whence escaped a delicious fragrance of bouillabaisse. The members
of the royal suite cast inquisitive glances at this dish unknown to
them and prepared to do honour to it with a good grace. Before tasting
it myself, I watched the expression of their faces. Alas, a grievous
disappointment awaited me! Hardly had they touched their spoons with
their lips, when they gave vent to their disgust in different ways.
Baroness van Ittersum made a significant grimace, while Jonkheer van
Pabst pushed away his plate and Baroness Rengers suppressed a gesture
of repugnance.
However, out of consideration for my feelings, they were silent: so
was I. They waited in all kindness for me to enjoy my treat; but one
act of politeness deserves another; there was nothing for me to do,
in my turn, but to forego my share, all the more so as I did not feel
inclined to present the ridiculous spectacle of a man eating by himself
a thing which all his neighbours loathe and detest.
The bouillabaisse, therefore, disappeared straightway, untouched and
still steaming, beating, as it were, a silent retreat. But I will not
attempt to describe the rage which M. Perreard subsequently poured into
my ear....
3.
When the Queen had explored all the woods and ravines close at hand,
she naturally wished to extend the radius of her excursions. She was
a fearless walker and was not to be thwarted by the steepest paths,
even when these were filled with snow in which one's feet sank up to
the ankles. I urgently begged the young sovereign never to venture
far afield without first informing me of her intentions. As a matter
of fact, I knew how easy it was to lose one's self in the maze of
mountains, where one loses the trace of any road; and I was also afraid
of unpleasant meetings, for Savoy is often infested with strangers from
beyond the Piedmontese frontier who come to France in search of work.
Lastly there was "the black man." The legend of this black man was
current throughout the district, where it spread a secret terror.
Stories were told in the hamlet of a man dressed in black from head to
foot, who roamed at nightfall through the neighbouring forests. He had
eyes of fire and was frightfully lean.
The peasants were convinced that it was a ghost, for he never answered
when spoken to and disappeared as soon as anyone drew near. I did not,
of course, share the superstitious terrors of the inhabitants of the
Corbières; but I thought that the ghost might be just some tramp or
marauder and I did not care for the Queens to come across him. Imagine
my alarm, therefore, when, one afternoon, after I had gone down to
Aix-les-Bains, I was handed the following laconic telegram:
"Queen gone walk without giving notice late in returning."
To jump into the funicular railway and go back to the Corbières was for
me the work of a few minutes. There I heard that Queen Wilhelmina had
gone out with her two ladies-in-waiting, saying that she meant to take
a little exercise, as she had not been out all day, and that she would
be back in an hour. Two hours had since elapsed, the Queen had not
returned and Queen Emma was beginning to feel seriously alarmed.
I at once rushed out in search of Her Majesty, questioning the people
whom I met on my way. No one had seen her. I ran into the forest,
where I knew that she was fond of going; I called out; no reply. More
and more anxious, I was about to hunt in another direction, when my
eyes fell upon traces of feet that had left their imprint on the snow.
I examined them: the foot-prints were too small to belong to a man;
they had evidently been made by women's shoes. I therefore followed
the trail as carefully as an Indian hunter. Nor was I mistaken: after
half-an-hour's walk, I heard clear voices calling out and soon I saw
the little Queen arrive, happy and careless, followed by her two
companions:
"Well, M. Paoli, you were running after us, I will bet. Just think, we
got lost, without knowing, and were looking for our way. It was great
fun!"
I did not venture to admit that I was far from sharing this opinion and
I confined myself to warning the Queen that her mother was anxious.
"Then let us hurry back as fast as we can," she said, her face suddenly
becoming overcast.
And I have no doubt that Her Majesty, on returning, was soundly scolded.
Strangely enough, I was able to lay my hand on "the black man" on the
evening of the very same day. It was a very clear night, with the moon
shining on the snow-clad mountains, and I resolved to go down to Aix on
foot, instead of using the funicular railway. I therefore took the path
that led through the wood; and, on reaching a glade at a few yards
from the royal villa, I perceived a shadow that appeared to be hiding
behind the trees.
"There's the famous black man," I thought.
But, as the shadow had all the air of an animal of the human species,
I also contemplated the possible presence of an anarchist charged to
watch the approaches to the royal residence. I took out my revolver and
shouted:
"Who goes there?"
"I, monsieur le commissaire!" replied a familiar voice, while the
shadow took shape, emerged from the trees, stepped forward and gave the
military salute.
I then recognised one of my own inspectors, whom I had instructed to go
the rounds of the precincts of the Queens' chalet nightly. He was the
individual who had been taken for "the black man." However, he seemed
none the worse for it.
4.
When the Queen had visited all the places in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Corbières and tasted sufficiently of the pleasure
of looking upon herself as a new Little Red Riding-hood in her wild
solitudes, or a new Sleeping Beauty (whose Prince Charming was not
to come until many years later), she expressed the wish to go on the
longer excursions which the country-side afforded. We therefore set
out, one fine morning, for the Abbey of Hautecombe, situated on the
banks of the poetic Lac du Bourget, which inspired Lamartine with one
of his most beautiful meditations.
Although standing on French territory, the old Abbey occupied by the
Cistercian monks continues to belong to Italy, or, at least, remains
the property of the royal house by virtue of an agreement made between
the two governments at the time of the French annexation of Savoy in
1860. It contains forty-three tombs of Princes and Princesses of the
House of Savoy. All the ancestors of King Victor-Emanuel, from Amadeus
V to Humbert III lie under the charge of the White Fathers in this
ancient monastery full of silence and majesty. Their mausoleums are
carved, for the most part, by the chisels of illustrious sculptors;
they stand side by side in the great nave of the chapel, which is in
the form of a Latin cross, with vaults painted sky-blue and transepts
peopled with upwards of three-hundred statues in Carrara marble.
These, crowded together within that narrow fabric, form as it were a
motionless and reflective crowd watching over the dead.
The visitor bends over the tombs and reads the names inscribed upon
them; and all the adventurous, chivalrous, heroic and gallant history
of the House of Savoy comes to life again. Here lies Amadeus, surnamed
the Red Count, and Philibert I the Hunter; further on, we come to Maria
Christina of Bourbon-Savoy, Joan of Montfort, and Boniface of Savoy,
the prince who became Archbishop of Canterbury;[6] further still is
the tomb of the young and charming Yolande of Montferrat, who sleeps
beside her father, Aymon the Peaceful. Lastly, at the entrance of the
church, in the chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, stands the sarcophagus
of Charles Félix, King of Sardinia, who restored Hautecombe in 1842.
The old standard of the Bodyguards of the Savoy Company shelters him
beneath its folds, which have ceased to flutter many a long century ago.
This fine historical lesson within a monastic sanctuary interested the
two Dutch Queens greatly. It made Queen Wilhelmina very thoughtful,
especially at a given moment when the monk who acted as her guide said,
with a touch of pride in his voice:
"The House of Savoy is a glorious house!"
After a second's pause, the little Queen replied:
"So is the House of Orange!..."
A few days after our excursion to Hautecombe, we went to visit the
Cascade de Grésy, a sort of furious torrent in which Marshal Ney's
sister, the Baronne de Broc, was drowned in 1818 before the eyes of
Queen Hortense, the mother of Napoleon III. We also drove to the Gorges
du Fier, in which no human being had dared to venture before 1869.
Queen Wilhelmina, ever eager for emotional impressions, insisted on
penetrating at all costs through the narrow passage that leads into
the gorges. The Queen Mother lived through minutes of agony that day,
although I did my best to persuade Her Majesty that her daughter was
not really incurring any danger. But there is no convincing an anxious
mother!
Stimulated by these various excursions, the little Queen said to me,
one morning:
"M. Paoli, I have formed a great plan. My mother approves. I want to go
and see the Grande Chartreuse."
"That is easily done," I replied, "but it will take a whole day, for
the monastery is a good distance from here."
"Well, M. Paoli, arrange the excursion as you think best: with the snow
on the ground, it will be magnificent!"
I wrote to the Father Superior to tell him of the Queen's wish. He
answered by return that, to his great regret, he was unable to open
the doors of the monastery to women, even though they were Queens,
without the express authorisation of the Pope. And indeed I remembered
that the same objection had arisen some years earlier, when I wanted to
take Queen Victoria to the Grande Chartreuse: I had to apply to Rome on
that occasion also.
I therefore hastened to communicate the answer to General Du Monceau,
who at once telegraphed to Cardinal Rampolla, at that time Secretary of
State to the Holy See. Cardinal Rampolla telegraphed the same evening
that the Pope granted the necessary authority.
These diplomatic preliminaries gave an additional zest to our
expedition. For it was a genuine expedition. We left Aix-les-Bains
at eight o'clock in the morning, by special train, for Saint-Béron,
which was then the terminus of the railway, before entering the great
mountain. Here, two landaus with horses and postilions awaited us. The
two Queens and their ladies stepped into one of the carriages; General
Du Monceau, the officers of the suite and I occupied the other; and we
started. It was eleven o'clock in the morning and we had a three hours'
drive before us. Notwithstanding the intense cold, a flood of sunshine
fell upon the immense frozen and deserted mountain-mass and lit up
with a blinding flame the long sheets of snow that lay stretching
to the horizon, where they seemed to be merged in the deep blue of
the sky. No sign of life appeared in that sea of mountains, amid the
throng of dissimilar summits, some blunt, some pointed, but all girt at
their base with huge pine-forests. Only the rhythmical tinkling of our
harness-bells disturbed the deep silence.
We began to feel the pangs of hunger after an hour's driving. I had
foreseen that we should find no inn on the road and had taken care
to have baskets of provisions stored in the boot of each carriage at
Saint-Béron.
"That's a capital idea," said Queen Wilhelmina. "You shall lunch with
us. I will lay the cloth!"
The carriages had stopped in the middle of the road, in the vast
solitude, opposite the prodigious panorama of white mountains and
gloomy valleys. The little Queen spread a large table-napkin over our
knees. From the depths of a hamper, she produced a cold chicken, rolls
and butter and solemnly announced:
"Luncheon is served."
Served by a Queen, in a carriage, on a mountain-top: that was an
incident lacking to my collection, as King Alfonso would have said! I
need hardly add that this picturesque luncheon was extremely lively and
that not a vestige of it remained when, at two o'clock, we approached
the Grande Chartreuse.
We caught sight first of the square tower, then of the great slate
roofs, then of the countless steeples, until, at last, in the fold
of a valley, the impressive block of buildings came into view, all
grey amidst its white setting and backed by the snow-covered forests
scrambling to the summit of the Col de la Ruchère. Perched amidst
this immaculate steppe, among those spurs bristling with contorted
and threatening rocks, as though in some apocalyptic landscape, the
cold, stern, proud convent froze us with a nameless terror: it seemed
to us as though we had reached the mysterious regions of a Wagnerian
Walhalla; the fairy-tale had turned into a legend, through which the
flaxen-haired figure of the little Queen passed like a light and airy
shadow.
All the inhabitants of the monastery stood awaiting the Queens at the
threshold of the gateway. The monks were grouped around their superior;
their white frocks mingled with the depths of the immense corridor, the
endless straight line of which showed through the open door.
The Father Superior stepped forward to greet the two Queens. Tall
in stature, with the face of an ascetic, a pair of piercing eyes,
an harmonious voice and a cold dignity combined with an exquisite
courtesy, lie had the grand manner of the well-bred man of the world:
"Welcome to Your Majesties," he said, slowly, with a bow.
The Queens, a little awestruck, made excuses for their curiosity; and
the inspection began. The monks led their royal visitors successively
through the cloister, the refectories, the fine library, which at that
time contained over twenty-thousand volumes, the rooms devoted to work
and meditation, each of which bore the name of a country or province,
because formerly they served as meeting-places for the priors of the
charter-houses of each of those countries or provinces. They showed
their kitchen, with its table formed of a block of marble nine yards
long and its chimney of colossal proportions. They threw open the great
chapter-house decorated with twenty-two portraits of the generals
of the order from its foundation and furnished with lofty stalls in
which the monks used to come and sit when, twice a year, they held
their secret assembly. They showed their exiguous cells, with their
tiled floors and whitewashed walls, each containing a truckle-bed, a
praying-chair, a table, a crucifix and a window opening upon the vast
and splendid horizon of the fierce mountains beyond. Lastly, they
showed their church, with its Gothic carvings surmounted by a statue of
death, and their desolate and monotonous cemetery, in which only the
graves of the priors are distinguished by a wooden cross. But they did
not show their relics and their precious sacred books. I expressed my
astonishment at this; and one of the fathers replied, coldly:
"That is because the Queens are heretics. We only show them to
Catholics."
Queen Wilhelmina, who had gradually recovered her assurance, plied the
superior with questions, to which he replied with a perfect good grace.
When, at last, the walk through the maze of passages and cloisters was
finished, the Queen hesitated and then asked:
"And the chartreuse? Don't you make that here?"
"Certainly, Ma'am," said the prior, "but we did not think that our
distillery could interest Your Majesty."
"Oh, but it does!" answered the Queen, with a smile. "I want to see
everything."
We were then taken to the "Mill," situated at an hour's distance from
the monastery, where the Carthusians, with their sleeves turned back,
prepared the delicious liqueur the secret of which they have now
taken with them in their exile. The Queens put their lips to a glass
of yellow elixir offered to them by the superior and accepted a few
bottles as a present. The visit had interested them prodigiously.
Half an hour later, we had left the convent far behind us in its
stately solitude and were driving down the other slope of the mountain
to Grenoble, where we were to find a special train to take us back to
Aix-les-Bains. When we approached the old Dauphiné capital, the day had
turned into a night of black and icy darkness; in front of us, in the
depths of the valley, all the lamps of the great city displayed their
thousands of twinkling lights; and Queen Wilhelmina kept on exclaiming:
"How beautiful! How delighted I am!"
She was not so well pleased--nor was I--when, at the gate of the town,
we saw cyclists who appeared to be on the lookout for our carriages and
who darted off as scouts before our landaus as soon as they perceived
us. These mysterious proceedings were all the more insoluble to me as
I had taken care not to inform the authorities of Grenoble that the
Queens intended to pass through their city, knowing as I did, on the
one hand, that the municipal council was composed of socialists and,
on the other, that Their Majesties wished to preserve the strictest
incognito. But I had reckoned without the involuntary indiscretion of
the railway staff, who had allowed the fact to leak out that a special
train had been ordered for the sovereigns; and, as no one is more
anxious to receive a smile from royalty than the stern, uncompromising
adherents of Messrs. Jaurès & Co., the first arm that was respectfully
put out to assist Queen Wilhelmina to alight from the carriage was
that of the socialist senator who, that year, was serving as Mayor of
Grenoble. He was all honey; he had prepared a speech; he had provided
a band. Willy-nilly, we had to submit to an official reception. True,
we were amply compensated, as the train steamed out of the station, by
hearing cries of "Long live the Queen!" issuing from the throats of men
who spent the rest of the year in shouting, "Down with tyrants!"
Such is the eternal comedy of politics and mankind.
5.
The Queens' stay at the Corbières was drawing to a close. We had
exhausted all the walks and excursions; the cold was becoming daily
more intense; the icy wind whistled louder than ever under the
ill-fitting doors. At the royal chalet, the little Queen was growing
tired of sketching young herds with their flocks or old peasant-women
combing wool. One morning, General Du Monceau said to me:
"Their Majesties have decided to go to Italy They will start for Milan
the day after to-morrow."
Two days later, I left them at the frontier; and, as I was taking my
leave of them:
"We shall meet again," said Queen Wilhelmina. "I am longing to see
Paris."
She did not realise her wish until two years later. It was in the
spring of 1898--a year made memorable in her life because it marked
her political majority and the commencement of her real reign--that,
accompanied by her mother, she paid a first visit to Paris on her way
to Cannes for the wedding of Prince Christian cf Denmark (the present
Crown-prince) and the Grand-duchess Mary of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
"Do you remember the day when we went to the Grande Chartreuse?" were
her first words on seeing me.
She still had her bright, childish glance, but she now wore her pretty
hair done up high, as befitted her age, and her figure had filled out
in a way that seemed to accentuate her radiant air of youth.
Anecdotes were told of her playfulness that contrasted strangely with
her sedate appearance. Chief among them was the well-known story
according to which she loved to tease her English governess, Miss
Saxton Winter: all Holland had heard how, one day, when drawing a
map of Europe, she amused herself by enlarging the frontiers of the
Netherlands out of all proportion and considerably reducing those
of great Britain. Another story was that, having regretfully failed
to induce the postal authorities to alter her portrait on the Dutch
stamps, which still represented her as a little girl, with her hair
down, she never omitted with her own pen to correct the postage-stamps
which she used for her private correspondence!
These childish ways did not prevent her from manifesting a keen
interest in poetry and art. Her favourite reading was represented by
Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas the Elder; but she also read books
on history and painting with the greatest pleasure. She had acquired a
remarkable erudition on these subjects in the course of her studies, as
I had occasion to learn during our visits to the museums, especially
the Louvre. She was familiar with the Italian and French schools of
painting as with the Dutch and Flemish, although she maintained a
preference for Rembrandt:
"I should like him to have a statue in every town in Holland!" she used
to say.
Nevertheless, the artistic beauties of Paris did not, of course, absorb
her attention to the extent of causing her to disregard the attractions
and temptations which our capital offers to the curiosity of a young
and elegant woman who does not scorn the fascination of dress. Queen
Wilhelmina used to go into ecstasies over the beauty and luxury of our
shops; and Queen Emma would have the greatest difficulty in dragging
her from the windows of the tradesmen in the Rue Royale and the Rue de
la Paix. It nearly always ended with a visit to the shop and the making
of numerous purchases.
The little Queen won the affection of all with whom she came into
contact by her simplicity, her frankness and the charming innocence
with which she indulged in the sheer delight of living. Although
possessed of an easy and ready admiration, she remained Dutch at heart
and professed a proud and exclusive patriotism.
"I can understand," said President Félix Faure to me, on the day after
the visit which he paid to the two Queens, "that the Dutch nation shows
an exemplary loyalty to Queen Wilhelmina. It recognises itself in her."
Indeed, nowhere is the sovereign more securely installed than in
Holland, nor does the work of government proceed anywhere more
smoothly. In Holland, constitutional rule performs its functions
automatically, while the budget balances regularly, year by year,
thanks to the colonies and trade. Happy country. What other state can
say as much to-day?
A week after their arrival in Paris, the two Queens left for Cannes. I
had been called south by my service in waiting on Queen Victoria, who
had just gone to Cannes herself, and I was obliged to leave a few days
before Their Majesties. But I met them again at the Danish wedding,
which was so picturesque and poetic in its Mediterranean setting.
I saw Queen Wilhelmina for the last time shortly before her departure
for Holland. It was in the late afternoon, at the moment when the sun
was on the point of disappearing behind the palm-trees in the garden of
the hotel where the Queen of England had taken up her residence. Queen
Wilhelmina had come to say good-bye; she was standing in an attitude
of timid deference before the old sovereign seated in her bath-chair.
Both Queens were smiling and talking merrily. Then Wilhelmina, stooped,
kissed Queen Victoria on the forehead and tripped away lightly in the
golden rays of the setting sun.
She has not returned to France since then.
VIII
THE LATE KING OF THE BELGIANS
1.
Of all the sovereigns with whom I have been connected in the course of
my career, Leopold II is perhaps the one whom I knew best, with the
circumstances of whose private life I was most intimately acquainted
and whose thoughts and soul I was nevertheless least able to fathom,
for the simple reason that his thoughts were impenetrable and his
soul remained closed. Was this due to excessive egotism or supreme
indifference? To both, perhaps. He was as baffling as a puzzle,
carried banter occasionally to the verge of insolence and cynicism
to that of cruelty; and, if, at times, he yielded to fits of noisy
gaiety, if, from behind the rough exterior, there sometimes shot an
impulse of unexpected kindness, these were but passing gleams. He
promptly recovered his wonderful self-control; and those about him
were too greatly fascinated by his intelligence to seek to understand
his habit of mind or heart. And yet, though fascinating, he was as
uncommunicative as it is possible to be; he possessed none of the
external attractions of the intellect which captivate and charm; but,
whenever he deigned to grant you the honour of an interview, however
brief, you at once discovered in him a prodigious brain, a luminous
perspicacity and critical powers of amazing subtlety and keenness.