One of the direst misfortunes that ever came upon Serbia was Milan,
her fickle, headstrong, extravagant ruler. He was, perhaps, no Serb at
all; it had been given out, when he came as a child from Roumania,
that he was the grandson of the younger brother of Milo[vs], but this
statement was not universally accepted--he lived under the suspicion
of being an illegitimate son of the Roumanian Prince--and at his first
appearance before the Skup[vs]tina a certain Ranko Tajsi['c], a
deputy, refused to rise. "I want that man's birth certificate!" he
shouted. It is not surprising that Milan did his best to make, from
that time onwards, Ranko's life a burden. If the Prince had been a
more satisfactory monarch, his origin would have mattered little. Many
of his attributes seem to his detractors to be peculiarly Roumanian,
although it is true that extravagance is not unknown in Serbia, and
this was the foible which his subjects, even when they learned the
colossal amount of his debts, were most willing to overlook. It was
only after his death that the secret treaty of alliance between
himself and his paymasters, the Austro-Hungarian Government, became
known; but the people, and especially the educated classes, were in
opposition to his politics, and the conflict between him and the
Radical party degenerated into a revolt that was suppressed by the
sword. The leaders of the party fled from Serbia: Pa[vs]i['c], who was
for so many years to be Prime Minister, settled in Bulgaria where he
practised his profession of railway engineer.... As a benignant-looking
patriarch Nicholas Pa[vs]i['c] was for a long time the solitary Serb
with whom the well-informed public of the rest of Europe was familiar.
And of course upon his countrymen, whose fortunes he directed through
years of shadow and sunshine, his hold was tremendous. "May God bless
our dear old brother Nikky," says the peasant as he tastes his morning
glass of rakia. There is no brilliance but a profound knowledge of
human nature in this humorous old Balkan gentleman. It is not by
brilliant oratory that he sways the Skup[vs]tina, for he merely thinks
aloud; slowly and haltingly, while he caresses his beautiful white
beard, the words come out in a very bass voice--it is a grave and
confidential talk, although a merry gleam occasionally dances in his
eyes. With such homeliness does he talk that he pays no strict regard
to the complications of Serbian grammar--when he appointed a very able
young official of the Ministry of Education to a diplomatic post some
hostile critics in the Press asserted that he did so on account of his
enormous admiration for a man who had produced eight books on grammar.
As a specimen of Pa[vs]i['c]'s parliamentary methods we may quote from
a speech that he made in answer to one by the aforementioned
Tajsi['c], who was an illiterate but most eloquent peasant. For three
hours Tajsi['c] had railed against the secret fund, the 30 million
dinars that were every year at the disposal of the Foreign Office. At
last when Pa[vs]i['c] gets up and very courteously smiles at the
would-be reformer: "Well, well," says he, "as to what our friend has
told us--the--how should I say?--well, it is not altogether wrong--in
a way, the--what was his name?--when you examine the matter from all
sides, there is--I forget the word--in a way, these non-public
matters, you know--how should I say?--it is best--how should I
say?----" "Are you satisfied with His Excellency's answer?" says
Nikoli['c], the Speaker. And Tajsi['c] puts it to himself that after
all he is only a peasant and Pa[vs]i['c] is an Excellency and he must
know better what one should do. This habit of stroking his beard used
to be adopted by the Prime Minister when his personal finances were
under discussion. Doubtless there were many who scented something
scandalous in the fact that he possessed half the shares in the Bor
copper mines, which had risen from 500 to 80,000 dinars apiece. He had
bought them, as anybody else might have done. "Ah well," he was wont
to say in that ultra-deep voice, "you see my wife brought them me."
And a large contribution to his wealth was made by a farmer near
Kragujevac; he persuaded Pa[vs]i['c] to buy from him for 1000
piastres--a few pounds--a meadow on which to put his horses, and
subsequently on that meadow there was found an excellent spring of
mineral water. Once for a change another political leader, whose
Christian name was also Nicholas, thought he would pull the beard of
Pa[vs]i['c], and he did so very vehemently just outside Kolarac, which
is a large restaurant in Belgrade. The Prime Minister was being
followed by a couple of detectives, but he signed to them that they
were not to interfere. "My darling old Nikky," said he, as he beamed
at his assailant and grasped him tightly round the throat, "you and I
are party leaders, so please don't let us quarrel. It creates an
unfortunate impression, my friend." And it was some weeks before this
man recovered, for Pa[vs]i['c] was then about sixty years of age and
still in the flower of his strength. But to return to the disastrous
reign of Milan.