in every passage, on every floor; we had to superintend the least
details. I remember, for instance, standing by for nearly two hours
while the Empress's dresses were being unpacked, so great was our fear
lest a disguised bomb might be slipped into one of the sovereign's
numerous trunks, while the women were arranging the gowns in the
special presses and cupboards intended for them. Lastly, day and night,
we had to go on constant rounds, both inside and outside the château.
On the occasion of one of these minute investigations, I met with a
rather interesting adventure. Not far from the apartments reserved
for the Empress Alexandra's ladies was an unoccupied room, the door
of which was locked. It appeared that, during the Empire, this room
had been used by Madame Bruant, the Prince Imperial's governess, wife
of Admiral Bruant. At a time when every apartment in the château
was thrown open for the visit of our imperial guests, why did this
one alone remain closed? I was unable to say. In any case, my duty
obliged me to leave no corner unexplored; and, on the first evening, I
sent for a bunch of keys. After a few ineffectual attempts, the lock
yielded, the door opened ... and imagine my bewilderment! In a charming
disorder, tin soldiers, dancing dolls, rocking horses and beautiful
picture-books lay higgledy-piggledy in the middle of the room, around
a great, big, ugly plush bear!
I enquired and found that they were the Prince Imperial's toys: they
had been left there and forgotten for thirty years. And an interesting
coincidence was that the big bear was the last present made by the Tsar
Alexander II to the little prince.
I softly closed the door which I had opened upon the past; I resolved
to respect those playthings; there are memories which it is better not
to awaken.
The next morning chance allowed me to assist at a sight which many a
photographer would have been glad to "snap." The Tsar and Tsaritsa, who
are both very early risers, had gone down to the garden, accompanied
by their great greyhound, which answered to the name of Lofki. The
Tsar was expected to go shooting that morning, in anticipation of
which intention the keepers had spent the night in filling the park
with pheasants, deer and hares. Their labours were wasted; Nicholas
II preferred to stroll round the lawns with the Empress. She was
bare-headed and had simply put up a parasol against the sun, which was
of dazzling brightness; she carried a camera slung over her shoulder.
The young couple, whom I followed hidden behind a shrubbery, turned
their steps towards the covered walk of hornbeams which Napoleon I had
had made for Marie-Louise, hoping, no doubt, to find in the shade
of this beautiful leafy vault, which autumn was already decking with
its copper hues, a discreet solitude suited to the billing and cooing
of the pair of lovers that they were. But the departments of public
ceremony and public safety were on the lookout; already, inside the
bosky tunnel, fifty soldiers commanded by a lieutenant, were presenting
arms!
The sovereigns had to make the best of a bad job. The Emperor reviewed
the men with a serious face and the Empress photographed them and
promised to send the lieutenant a print as soon as the plate was
developed. Thereupon the Tsar and Tsaritsa walked away in a different
direction. A charming little wood appeared before their eyes. Lofki
was running ahead of them. Suddenly, a furious barking was heard; and
four gendarmes emerged from behind a clump of fir-trees and, presenting
arms, gave the military salute!
There was nothing to be done and the sovereigns gaily accepted the
situation. With a merry burst of laughter, they turned on their heels
and resolved to go back to the château. By way of consolation, the
Tsaritsa amused herself by photographing her husband, who, in his turn,
took a snapshot of his wife.
They showed no bitterness on account of the disappointment which their
walk must have caused them. In fact, to anybody who asked him, on his
return, if he had enjoyed his stroll, Nicholas II contented himself
with saving:
"Oh, yes, the grounds are beautiful; and I now know what you mean by 'a
well-cared-for property'!"
7.
While life was being arranged in the great palace and everyone settling
down as if he were to stay there for a month instead of three days;
while the head of the kitchens, acting under the inspiration of the
head of the ceremonial department, was cudgelling his brains to bring
his menus into harmony with politics by introducing subtle alliances
of French and Russian dishes; while the musicians were tuning their
violins for the "gala" concert of the evening and Mme. Bartet, that
divine actress, preparing to utter, in her entrancing voice, M. Edmund
Rostand's famous lines beginning, "Oh! Oh! _Voici une impératrice!_"[3]
while the Tsaritsa, at first a little lost amid these new surroundings,
found a friend in the Marquise de Montebello, our agreeable
ambassadress in St. Petersburg, of whom people used to say that she
justified Turgenev's epigram when he declared that, wherever you see
a Frenchwoman, you see all France; while the most complete serenity
seemed to reign among the inhabitants of the château, a solemn question
was stirring all men's minds. Would the Tsar go to Paris? As it was,
the people of Paris were disappointed because the reception had not
been held in the capital, as in 1896; would he give it the compensation
of a few hours' visit? A special train was awaiting, with steam up, in
the station at Compiègne; long confabulations took place between the
Emperor and M. Waldeck-Rousseau; a luncheon was prepared at the Élysée
with a view to the entertainment of an illustrious guest; secret orders
were given to the police. In short, nobody doubted that Nicholas II
intended to carry out a plan which everybody ascribed to him.
Nothing came of it. The Tsar did not go to Paris.
This sudden change of purpose was interpreted in different ways. Some
people pretended that the prime minister was at the bottom of it, M.
Waldeck-Rousseau having declared that he could not answer for the
Emperor's safety in view of the inadequate nature of the preparations.
In reality, we never learnt the true reasons; and I have often asked
myself whether this regrettable decision should not be attributed to
the influence of "Philippe."
Who was "Philippe"? A strange, disconcerting being, who had something
of the quack about him and something of the prophet and who followed
the Tsar like a shadow.
His story was an astounding one from start to finish. He was a native
of Lyons--a Frenchman, therefore--who pretended, with the assistance
of mystical practices and of inner voices which he summoned forth
and consulted, to be able to cure maladies, to forestall dangers, to
foresee future events. He gave consultations and wrote prescriptions,
for he did not reject the aid of science. And, as he came within the
law which forbids the illegal practice of medicine, he hit upon the
obvious expedient of marrying his daughter to a doctor, who acted as
his man of straw. His waiting-room was never empty from the day when
the Grand-duke Nicholas Michaelovitch, chancing to pass through Lyons
and to hear of this mysterious personage, thought that he would consult
him about his rheumatism. What happened? This much is certain, that
the grand-duke, on returning to Russia, declared that Philippe had
cured him as though by magic and that he possessed the power not only
of driving out pain, but of securing the fulfilment of every wish. The
Emperor, at that time, was longing for an heir. Greatly impressed by
his cousin's stories and by his profound conviction, he resolved to
summon the miracle-monger to St. Petersburg. This laid the foundation
of Philippe's fortunes. Admirably served by his lucky star, highly
intelligent, gifted with the manners of an apostle and an appearance
of absolute disinterestedness, he gradually succeeded in acquiring a
considerable hold not only on the imperial family, but on the whole
court. People began to believe very seriously in his supernatural
powers. Made much of and respected, he had free access to the
sovereigns and ended by supplanting both doctors and advisers. He also
treated cases at a distance, by auto-suggestion. Whenever he obtained
leave to go home on a visit, he kept up with his illustrious clients an
exchange of telegrams that would tend to make us smile, if they did not
stupefy us at the thought of so much credulity. Thus, a given person of
quality would wire:
"Suffering violent pains head entreat give relief."
Whereupon Philippe would at once reply:
"Have concentrated thought on pain; expect cure between this and five
o'clock to-morrow."
This is not an invention: I have seen the telegrams.
For people to have so blind a faith in his mediation, he must obviously
have effected a certain number of cures. As a matter of fact, I believe
that the power of the will is such that, in certain affections which
depended partly upon the nervous system, he succeeded in suggesting to
a patient that he was not and could not be ill.
However, what was bound to happen, happened. His star declined from
the day when people became persuaded that he was not infallible. The
Tsar's set precipitated his disgrace when the Tsaritsa brought another
daughter into the world, instead of the promised son. One fine day,
Philippe went back to Lyons for good; he died there a few years ago.
And, in the following year, the mighty empire had an heir!
At the time of the visit of the sovereigns to Compiègne, he was still
at the height of his favour. He accompanied our imperial hosts; and his
presence at the château surprised us as much as anything. In fact, like
the Doge of Venice who came to Versailles under Louis XIV, he himself
might have said:
"What astonishes me most is to see myself here!"
But Philippe was astonished at nothing. Anxious to retain his
personality in the midst of that gold-laced crowd, he walked about the
apartments in a grey suit and brown shoes; on the first day, he was
within an ace of being arrested; we took him for an anarchist!
Our extreme distrust, to which the unfortunate Philippe nearly fell a
victim, was only too well justified. I believe that I am not guilty
of an indiscretion--for the memorable events of 1901 are now a matter
of history--when I say to-day that there was an attempt, an attempt of
which our guests never heard, because a miraculous accident enabled us
to defeat its execution in the nick of time.
It was in the cathedral of Rheims that the criminal effort was to be
accomplished during the visit of the sovereigns, who had expressed a
desire to see the inside of that exquisite fabric. On learning of Their
Majesties' intention, our colleagues of the Russian police displayed
the greatest nervousness:
"Nothing could be easier," they told us, a few days before the visit,
"than for a Terrorist to deposit a bomb in some dark place, under a
chair, behind a confessional, or at the foot of a statue. The interior
of the cathedral must be watched from this moment, together with the
people who enter it."
Although we had already thought of this, they decided, on their part,
to entrust this task to an "informer"--in other words, a spy--of
Belgian nationality, who had joined the Russian detective-service.
Hennion, who was always prudent, hastened, in his turn, to set a watch
on the "informer." Twenty-four hours later, one of his men came to see
him in a great state of fright:
"M. Hennion," he said, "I have obtained proof that the 'informer' is
connected with a gang of Terrorists. They are preparing an attack in
the cathedral!"
Hennion did not hesitate for a moment. He hastened to Rheims,
instituted a police-search in a room which the "informer" had secretly
hired under a false name and seized a correspondence which left no
doubt whatever as to the existence of the plot. The "informer" himself
was to do the dirty work!
He was at once arrested and pressed with questions:
"I swear that I know nothing about it," he exclaimed, "and that's the
plain truth!"
"Very well," said Hennion, who held absolute proof. "Take this man to
prison," he ordered, "since he's telling the truth, and drag him back
to me when he decides to tell a lie."
The next day, the man confessed.
This was the only tragic episode that occurred during the imperial
visit. Nevertheless, in spite of the satisfaction which we had felt
at receiving the Tsar and Tsaritsa, we heaved a sigh of relief when,
on the following day, we saw the train that was to take them back to
Russia steam out of the station.
They were still alive, God be praised! But that was almost more than
could be said of us!
V
THE KING AND QUEEN OF ITALY
1.
I have always harboured a vagrant spirit under my official frock-coat.
I find my pleasure and my rest in travelling. I, therefore, took
advantage of a few weeks' leave of absence, allowed me after the
departure of the Russian sovereigns, to pay a visit to Italy.
A few days after my arrival at Milan, I was strolling, one afternoon,
on the well-known Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, that favourite Milanese
and cosmopolitan resort, whose incessant and picturesque animation
presages the gaiety, if not the charm of Italy, when the window of a
glove-shop caught my eye and reminded me that I had left my gloves
in the railway-carriage. I thought I might as well buy myself a new
pair; and I entered the shop. A customer had gone in before me. It was
a lady, young, tall and slender, quietly but elegantly dressed in a
plain, dark travelling-frock. Through the long blue motor-veil that
close-shrouded her face and even her hat, a pair of eyes gleamed,
black and, as I thought, large and beautiful; her hair was dark and, as
far as I could see, she had masses of it; the face seemed refined and
pretty. Leaning on the counter, she tried on the gloves which a young
shop-assistant handed to her. None of them fitted her.
"They are too large," she said, shyly.
"That is because the signora has so small a hand," replied the young
assistant, gallantly.
She smiled and did not answer; the elderly lady who was with her gave
the youth an indignant and scandalised glance. After patiently allowing
the measure to be taken of her hand, open and closed--it was indeed a
very small one--she ended by finding two pairs of gloves to suit her,
paid for them and went out.
Just then, the owner of the shop returned. He looked at the lady,
gave a bewildered start, bowed very low and, as soon as she was gone,
shouted to his assistant:
"Have you the least idea whom you have been serving?"
"A very pretty woman, I know that!"
"Idiot! It was the Queen!"
The Queen! It was my turn to feel bewildered. The Queen, alone,
unprotected, in that arcade full of people! I was on the point of
following her, from professional habit, forgetting that I was at Milan
not as an official, but as a private tourist. A still more important
reason stopped my display of zeal: it was too late; the charming vision
was lost in the crowd.
2.
The next evening, I was dining at a friend's house, where the guests
belonged, for the most part, to the official and political world. When
I related my adventure and expressed my astonishment at having met the
sovereign making her own purchases in town, accompanied by a stern
lady-in-waiting:
"Did that surprise you?" I was asked. "It does not surprise us at
all. One of our haughty princesses of the House of Savoy said,
sarcastically, that we had gone back to the times when kings used to
mate with shepherdesses. This was merely a disrespectful sally. The
truth is that both our King and Queen have very simple tastes and that
they like to live as ordinary people, in so far as their obligations
permit them. Let me give you an instance in point; whenever they come
to Milan--and they never stay for more than two or three days--they go
to the royal palace, of course, but, instead of living in the state
apartments and bringing a large number of servants, they prefer to
occupy just a few rooms, have their meals sent in from the Ristorante
Cova and order the dishes to be all brought up at the same time and
placed on a sideboard. Then they dismiss the servants, shut the doors
and wait upon themselves."
In our sunny countries--I can speak for them, as a Corsican--we love
pomp and ceremony. I seemed to observe in the friends who gave me this
striking illustration of the royal simplicity a touch of bitterness,
perhaps of regret. Remarks that came to my ears later led me to the
conclusion that the aristocracy, if not the people, disapproved of
their sovereign's democratic tendencies, which contrasted with the ways
of the old court, of which Queen Margherita had been the soul and still
remained the living and charming embodiment.
No doubt. Queen Helena's "manner" was entirely different from that
of Margherita of Savoy, whose highly-developed and refined culture,
whose apposite wit, whose engaging mode of address, built up of shades
that appealed to delicate minds, had attracted to the Quirinal the
pick of intellectual, artistic and literary Italy and held it bound
in fervent admiration. Educated at the court of her father, Prince
Nicholas, Helena of Montenegro had grown up amid the austere scenery
of her native land, in constant contact with the rugged simplicity of
the Montenegrin highlanders; her wide-open child-eyes had never rested
on other than grave and manly faces; her girlhood was decked not with
fairy-tales, but with the old, wild legends of the mountains, or else,
with epics extolling the heroism of those who, in the days of old,
had driven the foreign invader from the valleys of Antivari or the
lofty plateaux of Cetinje. At the age of twelve, she was sent to St.
Petersburg to finish her studies. There, in the promiscuous intercourse
of a convent confined to young ladies of gentle birth, she had known
the charm of friendships that removed all differences of social rank
between her fellow schoolgirls and herself, while her mind opened to
the somewhat melancholy beauties of Slav literature. On returning to
her country, she enjoyed, in the fulness of an independence wholly
undisturbed by the demand of etiquette, the healthy delights of an
open-air life, which she divided between water-colour drawing, in which
she excelled, and sport in which she showed herself fearless.
When, therefore, she saw Italy for the first time in 1895 and saw it
through the gates of Venice, where her father had taken her on the
occasion of an exhibition; when, one evening, in the midst of the
fanciful and to her novel scene of the lagoon arrayed in its holiday
attire, she saw the homage of a glowing admiration in the eyes of
the then Prince of Naples, it will readily be conceived that she was
flurried and a little dazzled. When, lastly, in the following year,
she bade farewell to her craggy mountains and to the proud highlanders,
the companions of her childhood, and saw the gay and enthusiastic
nation of Italy hastening to welcome her, the twenty-years-old bride,
with the hopes and promises which she brought with her, it will be
understood that she at first experienced a sense of confusion and
shyness.
The shyness, I am told, has never completely worn off. On the other
hand, in the absence of more brilliant outward qualities, Queen Helena
has displayed admirable domestic virtues; she has known how to be a
queen in all that this function implies in regard to noble and delicate
missions of devotion and goodness to the poor and lowly. And she has
done better than that: she has realised her engrossing duties as wife
and mother; and they are sweet and dear to her.
Had this been otherwise, the King's character, which is quick to take
offence, and his jealous fondness would have suffered cruelly. He too
is shy, he too is a man of domestic habits, who has always avoided
society and pleasure. Possessing none of the physical qualities that
attract the crowd, endowed with an unimaginative, but, on the other
hand, a reflective and studious mind, remarkably well-informed,
highly-intelligent, passionately enamoured of social problems and
the exact sciences, none was readier than he to enjoy the charm of
a peaceful home which he had not known during his youth. Touching,
in fact, though the attachment between the son and mother was, they
nevertheless remained separated by the differences in their character,
their temperament and their ideas. Whereas Queen Margherita kept all
her enthusiasm for art and literature, the Prince of Naples displayed,
if not a repugnance, at least a complete indifference to such matters.
When he was only ten years of age, he said to his piano-mistress,
Signora Cerasoli, who was appointed by his mother and who vainly
struggled to instil the first principles of music into his mind:
"Don't you think that twenty trumpets are more effective than that
piano of yours?"
To make amends, he showed from his earliest youth a marked predilection
for military science. He had the soul of a soldier and submitted,
without a murmur, to the strict discipline imposed upon him by his
tutor, Colonel Osio. He is still fond of relating, as one of the
pleasantest memories of his life, the impression which he felt on the
day when King Humbert first entrusted him with the command of a company
of foot at the annual review of the Roman garrison:
"The excitement interfered so greatly with my power of sight," he says,
"that the only people I recognised in the cheering crowd were my
dentist and my professor of mathematics."
His keen love of the army became manifest when, as heir apparent,
he received the command of the army-corps of Naples. Frivolous
and light-headed Neapolitan society looked forward to receiving a
worldly-minded prince and rejoiced accordingly; but it soon discovered
its mistake; the prince, scorning pleasure, devoted himself exclusively
to his profession and left his barracks only to go straight back to the
Capodimonte Palace, where he spent his spare time in perfecting himself
in the study of military tactics.
When, at last, the tragedy of Monza called him suddenly to the throne,
the manliness of his attitude, the firmness of his character and the
soberness of his mind impressed the uneasy and scattered world of
politics. He insisted upon drawing up his first proclamation to the
Italian people with his own hand and in it proved himself a man of the
times, thoroughly acquainted with the needs and aspirations of modern
Italy.
"I know," he said to Signor Crispi, a few days after his accession, "I
know all the responsibilities of my station and I would not presume to
think that I can remedy the present difficulties with my own unaided
strength. But I am convinced that those difficulties all spring from
one cause. In Italy, there are few citizens who perform their duty
strictly: there is too much indolence, too much laxity. Italy is at a
serious turning-point in her history; she is eaten up with politics;
she must absolutely direct her energies towards the development of
her economic resources. Her industries will save her by improving her
financial position and employing all the hands at present lying idle
in an inactivity that has lasted far too long. I shall practise what I
preach by scrupulously following my trade as king and by encouraging
initiative, especially by encouraging the social and economic evolution
of the country."
Let me do him this justice: he has kept his promises. A will soon
made itself conspicuous under that frail exterior. He applied to
the consideration of every subject the ardour of an insatiable
curiosity and his wish to know things correctly and thoroughly. He
studied the confused conditions of Italian parliamentary life with
as much perseverance as the social question. It is possible that, by
democratising the monarchy, he has forestalled popular movements which,
in a country so passionate in its opinions and so exuberant in its
manifestations as Italy, might have caused irreparable disorders and
delayed the magnificent progress of the nation.