Count Léon--The Shah of Persia’s visit--A weird suggestion; no
response--King Koffee--Cetewayo.
About this time I met Count Léon, the natural son of Napoleon the Great.
The Count was then nearing seventy years of age, and had taken refuge
in this country after the great _débâcle_ of 1870. He lived in modest
lodgings at Camden Town, and to pay his way set about selling the last
remaining relics of the Imperial Family he had in his possession.
In a diary I now have before me I find that my father visited him on
the 31st of January, 1873, the Count having expressed a wish to show
him the family heirlooms, with the view to their finding a permanent
resting-place among the many Napoleonic memorials at Madame Tussaud’s.
The Count offered him a fine miniature of Napoleon I’s brother, Lucien;
a terra-cotta bust of Napoleon’s mother, “Madame Mère”; and a snuff-box
left by Napoleon with Count Léon’s mother. The box contained a portion
of the snuff which the Emperor had been using. There was also a lock
of hair belonging to Napoleon’s son, the Duc de Reichstadt, known in
high Imperial days as the King of Rome. One or two of these relics were
acquired for the Exhibition.
[Illustration: COUNT LÉON
Natural son of Napoleon Bonaparte. A Portrait Study by John T. Tussaud.]
The Count bore a striking resemblance to the Emperor, except in two
particulars: his figure was cast in a larger mould, and his eyes were
hazel, whereas Napoleon’s were blue-grey. Count Léon returned to France,
leaving behind him in London his son Charles, for whom I obtained a
position in a City warehouse, where he remained engaged for several
years, being at no pains to disguise his identity. My readers will
readily see that the name granted to his father by the Emperor was
composed of the last four letters in “Napoleon,” a whimsical touch of
Imperial humour.
Count Léon finally settled at Pontoise, some twenty miles north-west of
Paris, first at the Villa Davenport in the Rue l’Hermitage and afterwards
in the Rue de Beaujon. This was his last stage. The room that he made his
final refuge he adorned with four portraits of Napoleon, “my glorious
father.”
To what depths had the Emperor’s son fallen! The old man’s shirts were
in rags; he could not afford clean linen; he had to forgo tobacco. He
died on the 14th of April, 1881, and without pomp or ceremony his body
was laid in a pauper’s grave. His only memorial was a grassy mound and a
little black wooden cross that soon rotted and fell to pieces.
On the 2nd of July, 1873, the Shah of Persia, accompanied by his numerous
suite, visited Madame Tussaud’s, and was accorded a private view with
some pomp and formality. His visit to the Exhibition was deemed of such
importance that it gained the unusual distinction of a special reference
in the _Court Circular_. Members of our Royal Household in considerable
numbers attended in state, and formed an imposing assemblage. The public
was excluded.
The domes of the building were specially darkened to give effect to the
internal illuminations, which were very beautiful. None enjoyed the
function more than the Shah himself, who laughed heartily as he pointed
at models he was able to recognise, and several times turned from a
figure to a person present, indicating by a gesture and a chuckle his
pride at discerning the likeness. The merry monarch even went so far as
to pose among the figures as a real, live royal model.
Before leaving the Exhibition the Shah called for pen and paper, and,
surrounded by the distinguished company, wrote in Persian the following:
“Whilst staying in London I visited Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, and
wrote these words here by way of memorial to my visit.--NASSERDIN CHAH
KADJAR, 1290 Haegira (1873).”
The above free translation was there and then made by one of His Solar
Highness’s secretaries, and it possesses the charm of its own defects.
The “king of kings” was in his most humorously autocratic vein among the
unhallowed figures of the Chamber of Horrors. He seemed to gloat over
the collection of criminals and notorieties, examining with unaffected
delight the guillotine which cut off so many heads during the French
Revolution.
The lunette in which the necks of the victims were held in position
greatly fascinated the Shah, who hinted that a condemned prisoner should
be brought from one of the English gaols to be decapitated on the spot
for the edification of himself and his attendants.
It was pointed out, as an evasive measure, that no condemned man was
available at that moment, whereupon His Majesty turned to the members of
his suite and called for volunteers.
Such a thing, however, as an execution at Madame Tussaud’s was out of the
question, even to gratify the whim of so illustrious a personage; and the
Shah’s retainers looked genuinely relieved when they gathered that their
royal master was not to have his way.
This period seemed to inaugurate a series of little wars, which,
nevertheless, then excited the interest of the people, whose descendants
may well remark how comparatively small these wars were. The Ashantee
campaign ended in the fall of Coomassie on the 4th of February, 1874, and
Sir Garnet Wolseley added fresh laurels to his fame. It was with real
regret that the public looked in vain for the portrait of King Koffee
at Madame Tussaud’s. As the dusky potentate had evidently never had his
photograph taken, and as “sittings” were out of the question, we could
not very well gratify the public curiosity for lack of the necessary data.
Not only did people expect to discover King Koffee’s portrait, but they
also clamoured to see his famous umbrella, which Wolseley “borrowed” from
His Majesty’s mud-palace at Coomassie, and obviously failed to return,
for the umbrella was accepted as a gift by Queen Victoria from the
gallant Commander of this brief and brilliant expedition. We confessed
then to a twinge of envy that the celebrated gamp had not found its way
to Madame Tussaud’s. We were, however, amply compensated by the public
favour with which the portrait of Sir Garnet was received.
[Illustration: KING CETEWAYO
Deposed King of the Zulus, who visited England as the “guest of the
Government” and whose image in wax remains at Madame Tussaud’s as a
memorial of his visit.]
The deposed King of the Zulus, Cetewayo, who was subsequently restored to
a portion of his kingdom, made a considerable stir when he visited this
country as the “guest of the Government.” A friend who was appointed to
take shorthand notes when Cetewayo attended at the Foreign Office enabled
me to gain a view of the burly black monarch, and I had an opportunity of
comparing the original with the many published portraits.
He was a handsome type of a fine race, and looked a king even among the
stalwart members of his suite, everyone of whom seemed to be six feet at
least in height and well-proportioned.
Cetewayo’s figure had been in the Exhibition some time before, and it now
became possible to bring it up to date. Everything was done to impress
Cetewayo with the strength of the British Empire; but it was discovered
that the objects which appealed most to his savage taste were the cattle
in the fields, the cloth in the factories, and the gewgaws and jewels in
the shop windows.
“He is uglier than that,” said an envoy of the Induna King, Gungunhana,
critically scrutinising Cetewayo’s figure, when he visited the Exhibition
in June, 1891.
This native envoy rejoiced in the name of Huluhulu-Untato, his companion
being Umfeti-Inteni. They thought the figures were really dead bodies
which had been preserved from decay. When told that they were merely
waxen images the Indunas expressed disappointment that the white man had
not completed his work by putting breath into the bodies.
When Huluhulu came before the figure of Queen Victoria he saluted Her
silent Majesty, and stood audibly worshipping her for a minute or two.