cossack stood out, as he clung to the back of the Empress's
carriage; the entrance into the courtyard of the château all ablaze
with light; the slow ascent of the staircases lined with cuirassiers,
standing immovable, with drawn swords, and powdered footmen, in
blue liveries _à la française_,[2] and, lastly, the presentations,
enlivened, at a certain moment by the artless question which a
minister's wife, in a great state of excitement and anxious to please
addressed to the Empress:
"How are your little ones?"
5.
Although from the time of leaving Dunkerque, I had taken up my duties,
which, as the reader knows, consisted more particularly in ensuring
the personal safety of the Empress, I had as yet only caught a glimpse
of that gracious lady. A few hours after our arrival at the château,
chance made me come across her and she deigned to speak to me. I doubt
whether she observed my state of flurry; and yet, that evening, without
knowing it, she was the cause of a strange hallucination of my mind.
I had left the procession at the entrance to the drawing-rooms, in
order to go and ascertain if our orders had been faithfully carried
out in and around the imperial apartments. Gradually, as I penetrated
into the maze of long silent corridors, filled with my own officers,
impassive in their footmen's liveries, a crowd of confused memories
rose in my brain. I remembered a certain evening, similar to the
present, when the palace was all lit up for a celebration. I, at that
time, still a young student, had come to see my kinsman, Dr. Conneau,
physician to the Emperor Napoleon III. We went along the same corridors
together, when, suddenly holding me back by the sleeve and pointing to
a proud and radiant, fair-haired figure which at that moment passed
through the vivid brightness of a distant gallery, he said:
"The Empress!"
Now, at the same spot, forty years after, another voice, that of one of
my inspectors, came and whispered in my ear:
"The Empress!"
I started; in front of me, at the end of the gallery, a figure, also
radiant and also fair, had suddenly come into view. Was it a dream,
a fairy-tale? No, there was another empress, that was all; in the
same frame in which, as a boy, I had first set eyes upon the Empress
Eugénie, I now saw the Empress Alexandra coming towards me. I was so
much taken aback that, at first, I stood rooted to the spot, seeking to
recover my presence of mind. She continued her progress, proceeding to
her apartments followed by her ladies-in-waiting. When she was at a few
yards from the place where I stood motionless, her eyes fell upon me;
then she came up to me and, holding out her white and slender hand:
"I am glad to see you, M. Paoli," she said, "for I know how highly my
dear grandmother, Queen Victoria, used to think of you."
What she did not know was how often Queen Victoria had spoken of her to
me. That great sovereign, in fact, cherished a special affection for
the child of her idolised daughter, the Grand-duchess Alice of Hesse.
The child reminded her of the happy time when the princess wrote to her
from Darmstadt, on the day after the birth of the future Empress of
Russia:
"She is the personification of her nickname, 'Sunny,' much like Ella,
but a smaller head, and livelier, with Ernie's dimple and expression."
Then, a few days later:
"We think of calling her Alix (Alice they pronounce too dreadfully in
Germany) Helena Louisa Beatrice; and, if Beatrice may, we would like
her to have her for godmother."
And these letters, so pretty, so touching, continued through the years
that followed. The baby had grown into a little girl, the little girl
into a young girl; and her mother kept Queen Victoria informed of the
least details concerning the child. She was anxious, fond and proud by
turns; and she asked for advice over and over again:
"I strive to bring her up totally free from pride of her position,
which is nothing save what her personal merit can make it. I feel so
entirely as you do on the difference of rank and how all important it
is for Princes and Princesses to know that they are nothing better or
above others save through their own merit and that they have only the
double duty of living for others and of being an example, good and
modest."
Next come more charming details. Princess Alice, returning to her
children at Darmstadt after a visit to England, writes to the Queen:
"They eat me up! They had made wreaths over the doors and had no end
of things to tell me....
"We arrived at three and there was not a moment's rest till they were
all in bed and I had heard the different prayers of the six, with all
the different confidences they had to make."
Elsewhere, interesting particulars about the education of Princess
Alix, an exclusively English education, very simple and very healthy,
the programme of which included every form of physical exercise, such
as bicycling, skating, tennis and riding, and allowed her, by way of
pocket-money, 50 pfennigs a week between the ages of 4 and 8; 1 mark
from 8 to 12; and 2 marks from 12 to 16 years.
In the twenty-nine years that had passed since the first of these
letters was written, what a number of events had occurred!
Princess Alice, that admirable mother, had died from giving a kiss
to her son Ernie, when he was suffering from diphtheria; the royal
grandmother, in her turn, had died quite recently. Of the seven
children whose gaiety brightened the domestic charm of the little court
at Darmstadt, two had perished in a tragic fashion: Prince Fritz,
first, killed by an accidental fall from a window, while playing with
his brother; and Princess May, carried off in twenty-four hours, she,
too, by diphtheria caught at the bedside of her sister "Aliky," the
present Empress of Russia. As for the other "dear little ones," as
Queen Victoria called them, they had all been dispersed by fate. "Ella"
had become the Grand-duchess Serge of Russia; "Enric" had succeeded
his father on the throne of Hesse; two of his sisters had married, one
Prince Henry of Prussia, the other Prince Louis of Battenberg; and
the last had become the wearer of the heaviest of all crowns. And now
chance placed her here, before me.
I looked at her with, in my mind, the memory of all the letters which
an august and kindly condescension had permitted me to read and of the
gentle emotion with which the good and great Queen used to speak of
the Princess Alice and of her daughter, the present Empress of Russia.
Her features had not yet acquired, under the imperial diadem, that
settled air of melancholy which the obsession of a perpetual danger was
to give her later; in the brilliancy of her full-blown youth, which set
a gladsome pride upon the tall, straight forehead; in the golden sheen
of her queenly hair; in her grave and limpid blue eyes, through which
shot gleams of sprightliness; in her smile, still marked by the dimples
of her girlish days, I recognised her to whom the fond imagination of a
justly-proud mother had awarded, in her cradle, the pretty nickname of
"Sunny."
She stopped before me for a few moments. Before moving away, she said:
"I believe you are commissioned to 'look after' me?"
"That is so," I replied.
"I hope," she added, laughing, "that I shall not give you too much
worry."
I dared not confess to her that it was not only worry, but perpetual
anguish that her presence and the Tsar's were causing me.
6.