Suddenly the child dropped back into her seat and sat bolt upright as

quiet as you please, her hands folded demurely in her lap. After a

moment she turned to her nurse and said: “Did you see that policeman?”

The nurse replied she had, but there was nothing extraordinary about a

policeman on the street. “But this one was writing something,” pursued

Olga. “I am afraid he was writing, ‘I saw Olga and she was very

naughty.’”

When the nurse replied that this was unlikely Olga reminded her,

somewhat reproachfully, that a few days before they had seen a policeman

arresting a woman who was under the influence of liquor, and when Olga

had begged that the woman be let off the nurse had replied that the

woman had been very naughty and deserved to be arrested, adding that one

had to be very naughty indeed to be taken off by the policeman in that

way.

The incident evidently made a deep impression upon the child, for no

sooner had they got back to the Palace than Olga began to inquire if any

policeman had been there for her. As soon as she could, she related the

whole affair to the Tsar and the Tsaritsa and ended by asking her father

if he had ever been arrested. The Emperor laughed and said he had never

been quite naughty enough for that, to which Olga exclaimed: “Oh! how

very good you must always have been!”

A little while before this Olga had been naughty all day and her nurse

said to her: “I am afraid you got out of bed with the wrong foot

foremost this morning.” Olga looked thoughtful for a moment but said

nothing. The next morning, before getting out of bed she called to her

nurse to ask which was the right foot for her to get out with. The nurse

indicated one of her feet and Olga slowly descended upon it. “Now,” she

said, “that bad foot won’t be able to make me naughty to-day.” And all

day, whenever Olga started to do things she ought not to do, the nurse

had only to remind her that she had got out of bed with her right foot

that morning, therefore she couldn’t be contrary.

Tatiana’s next youngest sister, the Grand Duchess Marie, one day caused

a ripple of amusement in the same Winter Palace. She was looking out of

one of the windows when a regiment of soldiers marched past, through the

magnificent Winter Palace Square over which a colossal Angel of Peace

broods, perched on a towering marble column. Suddenly Marie exclaimed,

“Oh! I love these dear soldiers; I should like to kiss them all!”

One of the family who was standing near overheard the child’s remark and

said: “Marie, nice little girls don’t kiss soldiers.”

Marie made no reply, but a little later there was a children’s party at

the Palace, and among the guests were the children of the Grand Duke

Constantine. One of the boys, aged twelve, had just entered in the

military school where high noblemen’s sons are trained for the army--the

_Corps de Pages_. This miniature officer arrived in his brand new

uniform and as he met his cousin Marie he made to kiss her. But Marie

sprang away, covering her mouth with her hand. “Go away, soldier,” she

cried. “I don’t kiss soldiers--nice little girls don’t kiss soldiers.”

Her cousin was so well pleased at being taken for a real soldier that he

readily forgave his dignified little cousin for declining his proffered

kiss.

Tatiana and Marie have always been sweet children, and, on the whole

even tempered if mischievous. Olga, however, the eldest, has never been

so popular. In 1899, when Olga was four years old the Royal Family

(which then included only three children), went to Moscow for a brief

sojourn. While there the Empress decided to have portraits painted of

the three children.

The artist who was entrusted with this commission began to take

innumerable photographs of them all. This was preliminary to the

sittings. The sittings proved tedious and tiresome and after the fourth

or fifth sitting Grand Duchess Olga quite lost her patience and her

temper, and at last exclaimed to the artist: “You are a very ugly man

and I don’t like you a bit.”

To the amusement of several members of the Imperial Household the artist

was much hurt by this Royal comment, and offended as well. He even

ventured to resent the child’s outburst. “You are the first lady who has

ever said I was ugly, and moreover, I’m not a man--I’m a gentleman,” he

replied.

Ladies of the Court were always loath to talk about Olga. “She is

cranky,” said one. “She is not nice,” said another. And one grand lady

of honour went so far as to shrug her shoulders and say: “She is like

her mother!” When I pressed this and begged her tell me more, the lady

merely referred to the haughty, disdainful manner of the Empress. I

think I have explained this attitude as I have understood it.

The Empress received very little sympathy and consideration from the

ladies of her Court from her first coming to Russia, and she soon came

to hold her head high and walk heedless through the throng. She

apparently gave no effort to winning friends but accepted the atmosphere

which circumstances and an obstinate Court created for her. Perhaps the

consciousness of her lack of popularity wore upon her, and rasped. That

wide popularity of the Dowager Empress, and her lack of cordiality

toward her young successor doubtless tended to further develop the very

qualities that have been her bane. At all events her disposition toward

most of the people of her Court has never been happy, and their silent

resentment of her coolness has driven her more and more into herself, to

the consolations of religion, and her family.

One Lady-in-Waiting, for example, told me that she had been attached to

the person of the Empress from time to time for a number of years. She

herself is a Princess of old family and in excellent standing at Court.

One day, when the Grand Duchess Olga was three years old the Princess

and the child were together in one of the nursery rooms. The Princess

stood with her back to one of the walls and Olga came toddling across

the room as fast as her little legs would carry her. The Princess

stretched out her arms, caught up the child and lightly tossed her

ceilingwards, then bringing her slowly down toward her own upturned

face, kissed her and set her down. At that moment the Empress entered

the room. She had no sooner seen this very natural action on the part of

her own Lady-in-Waiting than she exclaimed: “The most you may do is to

kiss the hand of my daughter!”

St. Petersburg is full of similar gossiping incidents concerning the

Empress. Many of them are doubtless fabricated, as many such anecdotes

always are concerning people who occupy conspicuous positions in the

world, but the one I have just related is true, and all of these

anecdotes possess the virtue that they are likely--that they _may_ be

true.

One concluding anecdote of the Grand Duchess Olga is vouched for. One

day a professor from Moscow was giving the Grand Duchess Olga a lesson

in history. A Lady-in-Waiting was sitting by, as usual, to insure that

no dangerous doctrines are taught. Suddenly Olga looked up at her

teacher and asked: “Who is Emperor of France?” The professor felt that

this was an embarrassing question, for it was as yet far too early to

undertake the explanation of a republican system of government. The

Lady-in-Waiting, however, was equal to the occasion, for seeing the

embarrassment of the professor, she answered, “In France the Emperor is

called _President_!”

CHAPTER VIII

TATIANA, MARIE AND ANASTASIE

The Grand Duke Vladimir was wont to call the Grand Duchess Marie “The

Amiable Baby,” and from all accounts she is more like what her mother

was in babyhood than any of the children. Between her and her older

sister Olga is a world of difference. If half the stories about her are

true she is indeed the personification of sweetness and unselfishness.

Whooping cough attacked the whole nursery one spring. Curiously enough

the Empress came down first and it quickly spread to all of the

children. Even the nurses caught it. One day one of the nurses was

holding the baby, Anastasie, on her lap. The little thing was coughing

and choking toward the whoop of relief when Marie ran up close to her,

and putting her face close up to her little sister’s said: “Baby,

darling, cough on me.” The nurse asked her why she desired that and she

answered: “I am so sorry to see my dear little sister so ill, and I

thought if I could take it from her she would be better.” A charmingly

generous impulse, surely!

Marie is so frequently held up as a model and an example to the other

three sisters that she has been nicknamed the “stepsister.” Her

amiability and sweetness are so marked that her sisters are ready to

admit that she cannot be more than half one of them!

There is a pretty little story current of a nursery incident which

occurred one afternoon when the little Grand Duchesses were playing

house by piling up chairs. The other sisters entered into a conspiracy

against Marie. “You were to be the footman and wait outside,” they told

her. Marie was quite willing to be footman, but she protested against

leaving the nursery and standing all by herself in the hall. But the

others pushed her out and it looked as if poor little Marie would have

to submit. Suddenly she dashed into the nursery, her arms filled with

toys and dolls’ dresses. Rushing up to her sisters she dealt each a slap

and cried out: “I’ll not be a footman. I’ll be the kind, good aunt who

brings presents to the children.”

She then proceeded to distribute her gifts, kissed each of her “nieces”

and sat down. The other children looked sheepishly at one another, and

at last Tatiana said: “We are too cruel to poor little Marie, she really

couldn’t help whipping us.” And after that Marie played with the others

in the nursery.

The children are frequently admitted to where their parents are at tea

time, but they are not supposed to touch any of the cakes that are

served to the older people. It is difficult to prevent this always, for

like all children, they want to sample the good things they see.

One day, when no one was noticing Marie particularly, she helped herself

to some cake and began to gobble it down as fast as she could. With her

mouth still full, she looked up at the nurse who came to take her and

said: “Dere! I’ve eaten it all up. You tant det it now.”

The Empress felt that Marie should be punished for this, so nurse was

told to take her off to bed. But the Emperor intervened, saying that he

had always feared Marie would be growing wings and he was glad to see

that she was only a human child after all!

I remember one occasion when the Tsaritsa was covered with confusion by

the little Grand Duchess Tatiana. The Crown Prince of Siam was visiting

St. Petersburg and during part of his stay, he was a guest of the

Emperor and Empress, who were then occupying the Winter Palace. The

dusky Prince went to pay his respects to the nursery. The Empress

herself accompanied him to present the children.

On the way they met Tatiana and the Empress called to her second

daughter: “Come, Tatiana, and shake hands with this gentleman.” Tatiana

held off shyly, looking askance and with manifest disapproval upon the

brown-skinned potentate from Siam. At last she exclaimed: “That is not a

gentleman, mamma; that’s a monkey!”

The Empress flushed with mortification and retorted: “You are a monkey

yourself, Tatiana.” The Prince laughed heartily at the incident and

before the end of the visit of his Imperial Highness to Petersburg, he

and Tatiana became fast friends.

Tatiana has always been a bright child, with an amusing, alert mind. One

day she and her English governess were walking in the garden of the

Winter Palace, when one of the Emperor’s beautiful great collie dogs

came bounding along the path behind them. With a puppy-like caprice the

dog jumped on Tatiana’s back and threw her down. As the little Grand

Duchess clambered to her feet, the dog gamboled off down the path in a

mad frolic with another dog. Tatiana was not hurt, but considerably

frightened, and after gazing after the dogs for a moment in silence,

great salt tears began to drop down her cheeks. The governess tried to

comfort her by saying “Poor Sheilka, she did not mean to hurt you; she

only wanted to say ‘good morning’ to you.”

Tatiana looked up at her governess and quickly replied: “Was that all?

Then I don’t think she is very polite; she should have said it to my

face, not to my back.”

The Grand Duchess Tatiana is one of the sweetest of children. One day

when she was being got ready to go out, the governess went to get her

coat to go with them. When she returned, the nurse, Mary, was shaking

Tatiana. “How dare you shake Tatiana?” Miss Eager exclaimed. “You are

paid to take care of her,--not to correct her.” “She is paid?” said

Tatiana in surprise. “Yes,” the governess replied, “She is paid and I,

also, am paid,” at which Tatiana put her head on the shoulder of the

governess and cried. “You have seen me get my money every month,” said

the governess. “I always thought it was a present to you,” the child

said. The governess then explained that it was necessary that she be

paid, as she had no money of her own and that her way of earning money

was looking after the Royal children. The next morning when the

governess awoke, Tatiana was standing by her bedside and she said, “May

I get into your bed?” As the little Grand Duchess cuddled down in the

arms of her governess, she exclaimed, “Anyway, you are not paid for

this.”

Another day, as the Royal nursery was going to the beach at Livadia

after a terrible storm, the Grand Duchess Olga picked up a little dead

bird which had fallen on the grass and said, “I will keep this poor,

little bird forever.” The governess did not interfere but watched Olga

carry it, followed by Tatiana who was sympathetically interested. The

governess wondered how long the children would carry this bird before

getting tired of it. Presently, Olga said, “Perhaps I am doing wrong to

take this little bird away because even at this moment, God may have

sent an angel for the bird and what if it is not there? I am going to

put it back.” Whereupon, she retraced her steps to the spot where she

had found it. The next day they were going to the beach again and they

took the same path as on the previous day in order to look for the

bird. When they arrived at the spot where Olga had found and replaced

it, the bird was gone. “Suppose we had taken it away!” said Olga. “Then

God’s angel could not have found it.” “Oh,” replied Tatiana, “I think it

would have been perfectly lovely if He had taken it out of our hands!”

Anastasie has always enjoyed the reputation of being the most

mischievous of all the children. One year, when the Dowager Empress was

about to celebrate her birthday, all of the Imperial children were

arranging their gifts for their grandmother. Anastasie, for reasons of

her own, determined not to take any part in these arrangements or to

select any gift for her grandmother. She refused even to learn a piece

of poetry to recite to her as all the other children did. “At all

events, she will take grandmamma a bouquet of lilies of the valley tied

with a bow of mauve ribbon?” “O yes, I will gather a bouquet in the

morning,” replied Anastasie. The following day, all the children were

dressed to go into the carriage to offer their congratulations to the

Dowager Empress. Anastasie alone, appeared with empty hands. “I thought

we were going to walk so that I could gather some wild flowers for

grandma; now I shall have none.” “When people go to offer

congratulations, they go in carriages,” their governess explained.

Anastasie thereupon went to the cupboard and took a little toy from it.

When the nursery arrived at the Palace, the other children gave their

grandmother gifts and recited their pieces of poetry until it came

Anastasie’s turn when she hung her head and all the other children

turned away with shame and chagrin for their sister. “Have you nothing

for grandma?” the Empress Dowager said. “Yes, I have brought this,

Grandma,” Anastasie replied. “But have you made nothing for me with your

own little hands?” “Nothing, Grandma,” was the answer. “Well, dear, you

are a very little child,” said the Empress Dowager, “but perhaps you

have learned a piece of poetry to say to me.” Anastasie looked more

chagrined than ever, but, unwilling to confess her negligence, thought

to deceive the Empress Dowager by repeating the following lines:

I have a pretty doll,

Her name is Miss Rose,

She has two pretty blue eyes,

And a very small nose.

She can’t stand long,

On her tiny little toes,

She just makes a curtsy,

And then, off she goes.

“That is very pretty,” said the Empress, “but isn’t that what you said

to your mother last week?” Anastasie couldn’t stand it any longer and

fled from the room and burst into tears, but presently she went back to

her grandma to tell her how sorry she was and to beg her forgiveness.

The Empress accepted the child’s apology very sweetly, but told her

that she could not give her the bonbon like the one she had given to all

the other children.

Anastasie, one day, climbed onto the nursery table and jumped off. The

governess said, “You must not do that; it is too high; you can jump off

the sofa if you want to jump, but not off the table.” Paying no heed to

what had been said to her, Anastasie again climbed on the table and

jumped off. So her governess gently slapped her. Anastasie sat down and

thought a moment, then said, “It is not nice to get a slap, but it is

better to climb on the table and get a slap than to jump off the sofa

and not get a slap,” and she promptly climbed on the table once more and

jumped again. The governess then tied her in a chair with a sash.

Anastasie did not like this so she said, “It is better to climb on the

table and get a slap but it is better not to climb on the table than to

be tied in a chair like this.”

The Emperor was with the children one day when Anastasie, in a burst of

temper, slapped Tatiana on the face. The Emperor promptly sent for the

nursery governess and told her to take Anastasie upstairs and make her

hear reason. When the governess had Anastasie alone, she said, “Aren’t

you ashamed of yourself to slap your sister?” “I am not ashamed at all,”

replied Anastasie, “because I did not really hurt Tatiana.” “But you

hurt Tatiana’s feelings,” the governess told her, “and you hurt your

father’s feelings.” “I did not hurt Tatiana so I won’t say ‘I am sorry’

to her but I am sorry I hurted poor daddy’s feelings,” and she

proceeded to go and tell her father how sorry she felt. The governess

allowed her to go downstairs. Anastasie went directly to the Tsar and

said: “Daddy, I am sorry I hurted your feelings,” but to Tatiana she

would not say a word. After a moment, however, she suddenly threw her

arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her.

Anastasie had long wanted a cat for a pet. In the garden near Peterhof,

where the Royal Family were staying for the annual manœuvres, the

nursery, one day, found a cat following the gardener. Anastasie promptly

said, “Sir, will you please give me your cat?” “You may have the cat if

you can keep it,” the gardener replied. Anastasie took the cat home,

buttered its feet and shut it up in one of the rooms. When she went to

look for her cat, she found it had escaped through the chimney. The next

day, Anastasie went again to the garden and, seeking out the gardener,

said, “You said I might have the cat and I took it home but she ran

away.” “No,” said the gardener, “I said you might have the cat if you

could keep it.” Anastasie begged him to give her the cat again and to

tell the cat that she was to stay with her, but the gardener was

reluctant to give up his pet and so a kitten had to be found for

Anastasie elsewhere.

One spring, the nursery was taken to an orchard near the Palace to pick

apples, and, as a reward, they were promised some baked apples with

their tea. When the baskets were filled, the apples were sent to the

Palace and the children were taken off to listen to a military band.

While the band was playing, Anastasie suddenly produced an apple which

she had hidden and began to eat it. The governess took it away from her

and told her not to eat it, as it would make her ill. A few moments

later, she produced another, and said to her governess, “If you take

this apple away from me, I will scream and then the people will all

think you are wicked to me.” So the governess said, “Anastasie, as sure

as you eat that apple, you will be punished when you get home.”

Anastasie was not frightened by the threat and calmly proceeded to eat

the apple. When the nursery returned to the Palace, Anastasie was put

straight to bed and at tea time, all the other children had baked apples

but none was given her. The other children thought to tease her by

asking her if she did not want some of their lovely baked apples. “No,

indeed,” remarked Anastasie, “because you don’t know how good that apple

was that I had in the garden.” The next day, Anastasie wanted again to

be taken to the orchard, but the governess took her somewhere where she

did not want to go. Looking out of the carriage window, Anastasie said,

“It is very lovely here; I am enjoying myself much more than in the

orchard.” The following day, she again asked to be taken to the orchard.

Her governess asked her why she wanted to be taken there again and

Anastasie, throwing her arms around the governess’s neck, said: “Because

it was such fun eating that apple.” Several days later, Tatiana said,

“It is too bad because Anastasie was naughty that we cannot go to the

orchard.” The governess said, “Until Anastasie is good and will promise

not to eat any more apples you cannot go.” It was nearly a week after

that before Anastasie’s stubbornness was subdued and she promised to eat

no more apples if the nursery might only go and play in the orchard.

From these stories, it will be seen that Anastasie is most like her

Imperial father whose traditional stubbornness of character is well

known.

CHAPTER IX

THE TSAREVITCH

Alexis, son and heir of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra

Feodorovna, was born July 30th (Russian style), 1904. When he was about

an hour old, he was made honorary commander of six regiments of the

Russian army.

When he was twelve days old he was taken to the Royal chapel at Peterhof

in a gilded coach drawn by eight horses and christened. The name he

bears, interpreted, means “Bringer of Peace.” Yet at this time the

Tsaritsa said: “We are bound to hand over to our son an Autocracy such

as we ourselves received.”

Here is one of the curious phases of her character. Born of an English

mother, reared in Germany where at least the idea of a constitutional

monarchy is accepted, she yet opposes the least step toward reform and

progress in Russia, if it interferes with or threatens Autocracy. She

acquiesces in the naming of her son “Bringer of Peace” at a time when

nearly the whole nation is aspiring to freedom and almost ready to rise

up in general revolution to fight for a constitution! It would seem that

in this as in so many other things she learned to conform with the will

of the Tsar, who is her sole liege. The Tsar, two years later, said in

private conversation to a friend of mine: “I believe Russia can go for

twenty years more without a constitution.”

As the Tsar speaks, so thinks the Tsaritsa. Whether this is one of the

tragedies of her life, or whether it is her supreme sacrifice, one

cannot judge. The fact remains, that every thought, every particle of

her own _ego_ has been put aside that she may be more completely the

wife of her husband.

The little Alexis was started in life with a goodly array of godfathers

and godmothers. Among the former were the King of England, the King of

Denmark, the Emperor of Germany, and various Grand Dukes, uncles of the

Tsar. During the baptismal service the baby Tsarevitch, when he was

being anointed, raised a tiny pink hand and extended his fingers as if

he were pronouncing a benediction or bestowing a blessing. And all the

people present accepted this as a good omen of future blessings to come

from the Heir to the Throne.

The training of a young Tsar does not conform with American ideas of

training a child, for very largely the Tsarevitch is encouraged to do

everything he is inclined to do on the theory that the instincts and

impulses of an Autocrat must be right.

During the summer of 1907 I was in Finland when the Royal Family were

cruising along the picturesque Finnish coast in the Royal Yacht

_Standart_, and I gathered various stories of Alexis from sailors and

officers of the ship. On this cruise Alexis was the Emperor’s adjutant,

and by way of training, this three-year-old was placed in command of the

squadron, that is to say, the Royal Yacht and the accompanying pilot

boat, gunboats and other vessels that make up a Royal fleet when the

Imperial Family goes for a summer outing.

One night in August when the air was still and warm, Alexis had

difficulty in falling asleep. Suddenly he sat up in his little bed and

announced that he desired the ship’s band to come and play for him. The

officer on duty explained that the hour was late and the band had

retired, whereupon Alexis grew furious and _commanded_ that the band be

aroused and brought to him immediately, which was done. The Tsar on this

occasion was inordinately pleased and exclaimed: “That’s the way to

bring up an Autocrat!”

On another occasion Alexis ordered all the Finnish pilots on the various

ships to be brought before him. As the astonished and wondering Finns

appeared on the deck of the _Standart_ the baby commander shouted:

“Zdorovo rebyata!” (Health children!) The Finns, not understanding

Russian, were much bewildered and frightened, and Alexis, became

exceedingly annoyed at their not understanding. So the Finns were

hurriedly taught to respond: “Zdravie zhelayem vashe Imperatorskoye

Vysochestvo”--(“We wish you health, your Imperial Highness.”)

The sailor who acts as orderly to the Tsarevitch on the _Standart_ is

called Stefan. He is of huge physique and is in attendance on the

autocrat-in-process day and night. Up to the present time, Alexis has

shown a greater fondness for this man than for anyone else. He insists

upon his “big Stefan” taking part in nearly all of his games and it is

quite clear that he considers Stefan as second only to his father in all

the vast Empire. Morning and night, little Alexis in his prayers

remembers Stefan but even Stefan has not been able to break his young

charge of a certain military tendency which shows itself at the end of

each of his prayers in a loud “hurrah” instead of an “Amen.” Alexis is

perfectly logical in this, for he says that the soldiers on parade

always cry “Hurrah” when his father appears or when he ceases speaking

and, consequently, it is right that his Heavenly Father should be

greeted in the same way.

Early in the year 1909, the Emperor of China despatched a special

embassy, headed by one of the Princes of the Royal Family in China, to

St. Petersburg for the express purpose of conveying to the Tsarevitch

Alexis a collection of wonderful Chinese toys. The Embassy also brought

with it two wonderfully trained dwarf elephants. This embassy was sent

in acknowledgment of a similar embassy which the Emperor of Russia had

sent to China some time before conveying to the boy-Emperor of

400,000,000 of people, a toy railroad said to have cost more than fifty

thousand dollars and many elaborate and ingenious toys of Russian

design. This toy railroad was similar to one that President Fallières of

France had presented to the Tsarevitch on the occasion of his visit to

the Russian Imperial family. This gift had pleased the Tsarevitch hugely

and he immediately nicknamed the French president, “The train-man.” The

Tsarevitch, like the Royal children of Spain, has frequently been

maligned in the Press of Europe and reported as being defective

mentally. These stories, of course, are all nonsense, for, like the

Spanish Princes, he is a sturdy, wholesome boy in every respect and

takes the keenest interest not only in all the wonderful toys that are

sent him by kings, emperors and eastern potentates but also in childish

sports and games.

That Alexis has a mind of his own and a pretty keen one at that is

illustrated in a story that the Tsar himself has repeated. It appears

that one day, the Emperor was engaged with a council of Ministers when

the little Alexis suddenly burst into the Cabinet room. Surprised at

seeing his father surrounded by so large a group of dignitaries, he

stopped and looked at them for a moment, then quietly said: “Good

morning, brothers.” The Emperor proceeded to point out to the Tsarevitch

that it was not adequately respectful for so small a boy to address

elderly gentlemen as “brothers.” Alexis appeared a little embarrassed

and with an obvious desire to correct his mistake, he said, “Very well;

good morning, boys.”

Probably no heir in Europe is being trained with greater care than young

Alexis, for, unless something unforeseen occurs, he will one day be the

ruler over 150,000,000 of people and, according to the will and wish of

his father, he will perpetuate the traditions of the Tsars of old and

rule the vast kingdom with all the rigid severity which has

characterised the autocratic Tsars of Russia.

CHAPTER X

THE END OF THE ROAD

The Tsaritsa’s life has been lived out on the plane of the family, not

of the Empress. She might have swayed vast power, she might have

liberated or helped to liberate one hundred and forty millions of people

from oppression and tyranny; and her name would have been enshrined in

all hearts for generations. But she has chosen an humbler part. She has

shrunk from the larger burdens of the opportunities presented to her,

and accepted the quieter tasks of the home. This much we may say, it is

a tragedy that circumstances have prevented her carrying both parts. But

to have been the great Empress, she would have been obliged to sacrifice

her love to a degree. Nicholas doubtless cares tremendously for her, but

a man never loves as a woman loves. For a woman’s joy is sacrifice, and

the sacrifice of ambitions, of personal hopes and dreams, of ideas, of

principles, is the greatest of all sacrifices. In proving herself the

absolutely loving and loyal wife the Tsaritsa turned her back upon the

opportunities fate gave her for moulding history by ameliorating the

condition of humanity in her own vast sphere.

The Tsar must understand the attitude of the Court toward the Empress

and the fact that she is not popular doubtless makes him endeavour the

more to make their own little family circle happy. For after all, the

really exclusive circle of an Emperor and his Empress and their children

is very, very small.

In August 1907 when the Tsar returned from his meeting with the Kaiser

at Swinemünde, the Tsaritsa went to greet him far down the Gulf of

Finland in a Royal Yacht. Court etiquette merely required that she meet

him at the pier upon his landing, and this effort of hers caused a good

deal of comment at the capital and was accepted as another evidence of

her love for him.

When the Tsar promised the nation a constitution--and a parliament--all

might have been well had these promises been literally carried out. No

sooner had the waves of revolutionary activity subsided, however, than

the Emperor began to withdraw and nullify his honeyed promises and to

take back piecemeal the constitution which had been granted in a moment

of panic. Now the people feel that Russia will not have a real

constitution nor a real parliament for years to come unless these

institutions of liberalism and progress and civilisation are battled

for. The government by maintaining a watchful grip on the country, by

extraordinary vigilance, by arresting or exiling thousands upon

thousands of citizens, women and girls just as frequently as men, it is

able to preserve a certain surface calm.

Of late public opinion in Russia, like public opinion in other

countries, has been altering toward the Tsar. He is no longer the

“weak,” “well meaning little man,” who is prevented from doing what he

believes to be right by wicked Grand Dukes, bad ministers and a corrupt

court. If he is ever “led” we know now that it is only in directions in

which he desires to go. If his ministers are “bad,” or the Grand Dukes

“wicked,” we know that the inclinations and ambitions of Nicholas II are

toward Reaction, and that he aspires, in the words of the Tsaritsa, to

“hand on to his successor an Autocracy such as he received.”

We know, too, that however much local police and other officials may be

directly responsible for a policy which uses massacre as a political

weapon that the Tsar himself is not opposed to these methods, and that

he directly patronises and encourages the “League of Russian men,”

popularly called “The Black Hundred.” We know that the Tsaritsa,

likewise, contributes money to support this organisation. This is the

organisation that carries out the _pogroms_ and the policy of

governmental terrorism. In view of these (now) unquestioned facts, it

seems passing strange that the Tsar has not sooner fallen a martyr to

his own despotism. Scores of governors, generals, and other officials

have paid the penalty for their misdeeds, but the Tsar has thus far been

spared.

[Illustration: THE TSAR AND TSARITSA AT THE HEAD OF A REVIEWING

PARTY.]

There are good reasons for this, however. In the first place the person

of the Tsar is constantly guarded, and to such an extent that it would

doubtless be difficult for a mere fanatic to reach him. But the

revolutionists could get him if they believed his death would serve the

cause of Liberty. That the Tsar lives to-day is due solely to this

doubt. The revolutionists have emissaries at court, in the palaces. It

would not be difficult to carry out a death sentence passed upon him.

But what would be the result of this? Who would be his immediate

successor, that is, the Dictator pending the coming of age of Alexis?

The Russian liberals cannot forget that the assassination of Alexander

II in 1881 instead of helping the Cause, set it back twenty years. It

would be fatal to repeat such a blunder as that. And as to the

Dictator--he might be any one of several Grand Dukes, and one or two of

these would unquestionably be more aggressively tyrannical than the

present Emperor. And while so much doubt prevails the life of Nicholas

II is comparatively safe. On the other hand, if there is a desire to end

the rule of the Romanoffs a much safer method would be to do away with

the successors to the Throne. Such a proceeding would be unaccompanied

by immediate political disturbance, and yet would be effective.

We can understand, therefore, the anxiety with which the Tsaritsa

watches over Alexis. His birth was so long and so earnestly desired, and

at least so long as he is the only son any disaster overtaking him

would be viewed as the most terrible of calamities--probably worse from

the standpoint of the court than disaster to the Tsar himself. From the

hour of his birth the Tsaritsa has taken it as her especial task to

guard and protect her son from all dangers.

At Peterhof, at Tsarskoe-Selo, on the Royal Yacht, wherever Alexis goes

the Tsaritsa is close beside. The little Grand Duchesses may sometimes

be seen playing in the park at Peterhof accompanied by only their

governesses and a groom, but if their brother is there too, so is the

Royal mother. At functions, military reviews and the like, when Alexis

is on exhibition to inspire the regiments with loyalty, the Empress

always remains particularly near to her son.

The education of the children is supervised personally by the Tsaritsa.

The instructors of the children of the Tsar have a very difficult task

indeed. There are certain subjects in which the children must be

thoroughly grounded, and certain others which must be taught

eclectically and others which must be eschewed altogether.

I have a friend, now living in St. Petersburg, who was a court tutor for

four years, and he has sometimes told me of the difficulties he

encountered during that period. The Russian tutors generally have the

rank of General, and are addressed in great formality as “Your

Excellency.” Teachers from abroad, however, appear in the Palace

class-rooms in what we know as “evening dress.” How strange it would

seem to American boys and girls to go to school one morning and find the

teacher wearing a low cut vest and long-tailed coat!

The two older children, Olga and Tatiana, inherit from their mother a

fondness for music, and they both play quite well already. The Tsar

enjoys listening to music, but he plays only by ear and never sings

himself.

The end of the chapter is not yet. The Tsaritsa is still a young woman,

and Empress of one of the most turbulent Empires on earth. The rank and

file of her one hundred and fifty million subjects hold nothing against

her but they are weary of the Romanoff régime. Militarism is now the

last bulwark of the Empire. Martial law is spread over a large part of

the Empire and the people are kept in subjection, in artificial quiet

only through the constant menace of bayonets and prisons whose doors

ever yawn to political heretics.

No one may prophesy the end, nor when it will come. The future is

shrouded in complete mystery and therefore possesses incomparable

fascination.

The Tsaritsa is still, by virtue of her position, one of the most

powerful women in the western world, but whose life has been given to

the natural development of the love of her school-girl days, at the

expense of a career which might have rivalled that of the greatest

heroines of history.

This is the story of the little German Princess, who was left motherless

at six, and came unto her own through her heart’s romance, and has

remained faithful to this romance despite the tempting circumstances of

Opportunity. The simple loving child who was called “Sunny” is to-day

more than anything else the simple, loving wife of Nicholas II, the

devoted mother of his children. Judging from her life, if she had the

dearest will and wish of her heart it would be that she might be

remembered as Wife and Mother, rather than as Empress. Thus the life of

Princess Alix of Hesse--“Sunny”-passed into the Romance of an

Empress--with its burdens and its sufferings and its tragedies, and thus

the end of the road looks dark, uncertain and ominously fearful.

PART III

QUEEN ELENA OF ITALY

CHAPTER I

A MOUNTAIN PRINCESS

On the eastern shores of the Adriatic, nestling between the unfamiliar

Provinces of Herzegovina and Albania, lies the Kingdom of Montenegro. It

is a tiny spot on the map and until very recently was rated as a

Principality. The entire population of Montenegro would make only a

small American city, yet the Montenegrans are a proud nation, with an

engrossing and noble history, and perhaps no country in Europe has had a

more romantic past. They are an aggressive people, these Montenegrans,

always armed, ever ready to fight for the cause of freedom, a

liberty-loving people, a staunch folk. The denizens of Montenegro have

always been daring and bold; withal a poetic people. Nicholas, their

Prince, is the first warrior in the kingdom and also the first poet. He

is a picturesque figure, familiar to Europe and more or less known to

America, for much has been written about him. Some years ago, some one

had the temerity to inquire of Prince Nicholas, as he then was called,

what were the exportations of Montenegro, to which question he gave

answer, “My daughters.”

The daughters of King Nicholas have indeed been a wonderful asset to

this little nation. One married a Russian Grand Duke, thus securing the

friendship of Russia. Another married a Servian, who at the present time

reigns over that Kingdom. While another, Elena, married a Prince who

presently became a King, making his spouse Queen of a great nation.

The story of the romance of the Montenegran Elena and the Italian

Prince, son of the late King Humbert, and now known as King Victor

Emanuel III, is one of the most romantic stories connected with the

Court life of Europe. Princess Elena was the fourth child of King

Nicholas, and she, perhaps more than any of the children, inherited many

of her father’s noble qualities.

Many times as I have watched her driving through the streets of Rome,

deftly holding the reins and guiding the great black horses up and down

the hilly, badly paved streets, or leisurely reposing in one of the

magnificent Royal automobiles speeding up the Pincio or through the

lovely gardens of the Villa Borghese, complacently acknowledging the

salutes of the people, I have tried to fancy the little black-eyed

Princess among her native hills--bounding like a chamois from rock to

rock among the tallest crags and peaks, rejoicing in the high air, the

free life, the glorious rapture that comes only to the mountain-born. In

fancy I have pictured her returning to her simple Cittenje home at

night, her hands holding delicious bunches of Alpine flowers, her arms

laden with flower branches. A strange girlhood this, for a future Queen.

But so Elena lived as a child--naturally, spontaneously, freely.

And now--beside this fancy-memory I have to place a recollection of

another phase of her life, when I saw her as Queen, in the midst of the

horrors of Messina, nursing the wounded and comforting the dying. The

night she was injured during a panic following one of the earthquake

shocks I was standing on the deck of a ship lying so close to the

Italian flagship that I could watch the wild rush of refugees across the

decks, many of them to the rails as if to throw themselves into the sea.

One afternoon I was on a British warship when Queen Elena came aboard to

visit the wounded who were about to be conveyed to Naples. She spent

more than an hour among the cots and stretchers and spoke a personal

word to each and every one. All this was fine--a kind of work Queens

rarely do. It was dramatic, too. For during the days immediately

succeeding the first shock, earthquakes were constantly recurring and

there were a hundred dangers to which all were exposed. But when we know

of Queen Elena’s early years we understand the instinct which took her

so promptly to Messina, and we understand many of the other qualities

which distinguish her from the other Queens of the world.

Elena’s grandfather was called Prince Mirko, a name renowned in the

history of Montenegro, for when Mirko was a very young man, long before

he had become the idol of the Montenegran people, he was serving in a

war against Turkey. One day Mirko and a comrade became detached from

their regiment and fell into an ambush. The situation looked desperate.

Pausing for an instant the two young officers made a vow that if they

both survived the day, and eventually got back to their homes that they

would one day seal their friendship and the memory of that experience,

in blood. Some years later Mirko having married, became the father of a

son whom he called Nicholas. When the boy Nicholas was seven years old,

Mirko’s old comrade of the Turkish war became the father of a daughter

whom he named Melena. These two children became betrothed when Melena

was still in her cradle and when she was only thirteen years old she and

Nicholas were married. The fortune of life was so ordered that in time

Nicholas became the ruler of the little principality, and Melena, his

wife and consort, from the very first shared the responsibilities of

administration with him. So complete a helpmeet has Melena been to

Nicholas that from time to time when the Prince has of necessity quit

Montenegro to visit his friend and ally the Tsar of Russia, or his

son-in-law, the King of Servia, he has left all the reins of rulership

to Melena, who has ever discharged her duties wisely. Besides all this

she has borne

[Illustration: QUEEN MILENA OF MONTENEGRO, THE MOTHER OF QUEEN ELENA.]

him thirteen children. Elena was their fourth child. It was no

inconsiderable thing when she was picked by the Prince of Naples to be

his bride, because this meant she would eventually be a great Queen.

Elena was born fairly in the lap of romance, and Fate has been

extraordinarily generous to her in supplying her with exceptional

romantic and dramatic episodes which, ever since she came into her own

have served to bring her before the eyes of the world.

No Queen in Europe to-day, save the Tsaritsa and Queen Victoria Eugenie,

looks more a Queen than Elena. She is stately and tall, with a

statuesque poise that anywhere singles her from the throng. Her hair is

as black as midnight forest depths, her eyes as luminous as live coals.

Her skin is like unto olives, and her hands firm and strong and large.

Her shoulders are broad and she holds them squarely. The impression the

woman gives is of unusual physical strength. Nor could this well be

otherwise in view of her athletic training. As a child she was always a

devotee of Nimrod, given inordinately to the chase. Long after her

marriage she continued to hunt,--to shoot deer and birds,--to ride to

hounds, and play tennis. A modern Diana might she in verity be called.

But her training was not restricted to sports and outdoor activities.

Far from it. These were but natural incidentals to each day’s work in

Montenegro, and well it were if similar customs held the world over, for

surely there are no better physiques in both men and women anywhere on

earth than in this same little Montenegro.

Elena’s parents are both extraordinary people. Old Prince Nicholas is

one of the most remarkable rulers in the world to-day. Like Julius

Caesar, he boasts that he knows the names of all the men in his army,

and as all of the men in Montenegro are of the army, his boast is

practically that he knows all of his subjects. A ruler who interests

himself thus deeply in the affairs of his state would naturally look

carefully to his own family. And so when Elena was a wee baby just

learning to toddle, the Prince used to take her upon his knee and give

her her first lessons. Her first tutor, he used to call himself. He it

was who taught her the letters of the alphabet of her mother tongue,

gave her her first lesson in reading. His was the great hand that guided

the little baby fingers as they laboriously traced the difficult Slavish

hieroglyphics. Later, he interested her in geography and in history.

Never a day passed when Nicholas was so occupied with the affairs of his

kingdom, or with the knotty international problems that are forever

engaging the troublesome little Balkan states and the great Ghoul Powers

of Austria and Turkey that are ever lying in wait to gobble them up,

that he neglected the lessons of his little daughter.

During the early years of her life Elena lived in the great square grey

“palace” of the ruler of Montenegro in Cittenje. It is not a beautiful

nor elaborate home like most of the palaces of the sovereigns and

rulers of Europe. Indeed, it is distinctly plain and unimposing, with

bare and barren surroundings. The stern mountains of Montenegro rise

abruptly behind the town, and the Palace is on the edge of the miniature

capital almost in the shadows of the cragged hills. Here lived Prince

Nicholas and Princess Melena, and all their children until one by one

the latter married and drifted to other lands--Princess Zorka to become

the wife of the present King of Servia; Princess Melitza to become the

spouse of Grand Duke Peter Nicholaivitch of Russia; Elena to become the

Princess of Naples and subsequently the Queen of Italy.

As a child Elena was always lively and active. In America she would have

been called a “tomboy,” for she preferred the company of her brothers to

that of her sisters and it was through the pains of two of them--Danilo

and Mirko--that she became expert with the rifle and rod, a familiar

horsewoman, and so able a walker and climber.

The spirit of Elena was wild and free. She loved fresh air, a mad

scamper over the hills, an adventure that savoured of danger. Encouraged

by her father and brothers to all activities in the open she developed

into a strong, stalwart girl and later into the Amazonian woman she is

to-day. Long after her marriage she retained the fresh and breezy way

acquired in girlhood.

An important influence in Elena’s early life were the grandfather’s

tales she listened to round the great fire in her homely Palace home.

Montenegro, like all older mountain countries, has a folk tale and a

legend associated with every crag and valley. Elena heard from her

veteran grandfather how the Montenegran people battled with the Turks,

and her little heart would fairly quiver with the heroic deeds of valour

that the old man would relate of the stormy days when the Balkan

peninsula was like a great seething cauldron, and men, and the women

too, came down from the mountain fastnesses in their quaint and rude

attire to fight the trained troops of European armies. Thus was her

child’s imagination fired, and love and pride of country aroused.

One day little Elena brought her father some sheets of paper upon which

were drawn some strange pictures. The Prince held the sheets upside down

at first, trying to make out what his little daughter had brought him.

Elena was much hurt at this and she could hardly keep back the tears.

But when the Prince turned the papers round the right way he quickly

made out, under her guidance, the house and the mountain, and the dog

chasing the sheep. Indeed, he admired not a little this first artistic

effort of Elena’s, and right there and then he sat down with her and

together they drew the pictures all over again, only this time much

better as Elena herself realised. This was the little Princess’s first

drawing lesson. After that Elena had a drawing lesson every day. She

soon showed signs of a distinct talent in this direction and by the

time she was ten years old she had not only conquered the first

principles of drawing but she had also made considerable progress in the

use of water colours. This talent Elena continued to develop, and with

what success may be judged from the fact that when she was still a girl

in her teens she became a kind of unofficial “Minister of Fine Arts” in

her father’s cabinet. She was instrumental in bringing art exhibits into

Montenegro, in organising drawing and painting classes in the public

schools and thus for the first time bringing the refining and civilising

influence of art culture to her people. She even inaugurated

scholarships to encourage art students, and to-day Montenegro has a

number of ambitious painters who are actually building up a school of

art of their own. Influenced by the picturesque barrenness of their

native mountains, together with the gorgeous skies and brilliant

atmospheres, they are developing an individual and nationalist school.

To this day, Queen Elena retains her interest in the native Montenegran

artists, and also in her own drawing and painting. In the Quirinal

Palace in Rome she has a studio, where of an afternoon she may

frequently be found spending an hour at her easel. It is her custom each

Christmas to send as gifts to her more intimate friends sketches and

little water colours of her own handiwork.

Elena had other tutors than her father and grandfather, however. From a

young child she had a Swiss governess who was her daily companion, and

who instructed her in French, and supplemented the teaching of her

father in the other branches. It is thus the training of Elena from

childhood was the training not only of a Princess but of one who might

easily assume the duties and obligations of a Queen. It is not likely

that the little Elena ever dared to dream of what her future might be or

that her imaginings ever pictured that in womanhood she might occupy a

throne as the consort of the King of a great nation, but her father is

one of the most astute statesmen in Europe, and with all his children he

arranged their education so that they might be acceptable to any high

niche in life to which destiny might call them.

CHAPTER II

THE ROMANCE

When Elena was twelve years old an important change came into her life.

She was sent away to St. Petersburg to enter the most wonderful school

of its kind in the world. This was the famous, glorified boarding school

for the daughters of the nobility which for many years has been

patronised by the Empress Marie Feodorovna, wife of Tsar Alexander III

and mother of the present Emperor, Nicholas II. Fancy a girls’ school

where every pupil is a little Countess or Princess or Grand Duchess! In

Russia the family titles usually descend to the children, so that this

is no exaggeration. This school corresponds to one which exists for boys

known as the _Corps des Pages_--or school of pages. The young sons of

the nobility are sent here at an early age and are commonly spoken of as

pages of the courts. Most of the boys who go to this school become

officers and generally are assigned to the crack regiments which guard

the persons of the sovereigns. As a rule only native Russians are

admitted to these two exclusive schools, but the daughters of Prince

Nicholas were easily granted place, because they were the daughters of a

ruling Prince, and also because they had the rare advantage among

non-Russians of already knowing Russian, or at least the Slav tongue

which is very similar to Russian.

For six winters Elena continued at this school, and on her way to and

from the northland capital she was taken to visit many of the famous art

galleries of Europe. In St. Petersburg she had the privilege of the

Hermitage Gallery, where is one of the foremost art collections in

Europe, and in Dresden and Munich she became yet more widely acquainted

with the masterpieces of the world’s art. Thus was her fondness for art

gratified, and her general education broadened and enriched.

Another talent that Elena inherited was that of writing poetry. Her

father, Nicholas, is a poet of no mean rank. Many of the folk songs of

Montenegro which mothers croon to their babes at night, which shepherds

in their lonely huts far up the mountain sides sing to give them cheer

when fierce storms are sweeping over their steep pastures, were written

by the Prince when he was a young man and during the forty years of his

reign they have become so universal that already they are classic. Once

indeed he wrote a very long poetic and romantic drama called “An Empress

of the Balkans,” which his son, Mirko, Elena’s oldest brother, set to

music. And this poetic instinct which her father has made such good use

of in endearing himself to his people, is also strong in Elena. For

some reason, however, Elena has never been so proud of this talent as of

her painting. Nevertheless she has published minor verse from time to

time, and as one member of her suite told me once: “She writes

still--but she does not own it.”

Curiously enough she once wrote a sonnet to Venice, which she called a

“city of poetry, love and feeling.” This sonnet was published in a

school magazine, and was written before she had ever visited the

romantic city of islands. It was in this same Venice that she later met

the Prince who was to make her a Queen, and where the love story of her

life began.

In the spring of the year 1895, when Elena was twenty-two years old, she

and her sister Anna came with their mother, Princess Melena, to the

opening of the annual International Art Exhibition at Venice. This is

one of the events of the year in the art world of Europe and is looked

forward to almost as much as the annual salon in Paris and the Spring

Academy Exhibition in London. The King and Queen frequently open the

exhibition, and not infrequently distinguished members of other Royal

houses are also present. So it was in the memorable month of April 1895.

King Humbert and Queen Margherita with their son, the heir to the

throne, the young Prince of Naples, travelled up from Rome to inaugurate

the exhibition. Of course courtesy calls were exchanged between the

sovereigns and the other Royal visitors present, including Princess

Melena and her daughters.

Princess Elena was now a tall, large-framed woman of twenty-two. She had

the physique of one much older, but her manner and face showed all the

keenness and freshness of a young girl. By this time she had outgrown

the hoydenish traits of her girlhood and there was dignity and repose in

her manner. One feature distinguished her from other Princesses in

Europe. She was totally free from the social veneer which comes

inevitably from a long continuance of ceremonious life. Any Prince of a

western European court would have been quick to notice this, and Prince

Victor Emmanuel was by no means the least to fall under the spell of its

charm.

Prince Victor Emmanuel as heir to the Italian throne was one of the most

sought-after Princes in all Europe. Popular gossip had successively

betrothed him to Princess Clementine, daughter of the King of the

Belgians, to Princess Feodora of Schleswig-Holstein, sister of the

Emperor of Germany, to Archduchess Annunziati, daughter of archduke Carl

Ludwig of Austria; and to Princess Mary Magdalene, daughter of the King

of Greece. The trouble with all of these alliances was, according to the

Prince, that they were political rather than personal, and may it be

writ large on the page of history that Victor Emmanuel had a romantic

soul which would be satisfied whatever came of the political ambitions

of his family.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN OF ITALY.]

When grey and hoary councillors of state approached him in regard to the

desirability of his marrying one or another of the Royal Princesses in

the eligible list, he would shake his square head and turn aside saying,

“I have time enough.” He knew that one day he would see the Princess

whom he would love, and for her he was content to wait.

When in Venice, “The city of poetry, love and feeling,” he met for the

first time Princess Elena of Montenegro, he promptly said to his Royal

father, “There is the Princess I will marry.” Politically, little was to

be gained for Italy by a marriage alliance with the little Balkan state,

so Humbert, a wise king, counselled patience, though not actually

opposing the will of the Crown Prince.

Elena and her mother and sister returned to their own country after only

two days. But in those two days the Prince had found a time and place to

speak. Only two days! Surely a brief courtship with an interminable

round of official ceremonies consuming, as it seemed, all of the hours.

Two busy days, yet the Prince of Naples had whispered the thrilling

words and Elena, the Balkan Princess, knew that her future was

henceforth spread in greater Europe.

CHAPTER III

VICTOR EMMANUEL

Victor Emmanuel was at this time considered one of the most desirable of

eligible Princes in all Europe, not only because of his inheritance, but

because of his intelligence and his character. Queen Victoria once

called him “the most intelligent Prince in Europe.” As a child he had

showed marked individuality and his father and mother, King Humbert and

Queen Margherita, both being people of strong characteristics, had

reared him in an atmosphere of strictest discipline which naturally had

its effect upon the man. Like Napoleon, the little Victor Emmanuel was

never ashamed to ask any question, nor did he ever ask any question

twice. Until he was twelve years old his school hours were regulated by

the state of his health, which was never robust, but on his twelfth

birthday, he was given over into the hands of Colonel Osio, a famous

soldier and disciplinarian, who planned an eight year course of training

which included regular hours for everything, and resulted not only in

developing the boy’s mind and sharpening his wits, but also in hardening

his muscles and accustoming his constitution to all kinds of hardships

and endurance tests.

One incident of this period of his life Victor Emmanuel has never

forgotten. As a young boy he was not over strong, and frequently he

contracted head colds. One morning he reported as usual at seven o’clock

to his tutor, but coughing badly and his nose and eyes sorely inflamed.

At eight o’clock Colonel Osio appeared to take the young Prince out for

his usual hour of exercise on horseback. The day was rainy and

disagreeable. The tutor ventured to suggest to Colonel Osio that their

Royal charge was scarcely in fit condition to go out that morning.

Whereupon the Colonel replied, “If war were declared to-morrow, would

the Prince be allowed to stay indoors because he had a cold?” As the

Colonel disappeared with the Prince the tutor exclaimed: “Ah! with these

soldiers it is impossible to reason.”

When Victor Emmanuel began the study of Latin, his mother, the beloved

Queen Margherita, took it up also! One day, she proved to him that she

had made better progress than he. At the time the Prince made no comment

upon this, but a little later when his tutor started to chide him about

this Victor Emmanuel retorted somewhat sharply: “That is all very well,

but my mother has nothing else to do, whilst I have a hundred other

things to attend to!” An answer that every schoolboy and schoolgirl will

surely appreciate.

Colonel Osio was without doubt a stern disciplinarian. As he outlined

the daily schedule for the Prince, the rising hour was six o’clock,

summer and winter. After a bath and simple breakfast, he sat down to

his first lessons with his tutor. At eight o’clock he rode for an hour

with the Colonel, then returned to his studies which continued all day.

His very recreations were in the nature of studies, for being raised as

a soldier he had to master all military tactics and to dig trenches,

erect redoubts and obstructions with his own hands, so that in time of

necessity he could the better command and direct his soldiers. As the

motto set before the Prince was: “To know everything of something, and

something of everything,” his studies were pursued the year round.

During the dead of summer his books were laid by, but he was taken out

of doors and kept busily at work, learning of nature, or all about guns

and shooting, and ever subject to the discipline of hours.

The instructions of Colonel Osio to his tutor were: “Treat the Prince as

you would treat any other pupil. Show him no special consideration nor

regard. Indulge him in absolutely nothing. For example, if, during a

lesson something is wanted, he and not you must get it. If a book falls

to the floor, he, not you, must pick it up! You must profit by his

self-esteem, highly developed in him, to exact from him firmly and

always the fulfilment of all his duties.” “As for yourself,” the Colonel

continued, looking full at the tutor, “I want you to understand that the

interests at stake are so great, that if you fail in any way I shall

show you no mercy.” As the tutor felt as much subject to the rules and

regulations laid down by the Colonel as did his pupil, it is needless to

say that he was obeyed to the letter.

The Rev. Alexander Robertson who has lived many years in Italy, and who

has made a searching study of the life of Victor Emmanuel, says that so

completely did King Humbert give over the education of his heir to

Colonel Osio that if the Prince even asked permission to accompany the

King and Queen to the theatre the answer was invariably: “Ask the

Colonel.” Thus was the young King trained. If the “child is father to

the man,” from these gleanings of his boyhood and the stories of his

early discipline, we may gather what manner of Prince it was who won the

heart of the stately and beautiful Elena, Princess of Montenegro.

Mr. Robertson tells how on one occasion the little Prince Victor

Emmanuel was playing with the small daughter of the Marchioness of

Villamarina, who was then a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Margherita, and the

two children quarrelled, as all children will, over some trifle. Of a

sudden the Prince became greatly enraged, and lost his temper. “When I

am King I will have your head cut off!” he exclaimed loudly. Queen

Margherita overheard these harsh words, and the Prince was put on prison

fare for three days.

Victor Emmanuel and his wife, Elena, were destined to become sovereigns

of Italy upon the tragic occasion when King Humbert was assassinated at

his lovely mountain home of Monza in the north of the Kingdom. An

interesting, if nerve-straining incident occurred when the Prince was

present at a previous unsuccessful attempt upon the life of his father.

This took place when Victor Emmanuel was only twelve years old. The King

and his son were just leaving the railroad station in Naples when a man

named Passananti, calling himself an anarchist, made a lunge with a

stiletto full at the breast of the King. A minister who was also in the

carriage was quick enough to turn aside the glittering blade. The King,

with superb poise, drew his sword, and crashed it broadside over the

would-be assassin’s head. Throughout the scene the young Prince sat

immovable, not showing the slightest trace of fear. Courage may not be

the highest virtue, but it is essential in a King, and in any one, never

fails to excite admiration.

Queen Margherita was as exceptional a mother as she was an unusual

Queen. As Queen Elena has of late years proved herself devoted to the

Royal nursery, so Margherita always gave a large part of each day to the

rearing of the heir apparent. She it was who insisted upon his keeping a

strict account of all the money that passed through his hands. In this

way he learned to appreciate the value of money--the little sums, the

trifles which in themselves seem of no consequence, but which aggregate

so large in the course of months. Under directions, he also kept a

diary, in order that he might not be prodigal in the use of time--the

moments we are all so apt to waste carelessly and thoughtlessly a score

of times each day.

It was the custom of the Prince to lunch with the King and Queen certain

days each week. One day the King was occupied with his ministers much

longer than usual, and the luncheon hour was long past. The Prince

ventured to remark to the Queen, somewhat petulantly, that he was hungry

and couldn’t wait any longer for his meal. Crossing the room to a

bookshelf, the Queen took a copy of Dante and laid it before the boy,

saying: “Read this, and your hunger will all go.”

Any boy, especially a Prince, would naturally possess qualities of

attractive manhood that would appeal to a woman of domestic instincts.

That Princess Elena possessed these innate qualities her life since

testifies. To her, unquestionably, Victor Emmanuel seemed an ideal

Prince. There was only one element to this romance which is distinctly

unromantic, and of this Victor Emmanuel is very sensitive. He is a small

man, distinctly under-sized, while Elena towers far above him when they

are standing side by side. Nowadays the King has his carriage in the

Royal stables built with a specially elevated seat, like a coachman’s

box, so that this discrepancy in size is not so apparent when they

drive.

CHAPTER IV

A ROYAL HONEYMOON

Now that we know more about Victor Emmanuel, we can follow the course of

the love match between him and Princess Elena with more familiarity and

interest. It is strange that these young lovers from two of the

southermost, warmest countries of Europe must go for the second chapter

of their romance to the northermost, coldest country on the continent.

Yet so was it to be. Their next meeting was in far away Moscow, the

occasion was the Coronation of the present Tsar. Here another

coincidence appears. Four years before when Princess Elena was finishing

her course at the Royal Academy in St. Petersburg she was presented at

the Court of Alexander III through the influence of her sister, the

Grand Duchess Melitza. Soon after this a rumour was circulated

throughout Europe that the eyes of the young Nicholas, heir to the

Russian Throne, had looked with favour upon the Montenegran Princess.

Certain it is that Elena’s father, wily Prince Nicholas, did not

discourage this match, but the young Tsarevitch had long before set his

heart upon a German Princess--Alix of Hesse and the Rhine--and if he

looked upon Elena at all it was only an idle flirtation, for his mind

was made up in regard to his consort long before Elena went to

Petersburg.

The Prince of Naples represented the Italian sovereigns at the Russian

Coronation festivities, while Elena was a guest of her sister.

Naturally, the two met. This was only their second meeting, but from the

noticeable intimacy that immediately sprang up between them it was

evident that the Venice meeting had been followed by a lively

correspondence. The Coronation procession was the most splendid pageant

of the closing decade of the nineteenth century, and the balls and

dinners which were given in honour of the accession of Nicholas II to

the throne of his fathers, the most magnificent that human ingenuity and

unlimited wealth could devise. Against this golden background Prince

Victor Emmanuel and Princess Elena pursued their courtship,

indefatigably, if not always discreetly. Even the Tsar was not so

engrossed that he did not observe the daring suit of the Italian Prince.

Having a kind of paternal interest in Montenegro, Tsar Nicholas felt it

not improper to express his good will toward these two sweethearts and

it was largely through his personal interest and encouragement that the

betrothal was finally arranged. When the coronation festivities were

over and the myriad royal and noble guests from all parts of the world

returned to their homelands, it was pretty generally understood that the

Prince of Naples would presently wed the Montenegran Princess.

Toward the middle of August of the Russian Coronation year, to the

surprise of no one, the Italian Royal yacht _Cajola_, having aboard the

Crown Prince, rounded Cape S. Marie de Leucca, prow pointed toward

Cattaro, the port of Cettenje, the capital of Montenegro. A large part

of the Montenegran population gathered along the shore to welcome the

Italian Prince. All knew what his coming meant. All appreciated, too,

his coming in person, for Royal etiquette allows that on such an

occasion a Prince may send an ambassador and Royal entourage to formally

arrange the details of official betrothal and marriage. Cettenje was

arrayed in gala dress as never before in its history. As a local

newspaper quaintly but enthusiastically put it, “the twenty-five hundred

people comprising the entire population of the capital met on the one

street of the town shouting their greetings.” Surely in this alone is

romance enough for one lifetime, the Princess of a country whose capital

has one street, whose entire population is twenty-five hundred, about to

become the Crown Princess, and presently the Queen, of one of the first

powers of Europe!

The official announcement of the betrothal was made August 18, 1896. Two

days later a great hunt was organised by Prince Nicholas and his oldest

son Mirko, in honour of the event. All of the Prince’s household and all

of the suite of the Prince of Naples were invited to participate. The

two lovers alone declined. At such a time, they said, when they were

both so happy they preferred not to spill one drop of blood, for that

would be to mar their own happiness! For two young people unusually keen

for the hunt and both splendid shots, this was indeed a delightful

sentiment.

Shortly after this hunt the Prince of Naples returned to Rome to begin

preparations for the reception of his bride. On the second day of

October--just six weeks later--Elena held her last conference with her

father, who brought her to the quay where lay the ship that was to

convey her to Italian soil. When Prince Nicholas had said his last

farewell and kissed his beloved daughter on both cheeks, he turned and

slowly climbed the hill behind the town, on which stands a chapel.

Entering the tiny church the Prince fell to his knees and there remained

for a long time absorbed in silent prayer.

When he emerged once more, the ship to which he had consigned Elena was

but a speck in the distance, across the deep blue waters of the

Adriatic. They did not meet again before the marriage, which took place

in Rome.

Elena landed at the Italian port of Bari. Her first act was to go up to

the old town church, and there be received into the Roman Catholic

Church. Montenegro, like all Slav countries is still under the

domination of the Greek Catholic Church, and it was in this Church that

Elena had been reared. The difficulties of her release from the Greek

Church were made simple by the personal appeal of the Tsar of Russia,

whose influence is all powerful with the Greek hierarchy, who bespoke a

friendly word on behalf of the young Princess.

The marriage was to take place in the great hall of the Quirinal Palace.

An incident occurred at this time, which, though trifling, is not

wanting of a certain savour.

The private apartment of Queen Margherita had been designated for the

formation of the cortège. Prince Nicholas and Princess Elena, by

inattention, or because it had been omitted to inform them, entered the

Quirinal from the stairs of honour and found only the Mayor of Rome who

had come to assist at the marriage. Happily the Prince of Naples had

witnessed this scene from the window of the Palace. He ran immediately

to relieve their perplexity and escorted Prince Nicholas and his own

Princess to the Queen’s apartment.

When the time of the ceremony arrived, Count Gianotti took the head of

the cortège. Behind the King and the Queen walked Prince Nicholas and

Princess Elena, the Duke of Oporto and Princess Laetitia, Prince Victor

Napoleon and Princess Helena of Aosta, the Duke of Aosta and the Dowager

Duchess of Genoa, Prince Mirko and the Duchess Isabel of Genoa, the

Count of Turin and Princess Anna, sister of Princess Helena, and then

the Civil and Military houses of the sovereigns.

Monseigneur Auzine brought a silver veil that the Duke of Aosta, the

Count of Turin, Prince

[Illustration: FOUR GENERATIONS: THE PRINCE OF PIEDMONT, HIS FATHER THE

KING, THE DOWAGER QUEEN MARGHERITA, AND HER MOTHER, THE DUCHESS OF

GENOA.]

Mirko and Prince Harageorgevitch, to-day King of Servia, unfolded and

kept over the bride and bridegroom during the whole ceremony.

After the ceremony Elena was more than ever nervous and deeply moved;

her olive skin grew exquisitely white, almost like alabaster. The sun,

which up to that moment had loitered behind clouds, suddenly broke

through the misty screen, suffusing the whole city in a glorious fulsome

light The bells of the American Church in Rome nearby, began to chime

the Wedding March from Lohengrin, and from the great Roman populace

gathered in the streets near the Palace went up a tumultuous cheer. Thus

propitiously began the married life of the most romantic Royal couple of

that time in Europe.

To compensate for their all-too-brief courtship, Prince Victor Emmanuel

decided that their honeymoon should be protracted, and far from the eyes

of the curious. To accomplish this they went at once to the distant

isles of Greece, to the romantic coast of Sicily, to wherever waters are

emerald, skies azure blue and the days golden. In their own yacht they

managed to escape from all public vision, and so weeks and months were

spent like a prolonged summer idyl. Never were lovers more secluded,

more care-free, more at ease, less trammelled to live with and for each

other, as fiercely and as intensely as the flame within them burned. The

world heard little of them on this long honeymoon trip of theirs.

Sometimes a message came from an Algerian or Tunisian port, or from a

remote Mediterranean spot like the Island of Monte Christo, where they

spent untold happy weeks.

This Island of Monte Christo, belonging to Victor Emmanuel, is very

secluded. Only the members of the household are allowed thereon. The

Prince liked being there free of all responsibility and unrestrained to

enjoy absolute liberty.

As a bride Elena gave herself to a unique régime for a Royal

Princess--she shared in the household work, performing with her own

hands the duties of the home. This policy was adopted because the young

couple dreaded to have others, even servants, about them, and this

lonely island was, perhaps, the only place where they could find

absolute seclusion and isolation.

This Royal property, which for a certain time was called Gombo, was the

favourite residence of the grand dukes of Tuscany. It formed a part of

the private estate of Victor Emmanuel II, who, as an indefatigable

hunter, used to make there a hecatomb of deers and fallow-deers. About

1865 he ordered the building surrounded at a distance of twenty yards

from the shore by a wood fence posed on pillars; he often spent there

the night, lying on a couch in order to hear, on his awaking, the

rocking song of the waves.

Once during their protracted honeymoon Elena and her Prince went on a

great hunting trip far up in semi-Arctic regions around the White Sea.

I have heard tales of this trip from the lips of a Montenegran artist

who was one of the party, and I have seen photographs of Elena and her

Prince-bridegroom skurrying across frozen ice packs, bringing down

Arctic game with their rifles, fishing through the ice for great deep

sea fish--filling the days and weeks with pure pleasure, storing up joy

against the years when the cares and responsibilities of state should

hold them ever close to home. For four years this dream life went on.

Then, in the summer of 1900, they were on one of their long cruises

among the Greek Islands when they were rudely awakened. News reached

them of the assassination of King Humbert! Both Elena and Victor

Emmanuel knew what this meant. Their yacht was quickly turned toward

Italy. This was their last care-free cruise.

At this time Victor Emmanuel shut up within his heart the tortures he

was enduring, to meet as a courageous man the duties imposed on him by

that misfortune. But Elena, who had become devoted to her new family,

was completely overcome and abandoned herself wholly to her sorrow,

weeping and crying aloud: “My father!” “My good father!”

On their journey to Monza, the scene of the tragedy, and on their

arrival at the station at Naples, Elena, weeping bitterly, pressed on

the bosom of her Lady-in-Waiting. Victor Emmanuel, by the side of the

Duke of Genoa, looked almost overpowered by sorrow, but he bore up

bravely. He invited the Prefecto and General Brusate to come near him.

He shook hands with them and talked to them with a heavy voice veiled by

tears. “It seems to me,” said he to them, “that I am under the effect of

a dream; such a horrible murder seems to me impossible!”

With the tragic death of King Humbert, Prince Victor Emmanuel became

king, and his Montenegran Princess Elena, Queen of Italy. In nearly

every country where kings and queens sit upon thrones, the Coronation

ceremony is a spectacle of great splendour and magnificence, but in

Italy it is scarcely a ceremony at all. So far as the Queen is

concerned, it amounted to nothing, while the King merely appears before

the Parliament and takes his vows of allegiance and devotion to Italy

and the Italian people. The simplicity of this sacred occasion is in

peculiarly fitting keeping with the mind and character of Victor

Emmanuel.

For four years he and his bride had basked in the sunshine of love and

romance. They had led the most ideal and romantic of lives. With their

accession the more serious business of life began. Elena presently

became a mother, first of a girl, then of another girl, then of a son,

and then of a third daughter.

CHAPTER V

ELENA THE MOTHER

The prettiest sight I know in Rome is when the Royal Princesses and the

little Crown Prince, Humbert, go driving. I lived for a winter in an

apartment adjoining the Quirinal Palace, so that it frequently fell to

me to catch glimpses of the Royal Family going or coming. Like the King

and Queen, they drive out almost daily during the months the Royal

Family spend in the capital, but it was the little ones who always

caught my eye and made me turn to watch so long as they were in view.

Usually there are the three girls, and a nursemaid holding the Prince on

her knees. Their carriage is an ordinary two-horsed, double-seated

coach. Immediately behind the carriage always ride two guards, on

bicycles, men in plain, dark-blue clothes with knee breeches. A stranger

in the city would not even notice them, although if one were observant

he might observe many of the passers-by lifting their hats and turning

to watch. Almost every pleasant afternoon, when the King is in residence

in Rome, immediately after lunch, or on a Saturday forenoon, the

children are driven just outside the walls of Rome to Villa Savoy, a

playhouse which is all their own. During that portion of the year spent

in Rome this is practically the only change they have from the Palace

nursery and the Quirinal gardens--the latter by no means a cramped

play-ground. When the Duke of Ascoli, Gentleman-in-Waiting to Queen

Elena, first showed me these grounds I was quite astounded by their

extent and their unique beauty. There are long avenues of boxwood

hedges, groves of dark firs and picturesque parasol pines, fields of

untended grass and acres of carefully nurtured flowers. And all this

behind the dull yellow Quirinal walls, fairly in the centre of the city.

But any growing kiddies long for more than the yard of a city home,

though that yard attain the proportions of a park, and the home be a

Palace. Villa Savoy supplies the want, and here the children have their

ponies and their pet donkey. Here Queen Elena, too, finds relief and

refreshment, for the quiet of the children’s playhouse is never intruded

upon by the court or visitors who are not intimates of the Royal Family.

The Italian sovereigns are striving to purify and elevate the atmosphere

and tone of their court so that their children may grow up in sweet home

surroundings, protected from the careless waywardness of the

aristocratic world of Europe. Some call it a “straight-laced” court. One

influence which may be responsible for this may be traced to an incident

in the schoolboy days of the King.

When the King was a youth of sixteen he determined to change his

handwriting from the ordinary sloping hand in universal vogue to the

so-called vertical. The formula which he took for his motto was,

“Writing straight, paper straight, body straight.” This boyhood motto

has been before him ever since. One of the first things the present King

and Queen Elena did, upon their accession to the Throne, was to attach

to their persons _only_ married couples. Ladies-in-Waiting to the Queen

could only be married ladies whose husbands were during the same period

Gentlemen-in-Waiting to the King. This was an early step toward

elevating the moral standards of the Italian Court. Italian aristocracy

had not been renowned for virtuous living, but the present sovereigns

holding to a high standard of morality determined to purify the court in

so far as in them lay by banishing from active service all ladies and

gentlemen whose names had ever been bandied by current gossip. This

crusade, if it may be so called, was aided by the existing laws of the

country which are still sufficiently under the influence of the Roman

Catholic Church to prohibit divorce. No divorced man or woman has

standing in Queen Elena’s court. King Victor Emmanuel is himself

extremely devoted to his Queen and this devotion has often led to his

being charged with intense jealousy. Whether or not this is true, his

attitude toward Elena has resulted in her more and more withdrawing from

the companionship of people of the court and devoting herself to her

children. It is a pretty picture, that of the home life of this Queen.

Six months of the year the Royal Family live at the Quirinal Palace in

Rome. The remainder of the year is spent at various palaces and castles

in different parts of the Kingdom, but chiefly at Monza in the North,

where the summers are delightful. The long cruises and excursions that

they were wont to indulge in previous to their accession--cruises in the

Mediterranean and the Levant, hunting trips to Spitzbergen and the far

North--are now a thing of the past, and a simple home life is their

daily régime.

The marriage took place in 1896. Their first child, Yolanda, was born

June 1st, 1901. Royal babies are never permitted to do with only two or

three Christian names. They must perpetuate the names of grandfathers

and grandmothers, and not infrequently of uncles and aunts and

grand-uncles and grand-aunts besides. Thus the full name of the first

little Italian Princess is Yolanda Margherita Milena Elizabeth Romana

Maria! The next little Princess, born November 19th, 1902, was

christened Mafalda Maria Elizabeth Anna Romana. On the 15th September,

1904, at the Château of Racconigi the boy was born. This was a momentous

day for Elena and Victor Emmanuel, for the boy, if he lives, will

eventually occupy the throne of his fathers, and the birth of a Crown

Prince is a matter of utmost importance in the household of a Royal

Family, and indeed in the

[Illustration: THE ROYAL CHILDREN OF ITALY.]

annals of a nation. Queen Elena had been married eight years, all but

one month, when His Royal Highness Prince Humbert arrived. There was

some difficulty in finding suitable names for the future King,

especially a first name which he would carry as King. The Royal

Household was divided between the name of Victor Emmanuel, after his

father, and Charles Emmanuel. The choice was finally left to the baby

Prince’s Royal father who said, “it was a good custom which was followed

in some families of naming the first girl after the grandmother and the

first boy after the grandfather.” So the name Umberto, or Humbert as we

write it in English, was chosen.

Since the birth of the Crown Prince, one more child has been born to

Queen Elena, a Princess, who is called Giovanna. She is still a wee

child, having been born as recently as November 13, 1907.

Princess Yolanda, the first born, has colouring and features very like

her mother, while Mafalda and Humbert are more like their father.

Queen Elena herself spends a great share of her time with the children,

and while they have the usual nurses and governesses, the latter of whom

are already teaching the three older children French and English in

addition to Italian, Queen Elena perhaps does more with her own hands

than any other Queen mother in Europe. For example, she always bathes

them, she is present at their supper hour and when they are being made

ready for bed; each afternoon she tries to spend two hours with them at

their play. Thus their training is very largely in her hands. The

children are all very young still, but the two older girls are beginning

to appreciate the love and devotion of their mother, for little Mafalda

recently remarked to a gentleman of the court: “Mamma is the comfort of

everyone in trouble.”

The Queen’s birthday falls on January 8th. The year of the terrible

earthquake at Messina Her Majesty returned to Rome from the devastated

regions on the eve of her birthday. This year, oppressed by the terrible

scenes she had witnessed, she abolished all of the usual festivities in

her honour and devoted the forenoon to superintending the making of

garments for the Messina orphans in one of the Quirinal Palace rooms

which she had made into a temporary workroom. In the afternoon she made

a round of the Rome hospitals, visiting all of the “earthquake

children,” and with her own hands distributing sweets and little gifts,

thus endeavouring to bring a gleam of sunshine into their darkened

lives, and helping them for the moment to forget their sufferings. When

someone spoke to her afterwards of this beautiful way of celebrating her

birthday, she replied: “When these children grow up they may remember my

birthday.” Her own children, too, were encouraged on this occasion to

remember the wounded and orphaned victims. Instead of purchasing

presents for their mother, according to their usual custom, they put

the money into the Relief Fund, to which all the world was contributing.

Little Prince Humbert brought his favourite plaything, a set of toy

soldiers, to his mother and said: “Take this for the poor children.”

CHAPTER VI

SIMPLICITY OF THE ITALIAN COURT

The Italian Prince and Princesses, though they live in very beautiful

Palaces, are simply brought up, and are not encouraged to have

extravagant toys. Formerly, and even now sometimes, it has been the

custom of foreign Ambassadors to the Italian Court, and even other

sovereigns, to send gorgeous toys, and magnificent great dolls as big as

the Princesses themselves, to these children. Queen Elena, fearing to

have them grow accustomed to toys so much richer and better than other

children, had taught them to surrender these things to poor children by

sending them to hospital wards. Now the playthings of the Royal children

are just ordinary toys like those that most children have and enjoy.

The Queen endeavours to make her children forget that they are of Royal

blood, or in any way different from other children. In this particular

she is very different from the Tsaritsa, who never allows her children

or her court to forget that her son will one day be an Autocrat and Tsar

of all the Russias, that her daughters are Grand Duchesses, and must,

therefore, be kowtowed to by every Prince and granddame of the court.

While I was in Rome, Queen Elena related the following anecdote of her

own children, which illustrates her simplicity of attitude toward the

Italian Prince and Princesses.

The young Prince Humbert was recently put through an examination by his

two older sisters, who wished to have an experience of their brother’s

knowledge about colours.

Yolanda, pointing with her hand to the cloth of a piece of the

furniture, asked: “What colour is this?”

“It is red,” Humbert readily answered, without mistake.

“And that other piece of furniture, what colour is it?”

For the second time the young Prince gave a right answer.

“It is green,” he said.

But Mafalda wanted to take part, too, in what they intended to be the

first examination of the future King of Italy.

“What colour are your small shoes?”

Here the matter became rather complicated. As far as it was a question

of usual colours, little Humbert had found no difficulty in answering,

but now, looking at his small shoes, he found that they had to him an

unknown colour. But he was not discouraged, especially as he perceived

on his sister’s lips a light smile, which could not be interpreted as of

approval. It was clear that his wily sisters were teasing him.

“Well, what colour are they?”

Vanquished? Not he. “My shoes are Marron glacé,” he replied.

Yolanda and Mafalda laughed gaily at that answer, and little Humbert,

considering himself scorned by them, began to weep, and ran to his

mother for help.

Queen Elena endeavoured to explain to the little examiners that the

Prince’s answer was right, as the little shoes had really a beautiful

chestnut colour bright and brilliant.

Humbert is not fond of being quizzed by his sisters, and he is rather

inclined to be resentful. Indeed, this little Crown Prince is a born

soldier of a fighting disposition, and many a nursery quarrel does the

Queen have to settle. He is ever ready to defend with great boldness his

small soldiers, his guns and his swords and other favourite toys, which

Mafalda and Yolanda attempt sometimes to take from him. Humbert has one

amusing weakness. He is fond of the two black eyes and beautiful little

face of one of his sisters’ dolls. Sometimes he wants to take possession

of this doll. Unhappily, his sisters are not always disposed to let him

have it.

Ordinarily Humbert is glad to assume rather a martial air, and to dress

in military uniforms. But the uniform that he likes best is a smart one

of a Cuirassier regiment with boots, cuirasse and helmet. The little

fellow distinctly prefers the company of boys of his own age, and he

enjoys the little friends that he is allowed to have, and who are the

children of the Ladies at Court.

One of these little friends, a boy of five years who showed himself

enthusiastic over his Princely friend, was asked if he loved him much.

“Yes, I love him very much, because he never complains when they take

something belonging to him, and he never cheats,” he replied.

“And Yolanda and Mafalda, and the little Giovanna?”

“Yolanda and Mafalda, I like them also, but they always laugh at us

men!”

Yolanda, who is especially beloved by all those who live closely to her,

has always been a lively young girl with a frank and gay smile. Being

the eldest sister, she endeavours to look in some manner the wisest and

most serious, and she is at the same time the most charitable and

kindly. In fact, it is known to everyone, that many times she answers

the letters that the little girls of the people address to her

continually, by sending to them as a gift some of her own toys, of which

she willingly deprives herself.

There is in her a lovely soul, which appears in a thousand ways and

especially in the unlimited affection to her parents.

An old friend of the Queen’s once asked her to show her an ancient

photograph very dear to her, representing Queen Elena having Yolanda on

her lap, when she was only two or three months old.

The Queen afterwards sent for Yolanda, and showed her the photograph.

The little Princess, seeing her mother in the portrait, asked with

suspicious anxiety who was the child she was keeping in her lap.

“She is a dear baby, of whom I am very fond,” said the Queen.

Yolanda’s face turned very serious, and after she looked again at the

photograph, she could not abstain from showing a certain contempt.

“Don’t you see how ugly she is, Mamma? Throw it away.”

“You are wrong,” the Queen answered, “you are this baby. It is really

you when you were very little.”

Then Yolanda smiled gladly, and changing at once her opinion, she said,

with plenty of content: “Oh, yes, she is very handsome. You may keep

it.”

Yolanda is in fact so affectionate to her mother that she hates in her

heart all those duties which keep the Queen away from her. She, as also

Mafalda and Humbert, like much better the beautiful days spent wholly

near their parents, among the green hills of Racconigi, Sant’ Anna di

Valdiere, and San Rossore.

Victor Emmanuel, leaving all cares of state in the full liberty of his

acts, thinks only to play with his children from whom he never is widely

separated, and who are really his all-absorbing joy. Even in Rome, the

King, his duties accomplished, spends the rest of each day in the

intimacy of his family.

CHAPTER VII

THE HEROISM OF QUEEN ELENA

Italy’s Queen has a wonderful reputation the world around for her

heroism and daring. More than once she has rendered signal and

distinguished service when great disasters have visited her country, so

that this reputation is not undeserved.

I have some personal knowledge of this side of her character and it is a

privilege to give her full credit. There are other sides of her life as

a Queen, however, in which she falls lamentably short of her position.

Of these I shall have to speak also.

Queen Elena and the King were in Rome at the time of the great

earthquake which devastated Southern Calabria and the western tip of

Sicily. No sooner had the first authentic reports reached their

Majesties than they started for Messina, travelling to Naples by special

train and then by the Italian cruiser _Regina Elena_. As it happened, I

arrived at Messina, also by sea, at almost the same moment as the

Flagship. I was put ashore, to visit the wrecked city, in a small boat,

and not one hundred yards away a little drab launch was bouncing over

the rude waves toward what was left of a slanting stage, bearing King

Victor Emmanuel. On the deck of the _Regina Elena_, anxiously watching

each rise and fall of the little boat, stood the Queen. From almost the

same angle I could watch the progress toward shore, only when the King

stepped ashore I was much nearer, and therefore could see more

distinctly the panic-stricken survivors hurling themselves madly at the

feet of their King, and could hear much better the wild shouts: “Vive

Vitorio Emmanuele!” It was a strange, weird hurrah, coming from the lips

of the bereaved, the sorely stricken, the wounded, the dying. Certainly

it impressed me deeply. Later, from an officer aboard the cruiser, I

heard that the Queen was moved as never before in her life, and well she

might be. Before her, in endless panorama, lay the ruined, smoking city.

The King, and the crowd he attracted, loomed big on the quay, the

foreground. Behind, stretching to the orange and lemon clad hills which

after a mile rise abruptly to a great height, lay the biggest pile of

human suffering, of dead bodies and pinioned, starving living that the

world has known in many centuries. Yet out of this ghastly picture arose

the cry: “Long live the King!” “Long live Queen Elena!” Truly it was

overpowering. The Queen stood it as long as she could, and then with her

hands pressed to her face she went sobbing to her cabin.

After an hour the King returned to the ship. The Queen met him at the

gangway. Now her tears were dried. She wore a long nurse’s apron, and

from that hour, so long as she remained near the scene of disaster,

Queen Elena worked as a nurse. With her own hands she bandaged the

bleeding. She assisted at amputations and other serious operations and

from time to time she visited other ships that were caring for the

injured and spoke the cheering words, which, coming from the sovereign,

meant so much more than any stimulant.

In connection with this dire catastrophe there was at least one incident

that was full of humour. M. Tardieu, a French journalist, had occasion

to visit the Minister of Marine who was of the Royal party aboard the

Flagship. When Tardieu had finished his business, the Minister, pointing

to a parrot which was occupying a prominent place on the deck, related

this story:

“A squad of Italian soldiers at work among the ruins heard a voice

crying ‘Maria,’ ‘Maria.’ They dug for hours getting nearer, but always

the voice cried unceasingly ‘Maria,’ ‘Maria.’ At last when they reached

the room from which the sounds were coming they found not a human being

but a parrot. But, in the adjoining room was Maria, a young girl, alive

and well. When the Queen heard of this she sent to have both the parrot

and its mistress brought aboard the Flagship.” As the Minister finished

relating the story, M. Tardieu doffed his cap to the bird and began a

garrulous speech of congratulations. At that moment the King appeared on

deck and seeing the Frenchman addressing the parrot in all solemnity

and dignity he paused to listen. Tardieu, looking up and seeing the

King, again removed his hat and salaamed low. Whereupon the King

advanced smiling, with extended hand. He chatted with the French

journalist for a few moments and sent an informal message to the French

people. The account of the adventure Tardieu published under the clever

caption: “How a Parrot Introduced Me to the King.” This girl was only

one of many whom Queen Elena became interested in in Messina, and who

have become her special charges now in Rome--wards of the Queen.

The example set by Queen Elena in going to Messina was followed by

scores of ladies of the Italian court, who left their homes, and,

boarding warships and joining relief expeditions, served as volunteer

nurses. They established field hospitals all along the devastated coasts

and among the hill villages. It was splendid, heroic service and must be

so recorded. Between the work of the ladies of the court and the work of

the Queen was this difference only. The Queen remained for five or six

days, while the others remained four or five weeks. The Queen was

decorated by half the monarchs of Europe--not so the others. But being

the Queen, and having gone there at all, setting the example of personal

service, her mite (comparatively) counted for more than the actual work

of all the others combined.

When Vesuvius vomited forth its torrents of flaming destruction a few

years ago, Queen Elena and the King at once set forth in an automobile

upon the same mission of comfort and mercy. And again, when Calabria was

visited by a lesser earthquake, in 1905.

Italy, one is sometimes tempted to believe, was the last place God made,

and he has never rested satisfied with His handiwork. No country that I

know has a more tragic history. Death in horrible forms is forever

sweeping over some portion of the land, while geological changes under

the earth are shaking, jostling and altering her surface contour. Ever

since Elena became Queen she has worked with zeal during the dark days

of these numerous calamities. Fate has been strangely, rudely kind to

her, too, in ordaining that she should be near at hand on many occasions

when accidents have befallen--railroad accidents, fires, as well as dire

disasters. Always has the Queen hurried to the danger point and risen to

the crisis.

When a collision took place between two trains one dark night, at

“Castel-Giubileo,” the Queen, immediately informed, was the first ready

to run to the spot of the catastrophe. The horrible scene that appeared,

the painful screams of the wounded, the great number of victims, brought

tears to her eyes. But the anxiety which possessed her, could not make

her forget her duty. While the King himself was organising the help,

she, the young Queen, was stooping over the wounded, encouraging and

comforting them. A woman, whose limbs were broken to pieces, was lying

on the road. The Queen rushed to her, kneeled down, kissed her and tried

to encourage her to fortitude. She pursued all the night her consolatory

work and left “Castel-Giubileo,” only after she was satisfied that not a

single victim had been forgotten under the remains of the ruined

trains.

CHAPTER VIII

ELENA THE QUEEN

In view of the long list of dramatic, if terrible, events that have from

time to time made Queen Elena the most striking figure in Italy, it

would be the simplest matter in the world for her to make herself the

most popular Queen on any throne in Europe. As a matter of fact, in

spite of her heroism and her daring; in spite of her romantic girlhood

and idyllic years of early married life--which strongly appeal to the

naturally sentimental Italian people--in spite of her charming home

life, there is no doubt that she is one of the most unpopular Queens in

Europe. Her court, which, to meet the tastes of her people, should be

bright, popular, brilliant, is really the dullest, the most stupid in

the western world. I have lived in many countries, and I am more or less

familiar with all the countries of Europe, but never have I heard a

Queen so universally spoken of with disrespect and disapproval by her

own court. Of course, Queen Elena cannot be charged with the sole

responsibility, for the King shares the opprobrium and may, after all,

be the one to blame. It is, nevertheless, a disappointing task that is

set the chronicler of Italian court life of to-day. Elena, as we have

seen, was born fairly in the lap of romance. Her life should have worked

out to an ideal fulfilment. Extraordinary opportunities have been hers,

but she has never taken advantage of the great popularity they have

given her. A Queen’s life is one of stern duty, intensely hard, and

excessively demanding from many quarters. Queen Elena, in an American

phrase, “plays to the gallery,” then retires. She garners the wheat and

ignores the chaff. She is quick to follow dramatic exploits, but

reluctant to submit to the daily grind.

The Duke of Ascoli, personal friend and adjutant to the Queen, was much

embarrassed when I asked him to tell me about the charities of Queen

Elena. He mentioned Calabria, Vesuvius, certain children’s hospitals and

orphanages, and there he paused. It is, to me, inexplicable that a Queen

who as the Princess of a little State like Montenegro should have done

so much for the people of the country, been a patroness of the arts and

done all the things that Elena did, and then, as Queen of a great nation

do so little. Rightly or wrongly, Queen Elena has the reputation among

her own people for being the stingiest Queen in Europe. Apparently this

is true. She patronises almost nothing at all, regularly, and if once in

a while she lends her name to appear on a public bill, it usually means

this and nothing more. So far as is known, she gives less to charity, in

proportion to her means, than any Queen. In this she is in unhappy

contrast to the Queen-Mother who, when she was on the Throne, did very

much to encourage painting, music and sculpture throughout Italy. This

fact rather discredits the only excuse I have ever heard offered for

Queen Elena, namely, that she and the King have many Palaces to

maintain, inheritances which have come to them from the many dukedoms

and little states which were brought together to make up “United Italy.”

Queen Margherita and King Humbert had the same number of estates, but

their charity and philanthropic list was long and striking.

Queen Elena has one boast. She says that less has been written of her

than of any Queen in the world, and she is very proud of it. My own

impression is that Queen Elena realises that if more of the facts of her

selfish nature were made world-wide that she would cease to be the

object of veneration that she is to-day. If the world at large

appreciated to what extent she has carried her ideas of simplicity in

dress, the glamour that surrounds her would fade. It is impossible to

worship a dowd--especially if the lady be a Queen with all the splendour

and taste of the world at her hand.

I have seen her driving in the Campagna, or even through the streets of

Rome, when I would never have believed her the occupant of her exalted

position, had I not known her. It is somewhat ungallant to dwell upon

these things, but Queen Elena _can_ wear good clothes, as her court

costumes testify. It is because she simply _doesn’t_, that makes her a

slouch in dress. One need not be extravagant in clothes to be tasteful,

but Queen Elena is not even tasteful. Here again, she is in unfortunate

contrast to the Queen-Mother who, still living in Rome, is always

exquisitely gowned, and no matter how simply, always with unerring

taste. Queen Elena is, indeed, sorely handicapped by the presence of

Queen Margherita in the capital, for her popular affection will last as

long as she lives, and a woman of Elena’s calibre can never, even at

best, supplant her.

The most ungracious task in the world is sometimes to tell the truth.

When writing of Kings and Queens, one is expected to write in adulation.

I have done my best for Queen Elena, in telling the story of her younger

life in all its vivid and alluring colouring; and I have paid full

tribute to Elena, the Mother. But the picture is not yet complete. Elena

the Queen is, after all, of first importance to the nation. We, in

America, believe that the institution of kingship--“divine right of

Kings” and all the rest--is largely archaic twaddle. Queen Elena, of all

living Queens, illustrates the emptiness of Queenship as it exists

to-day. I would not give the impression that the Queen and King of Italy

are cruel tyrants like the lately deposed Sultan of Turkey, or autocrats

like the Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia; nor are they active elements in

the social life of the nation like the Kings and Queens of England and

Spain, or the Emperor and Empress of Germany. What Queen Elena and King

Victor Emmanuel represent, however, are, the biggest of social

parasites. They draw an enormous revenue of many millions annually from

a heartbreakingly poor population, and give the minimum in return.

I am quite aware that I speak in no measured terms, but a surprising

number of people in Italy--men and women of the Court--have begged me to

state the truth concerning their sovereigns to the world. Perchance they

themselves may take from the lips of an unbiassed observer from overseas

what no one of their subjects dare to say. While not an apostle of

social revolution in Italy, I may perhaps be so suspected, unless I

state that it is the full indifference to everyday affairs of the

Italian sovereigns, especially the Queen, that breeds the widest

discontent. The Italian court, as a whole, is not politically restless

so much as discouraged and disgusted with their apathetic monarchs.

The four years of blissful honeymooning enjoyed by Victor Emmanuel and

Elena seems to have spoiled them for taking up the tasks of sovereigns.

They seem to have lived too much unto and for themselves. One indication

of this is the almost ludicrous jealousy of the King. He guards Elena

with the greatest care, and few indeed are the male members of the Court

who ever approach her save on formal occasions. The sovereigns always

have their meals alone together. It was the custom of the former

monarchs to have the King’s adjutant and the Queen’s lady-in-waiting at

the table; at dinner there were nearly always guests. Not so Victor

Emmanuel. He prefers to be as much as possible alone with his spouse,

and never entertains at dinner save when duty demands it. It must be

said that he gives Elena a true and loyal devotion and he is one of the

very few, if not the only monarch in Europe, against whom no word of

unkind gossip has ever been spoken.

The closely watchful attitude of the King may be in some measure

responsible for the impression which is pretty general that Elena is a

timid, shy woman. There are several anecdotes recalled to illustrate

this trait, each of them, to me, interesting.

One afternoon, near the beginning of her reign, Elena had attended a

function given by the Dowager-Queen. Queen Elena arrived somewhat late

and reached the door of the Salon unattended. There was a large company

present and Queen Elena paused, as if in embarrassment, until Queen

Margherita, seeing her, came forward and taking her by the hand led her

into the room.

On the rare occasions when Italian Royalty patronise the theatre or

opera, Elena, if she knows the Queen-Mother is to be present, arrives a

little late, and leaves a little early, so that the homage Queen

Margherita had been accustomed to during so many years may still be

hers.

Social shyness is a thing apart from physical courage, of which, we all

know Queen Elena has

[Illustration: SNAPSHOTS BY QUEEN ELENA: THE KING AND HER CHILDREN.]

an abundance. The formalities of ceremonial court life are irksome to

Queen Elena, and the afternoon “teas” that she holds for the court are

stripped of all their formidableness by the present mistress of the

Quirinal.

Among the English colony in Rome is an aged lady whom Queen Elena calls

to court once every year for a tête-à-tête. During the past year she has

grown very deaf. Queen Elena had obvious difficulty in making herself

understood, and to her very evident embarrassment the old lady noticed

this and said, apologetically: “I am so sorry, your Majesty, that my

hearing inconveniences you.” “Oh,” said the Queen, “I did not know that

you were deaf. Come, sit here on the sofa by me.” This, surely, was

worthy of a Queen.

That Queen Elena positively dislikes social functions there can be no

question. For three successive winters there was practically nothing

whatever done to stimulate the social life of the capital on the part of

the sovereigns. One year the reason given for the postponing of the

court balls and receptions was the Sicilian disaster. Another year it

was the death of the King of Portugal. Other courts went into mourning

for thirty days. The Italian court cancelled everything in the nature of

festivities for the year. This has a very serious economic result. Rome

is one of the least commercial capitals of Europe. The social season at

best is brief--three to four months--and upon this little season many

of the shopkeepers have to rely for the bulk of their trade. The tourist

trade does not begin to compensate for the loss of the social season. In

every other capital in Europe the presence of Royalty at all star

occasions throughout the season lends a brilliancy that seems to be lost

to Rome for ever--at least during the lives of the present monarchs. The

old Roman families do the best they can to bolster up Rome’s fast

fleeting prestige, but the Royal Box is nearly always empty. More often

than not it looms up in the centre of things like a ghost at the feast.

Each year, fewer and fewer foreigners go to Rome for the season, and

this is laid directly to the door of the sovereigns. It must be borne in

mind that this sort of thing means very much more in Europe than it does

in America. There is no city in the United States that could possibly be

affected in this way, but since it is of so much importance in Italy it

must be mentioned here. This is one of the prime grievances of the

people of Rome against the King and Queen. If Queen Elena were the wife

of a country minister in our country, she would be beloved by all who

knew her. Her domestic virtues, her simplicity of taste and manners, her

fondness for children would all be extolled. It would then be no

drawback that her vision was not extended, her horizon so narrow. She

would be a splendid woman to organise Dorcas societies, to teach the

Infant class in the Sunday School, and even to get up Thursday night

socials. Alas! however, she is a sovereign, and of a sovereign so much

more is not merely expected but demanded. The way Queen Elena has

shirked her daily chores--court functions, audiences and interest in

national activities--during the last few years is a matter of national

comment. “She promised so much, she has achieved so little!” one hears

on every hand.

The Elena of to-day does not seem the same Elena who came from

Montenegro. The reason for her change of character is beyond my ken. But

these are facts. As a Queen, Elena comes close to the line of failure.

Each time she steps into the blaze of popular admiration the sentiment

toward her seems to change, but I notice that like the fickle waves of

the sea, this quickly recedes.

Queen Elena has always been given to hobbies, and as her children take

to one hobby or another their regal mother shares their enthusiasm and

interest. The King, too, has one hobby that he has indulged in since

boyhood and that is the collecting of coins. This fad he took up when he

was a very small boy. According to his own statement it was in the year

1879 that one rare coin fell into his hands and he determined to make a

“collection.” To-day his collection is reputed the largest and finest in

Italy. With him, the collecting of the coins is but part of the hobby.

Around each set of ancient and obsolete coins he has grouped a summary

of historical facts so that his collection, if studied carefully would

constitute an education in itself. I have been told that the King has

nearly sixty thousand different coins! A friend writing to Senator

Morandi who is intimately familiar with the life of the King, asked how

Victor Emmanuel had time to make collections of this sort. To which the

Senator replied: “In the midst of all the cares of State, by his

indefatigable capacity for work, aided by a rare promptitude of

perception and by a prodigious memory, he finds time to follow every

scientific and literary movement, and to attend to this collection.” As

a matter of fact, this is the King’s one hobby. The Queen, on the other

hand, still indulges several. In the Quirinal Palace in Rome she

maintains a studio where she spends many an afternoon working over her

sketches and water colours. Her interest in the coin collection is

rather recent, and at bottom only nominal. It is my impression that this

interest on her part is primarily for the sake of her children who will

one day own this interesting and valuable collection. The King once

related to Senator Morandi, in a personal letter, the origin of this

collection. “I got my chance,” he said, “a soldo (one cent) of Pius IX

and I kept it. Afterwards I got another which I put with the first.

Presently I secured fifteen different coins of different kinds. Then my

father gave me about seventy different copper coins. These formed the

nucleus of my collection.” For several years Prince Victor Emmanuel

pestered every one he knew to give him old coins, especially at

Christmas and on other gift days. Before long he had a collection of

three thousand pieces. And now it has attained the proportions of twenty

times that number. Recently the King testified that this collection has

been “an efficacious aid to him in his study of history and geography.

Besides which, when I have time I always find something useful and

pleasing to do, either arranging my coins or searching in books for

dates for this purpose!” Many an American and English boy and girl has a

collection of coins and this testimony of King Victor Emmanuel may be an

incentive to them to continue this hobby, and to make the most of it by

following the scientific example of the King in carefully and accurately

preserving the full data concerning each coin.

Queen Elena is still a young woman. If the time ever comes when she

determines to throw as much energy and enthusiasm into the everyday work

of Queenship as she does on the special occasions of crisis she may yet

make her mark upon Italy. So far she has not done this. In these

chapters I have tried to portray Queen Elena as she is--a real live

woman who enjoyed a romantic youth; who made a brilliant marriage; who

is a devoted wife and mother; a mediocre Queen. I have written without

malice and without prejudice. My task is done if my readers can now

visualise Queen Elena--can picture her in her mountain home, a daring,

untrammeled girl; can see her as she is to-day, active in her domestic

tasks, lunching and dining and driving with the King, bathing the

babies and watching over their early slumbers. For to-day Elena is wife

and mother above all else--and Queen incidentally as well as

accidentally. It is my impression that the Queen business bores her

utterly; else she would not do it so badly.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Royal Romances of To-day, by Kellogg Durland