brass and bamboo instruments. Then, while some of the women struck up
a religious chant and others clapped their hands in measured time,
the dancers left the group one by one, shooting out and meeting in
the ring; and a regular fanciful, childish drama was suggested by
their movements, their gestures and their attitudes, which contrasted
strangely with the sacerdotal repose of their features. They looked, at
one time, like large, living flowers; at another, like automatic dolls.
The dances provided an odd medley of Moorish and Spanish steps.
Sometimes, the stomach would sway to and fro, as though one were
watching a dance of Egyptian almes; at other times, the legs quivered
and the dancer stamped her feet, raised her arms, jerked her hips as
though she meant to give us some Andalusian _jota_ or _habanera_. And
in those faces, which seemed inanimate beneath their fixed smiles,
nothing allowed the inner feelings of the soul to penetrate: yet what
suggestive mimicry was there, what harmonious poses and what marvellous
costumes!
The Cambodian ballet-girls, when dancing in public, wear clothes that
are simply fairy-like. They have bodices of silk stitched with gold
and adorned with precious stones. These bodices are very heavy and are
fitted upon them and sewn before each performance, so they form as it
were a new skin and reveal with a clearness that is nothing short of
impressive the slightest undulations of the body.
The dressers take two or three hours to clothe the dancers, after which
they paint the girls' faces and deck them out with bracelets, necklaces
and rings of priceless value. Sometimes also the dancers' fingers are
slipped into long, bent, golden claws, which describe harmonious curves
in space.
Lastly, the head-dress consists of either the traditional _pnom_--a
sort of pointed hat, all of gold and fastened on by clutches that grip
the head--or a wreath of enormous flowers, or else of a pale-tinted
silk handkerchief rolled low over the temples.
[Illustration: KING SISOWATH'S DANCERS BEFORE THE PRESIDENT AT THE
ÉLYSÉE PALACE]
The dancers and their dances achieved, as may be imagined, no small
success, first at the Elysée and afterwards in the Bois de Boulogne,
where a gala performance was given, in the open-air theatre of the Pré
Catelan, by the light of the electric lamps. Between whiles, they took
drives through Paris, which gave rise to all sorts of astonished and
enthusiastic manifestations on their part, much to the delight of their
guides; for they had the mental attitude of little girls and, when,
after a week, they had to go back to Marseilles, where they formed the
principal attraction at the Colonial Exhibition, their despair was
something immense. It was as much as we could do to console them by
presenting them all with mechanical rabbits and unbreakable dolls.
And the King, once more, was bored. He was so thoroughly bored that, a
few days after the departure of his ballet-girls, he resolved to go and
spend a couple of days at Nancy, in order to see a dozen or two young
Cambodians who had been attending the local industrial school for the
last twelve-month. The organising of this visit was very troublesome,
for the King had acquired a taste for military display and insisted
upon being received at Nancy with full honours, such as he had been
used to in Paris. Worse still, the trip very nearly ended in disaster,
entirely through Sisowath's own fault.
The inhabitants of Nancy, amused and delighted by the show of Oriental
luxury that met their eyes, gave the King an enthusiastic ovation
far in excess of his expectations. His gratitude was such that, on
the evening of his arrival, he took it into his head to manifest his
delight by flinging handfuls of silver through the windows of the
Prefecture to the crowd that stood cheering him on the Place Stanislas!
The reader can picture the effect of this beneficent shower. Suddenly,
loud cries and shouts were heard and a regular battle was fought in
front of the Prefecture, for one and all wished to profit by the royal
largesse.
I at once rushed up to the King and begged him to stop this
dangerous game. But Sisowath, who was madly diverted by the sight,
positively refused to yield to my entreaties. He even asked to have a
thousand-franc note changed for gold.
Seeing that persuasion was of no avail, I took a quick and bold
resolve. I had him removed from the window by force, undeterred by the
insults with which he overwhelmed me in the Cambodian tongue.
But I had not yet come to the end of my emotions: a serio-comic
incident followed apace. Sisowath, suddenly evading the watchfulness
of my inspectors, who dared not detain him like a common malefactor,
escaped, darted down the stairs, four steps at a time, opened a window
on the ground floor and, with hoarse cries, began to fling into the
square all the _louis d'or_ which he had in his possession. The moment
he heard us coming, quick as lightning he was off and flew to another
window. For a quarter of an hour, a mad steeple-chase was kept up
through all the rooms of the Prefecture, amid the roars of the excited
crowd in the streets.
Fortunately, the King soon grew tired and accepted his defeat. As for
me, I naturally looked upon my disgrace as assured. But Sisowath, thank
goodness, was not vindictive. The next morning, he gave me his hand
and, bursting into loud laughter, contented himself with saying:
"Very funny!"
5.
A week later, he took ship at Marseilles, with his court, to return to
Cambodia. When I said good-bye to him on the deck of the steamer, he
appeared heart-broken at having to leave our country. Heart-broken,
too, seemed the little dancing-girls squatting at the foot of the mast,
with their mechanical rabbits and their unbreakable dolls--the last
keepsake to remind them of their stay in Paris--which they squeezed
fondly in their arms.
When, at length, the hour of parting had struck, good King Sisowath,
greatly moved, called me to his side:
"Here," he said. "Present for you."
And he handed me a parcel done up in a pink-silk handkerchief.
As soon as I was on shore, I hastened to open it; to my great
confusion, it contained a splendid _sampot_ made of fine cloth of gold.
The King of Cambodia had presented me with his state breeches, which
were all that remained to me of my last "client" and of my Oriental
dreams!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In France, the premiership is very often held in conjunction with
the portfolio of the Interior, or Home Office.--_Translator's Note._
[2] The _habit à la française_, once a military cloak, now used
purely for livery, is a heavily embroidered coat, similar to
that of an English flunkey, but of a less voluminous cut and
shorter.--_Translator's Note._
[3] "Oho! An empress comes this way!"--_Translator's Note._
[4] _Jonkheer_ is a Dutch hereditary title of nobility, ranking below
that of baron.--_Translator's Note._
[5] The family of Dumonceau is of Belgian origin and derives from an
ancestor in the parish of Saint-Géry, Brussels.--_Translator's Note._
[6] Boniface of Savoy was nominated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury,
in 1241, by King Henry III of England, who had married Boniface's niece
Eleanor, daughter of Raymond Berengar, Count of Provence, and Beatrix
of Savoy.--_Translator's Note._
[7] The late King of the Belgians shared the national
peculiarity of interlarding his French with a succession of
_savez-vous_.--_Translator's Note._
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Plain print and punctuation errors were corrected.
All chapter headers are duplicated in original book. The transcriber
has deleted one of each set as unnecessary.
Table of Contents missing in original book; it has been produced and
added by transcriber.
Section header "1." at chapter IX missing in original book; it has
been added by transcriber.