THE REGAL POSE
Will democracy ever rule in some countries? I will not dare to prophesy,
only in so far as there is a tendency gradually spreading which gives
hope that in the end it will permeate the entire Western life. Many
years will be necessary for its development here and there--in Russia,
for instance--but most peoples are almost ready for the change, and
unless kings meet the movement and, so to speak, merge themselves in it,
leading it, they will pass and their thrones with them. Some great
crisis will occur, and suddenly the people will themselves displace
their dictators.
But the tentacles of royalty are firmly fixed into the beings of many
nations. In Austria, for example, before the war there was so much
royalty that half the Austrian Army seemed doing sentry duty round the
palaces of archdukes. In that country there is a vast amount of
clericalism and a vast amount of Court stupidity, which, however
ridiculous it may appear to the outside observer, is really the prop
upon which the monarchy rests. I should think that the Court life there
must be one degree duller than in Spain.
In Italy the people are more clever; the country is alive and
prospering, and the King is sufficiently Socialistic in his leanings to
be in sympathy with the progress and the ambition which he helps to
direct.
Unfortunately, on our visit to Rome, we had arranged, through our
Ambassador, to be presented both to the Vatican and to the Court; and at
the eleventh hour, before going to the Vatican, we were notified by
letter that the Pope would only receive us on condition that neither
before nor after seeing him should we call on the King. This stipulation
had been withheld from our Ambassador, with characteristic cleverness,
until it could put us in a position of insulting the Throne by failing
to keep an appointment that we had solicited. We were saved from the
awkward situation by a telegram that called us back to Spain, with the
news that my mother-in-law was seriously ill. But that is one of the
things that can make the travels of Royalty not altogether comfortable.
The princes of the house of Orleans have almost all been very clever.
They are good financiers, shrewd politicians, witty, and easy in their
address. The late King Leopold of Belgium had these qualities in a high
degree, together with the cynicism that often accompanies them. He was
less like a king in his palace than like a banker in his counting-house;
and he left Belgium established in wealth. When his nephew, the present
King Albert, succeeded to the throne it was the problems of wealth and
the dissatisfaction of the working classes that confronted him. How
tragic that fact sounds to-day with the country laid waste and despoiled
and her people scattered. He is one of the few sovereigns in Europe who
have clearly seen the power and virtue of the modern Socialist movement;
and he seemed to me to be alone in his ability to lead it beneficently
for itself and its opponents. He had made it an effective engine of
social reform instead of a disruptive force of revolution. The King of
the Belgians is a man of such quiet tact and modesty that he was little
known in Europe, but that did not prevent him from being one of the
wisest and cleverest of its rulers. Through a peaceful reign he would
have done much for his country. Apart from the share he took in the war,
he, by his ability as a sovereign, would have been a factor to be
reckoned with in world politics. As it was, his success so far in the
internal affairs of his kingdom could give lessons to half the
Governments of Europe. If I did not go, at least twice a year, to see
for myself what he had been doing, I had come to feel that I was
neglecting my best opportunity of education. There are few kings for
whom one can feel that!
Another sovereign of the Orleans family, recently little known but
certain to become important, is King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the strength
of whose secret hand was shown in the downfall of the Turkish power in
Europe. He is a son of the only daughter of Louis Philippe of France,
and therefore my cousin by marriage; and I knew him intimately before he
was called to the throne of Bulgaria. He has made that country almost
single-handed, building it up commercially, attracting money to it for
railroads and industrial development, and administering its finances as
ably as he administers his own private fortune. His cleverness in using
rightly for his own ends circumstances that would pass unperceived by
any one less astute, made him one of the marked men of Europe. He used
to flatter me that I was the only person who understood him; and I could
reply that it was lucky for him, since, if others understood what he was
trying to do, they would surely stop him. He has a wonderful mind.
The lives of these men, who are kings in fact as well as in name, are as
full and interesting as the life of any one who has work to do and power
to do it. They have something to compensate them for the restrictions of
grandeur and the cramping stiffnesses of pomp. Their dignity has cause.
Their isolation is inevitable. But, for every one of these, there are
hundreds of little princes and princesses, grand dukes and archdukes,
and such minor personages of royal blood, who are less free in their
lives than kings are and have nothing to occupy their mental idleness.
It astonished me as I went among them to find them supported by a
consciousness of self-importance that seemed to me pathetic. I could
name a score of such persons, quite unknown, who would never believe
that their existence is not a matter of eager public interest to the
whole world. They apply themselves to the observances of royal
etiquette devotedly. They patronise and condescend to the lesser orders
of mankind with a touching sense of their own supremacy. They defend
themselves jealously in their degrees of royal blood and precedence, and
see themselves as conspicuously exalted as if they had high seats in
some hierarchy of heaven just below the Eternal Throne.
After a little experience, one can recognise these lesser royalties at a
glance and pick them out in a crowded drawing-room. They all have the
same high-shouldered carriage, stiff-backed, with a stretched neck to
carry a raised chin. Their lips smile very easily, but their eyes almost
never. They are accustomed to being stared at; indeed, they would be
disappointed if they did not attract stares; and they seem to present
their faces even to a private company, not nervously, nor quite
self-consciously, but with an expression of friendly and impenetrable
self-complacency that becomes recognisable as the royal mask. They are
usually, because of their training, rather stupid, but their dignity
makes them look wise. They are always concerned with their own
popularity, are gracious by policy,
[Illustration: KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM]
and try to leave each individual with the impression that he has been
personally distinguished by their notice. They are not only playing a
part, but they believe that they are really the part they play; so that
any true conversation with them is largely impossible. Their minds, like
their faces, are always making a public appearance and considering
effect.
When they are alone with their own kind, they are free to talk of the
matters that really interest them, and it is a conversation as typical
as the little gossip of a group of nuns. They have no opinions to
express on the problems of government; “it is a duty that they owe the
crown” to express none, and consequently they rarely acquire any. They
know little of the world around them, and say less. To arrive at any
speaking acquaintance with matters of literature and music and art, one
must make a mental effort in study, to which the Court life of busy
empty-mindedness is not conducive. They converse, therefore, about
royalty only--the latest marriage, the most recent engagement, the death
of this prince, the illness of that, a birth in Spain, an archduke’s
affair with a mistress in Austria--family happenings considered only in
their family aspect, as idle as gossip, largely innocent, wholly
uninteresting.
I can understand the respect paid to power; and royalty with power is
far from ridiculous, even when it is unintelligent; but royalty without
power is as great a bore as an aristocracy without the estate to support
its pride. We are no longer in the feudal ages. Money has now the rule
that used to belong to rank. And the chief use of the lesser royalties
seems to be to dignify wealth by associating with it. Hence the court
that the rich pay to them--the eagerness to entertain them, to take them
on private yachts, to amuse them with automobile trips, to promote their
fortunes on the Stock Exchange, and even to give them money if they will
take it. They are usually too proud, of course; and the money is made by
canny aristocrats who charge wealthy “climbers” for introductions to
Court circles. The unfortunate royalties stifle in stuffy drawing-rooms,
smiling on the compliments of aspiring riches, without even receiving a
little “tip” for their complacency. Life in Court was little to my
taste; I had found it no place for any one with an instinct for
independence. But the accepted life of royalty outside of Court seemed
to me worse. It was a life for gulls.
When my father was on his death-bed, at the age of eighty, my mother
asked him, as she was leaving the sick-room: “When do you want me to
come back to see you?” He replied: “No more. No one. Let me, at last,
have my desire for solitude. Let me die alone.” And he did.
Before these years of travel were over, I had come to the same
conclusion about myself. Since there was no life that I thought worth
living in Courts, and no social life for royalty outside the Courts, I
would have solitude. But it is easier to find solitude to die in than
solitude to live in. By this time I had two sons growing up, whose
careers had to be considered; I could not cut them off from the
opportunities of advancement that would come from powerful friends and
Court influence. I was very happy with them, in a companionship that had
none of the lack of intimate parental affection so often denied to
royalty; and I began to live for them, contentedly, as mothers do.
After all, that is the real life--the natural life--and the best of life
while it lasts.