CHAPTER XXXIV

ROYAL VISITORS

One night the future King of Siam came to dine with us. I took him into the nursery to see the children. Mimi sat bolt upright in her crib. She eyed the young stranger and frowned.

"Hello, king," she said, "where's your crown?"

I confessed to a similar feeling when from the balcony of a friend's home in the Avenue du Bois de Bologne I saw the King of England riding into Paris for the first of the welcomes we were giving Allied sovereigns. It was natural that Great Britain should come ahead of other nations. England had been the comrade-in-arms from the first days and aided powerfully in preventing the Germans from reaching Paris in the fierce onslaught of 1914. But it is a pity that the King was not accompanied by Marshal French or Sir Douglas Haig. Parisians are peculiarly sensitive to personality. George V has none. There was nothing in the rôle he had played during the war to make the crowd feel that he personified the valiant armies of the greatest and most faithful ally. If only Beatty or Jellicoe had ridden with him through the Avenue du Bois and down the Champs-Elysées. The war had not deepened the enthusiasm of the French for a monarch simply because he was a monarch. A crown and a royal robe might have helped George with the Paris crowd. I am not sure even then. As my concierge put it when I told her that I was going to cheer the royal visitor,

"_Voyons_, what has that king done in the war besides falling off his horse?"

And then the weather was against our British guest. I do not care what the occasion is, rain and enthusiasm do not go together in a Paris crowd.

The King of the Belgians had good weather and received cheers that came from the heart. We thought of him not as a royal personage but as the man who had saved Paris at the beginning of the war because he put honor and his country ahead of personal interest and blood. The French saw in him also a soldier who had lived the life of the camp sharing the hardships and dangers of his little army in the corner of Belgium the Germans were never able to conquer. From the first day of the war to the signing of the armistice, Albert I did not doff his uniform. He never asked of his soldiers what he himself was not ready to do. And he came to Paris with his queen, who had been idolized by the French. No woman in the world was so popular in France as Elizabeth despite her German origin.

The protocol for the royal visits was as elaborate as the ceremony proved to be simple. The guests were received by President and Madame Poincaré at the little Ceinture station at the Porte Dauphine. Headed and followed by a single row of _gardes républicaines_ on horse, they rode in open carriages down the Avenue du Bois de Bologne and the Champs-Elysées and across the Pont de la Concorde to the Palais d'Orsay where they were lodged. Infantry regiments, lining the route, aided the police in keeping order. There was no parade and no music. The attention and the acclamation of the crowd were concentrated on the visitors. As state carriages are swung high, every one was able to see the king. The Avenue du Bois is ideal for a procession. The park slopes up on either side, affording a clear view for hundreds of thousands. And there are innumerable trees for boys.

Those who were unable to get to the Avenue du Bois or the Champs-Elysées at the time the visitors came had a chance to see them in the streets afterward. For visits were exchanged between the royal visitors and President Poincaré, and on the second day of the visit they rode in state down the Rue de Rivoli to receive the freedom of Paris at the Hôtel de Ville. The return from the Hôtel de Ville was made by the Grands Boulevards and the Rue Royale. Then on the first evening was the state dinner at the Elysée and on the second evening the gala performance at the Opéra. If any one in Paris did not see the sovereigns, it was not because of lack of opportunity.

The evening before we were to receive President Wilson, Rosalie burst into my room in great excitement.

"Hush, hush!" I whispered. "I have just put the baby to bed."

But my pretty little cook did not hear me. She hurried to the window and bounced out on the balcony. I followed.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Madame has only to listen: every church bell in Paris is ringing. What is it, Madame? In my Brittany village the bells rang that way only when they posted the mobilization order at the _mairie_. Is it the tocsin? Is the war going to begin again?"

"Of course not," I answered. "It's a whole month since the armistice. Cheer up, Rosalie, perhaps the Kaiser is dead."

The older children and Elisa and Alice were now with us. The bells continued ringing, and we heard cannon, one boom after another. It was the salute that had been given for the royal visitors by the guns of Mont Valérian. Now we realized that the special train from Brest had arrived.

"It is the _Président-Vilsonne_!" said Alice in the reverent tone, that she had been taught to use in speaking of "l'Eternel." If you have heard a French Protestant reciting a psalm, and pronouncing the beautiful French word for Jehovah, you will understand what I mean.

My young governess struck the note of the Wilsonian greeting. All that has happened since that memorable December day has dispelled little by little the legend of the Wilson who was to deliver the world from the bondage of war. The French quickly discovered that their idol had feet of clay. Whether they expected too much from what President Wilson had said in his speeches or whether his failure to make good his promises was due to circumstances beyond his power to control is not for us to judge. We do not know the facts and we have no perspective. But at the moment we did not foresee the disappointment in store for us. A merciful providence, veiling the future, allows us the joy of entertaining hopes without realizing that they are illusions. Legends are beautiful and touching. But they are most precious when you think they are true, and nothing can rob one of the memory of moments on the mountain top.

Fearing that the Métro to the Place de l'Etoile would be crowded, we got up very early that Saturday morning. The day of President Wilson's coming--whatever day the great event would happen--had been declared beforehand a holiday. So we could take the children with us. We were none too soon. All Paris of our quarter was going in the same direction. Without a grown person for each child, the Métro would have been difficult. When we came up at Kléber station the aspect of the streets around the Etoile assured us that the Wilson welcome would break all records. We passed through side streets to the Avenue du Bois--by the corner of the Etoile it was already impossible, and thanked our stars that the friends who invited us to see the royal visits from their apartment lived on the near side of the street. To cross the Avenue du Bois would have been a problem.

Lloyd struck against going up to the wonderful vantage point on a fourth floor. The good things Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Caroline would certainly have for him to eat meant nothing when he saw boys in trees. Having no good reason to deny him, his father yielded. My son climbed a tree near the side-walk with Herbert standing guardian below while the rest of us were high above.

I shall not attempt to describe the welcome given to President Wilson. After the carriages passed and the crowd broke, the children went home. Herbert and I followed the current of enthusiastic, delirious Parisians down the Champs-Elysées, up the Rue Royale and the Avenue Malesherbes. Wilson beamed and responded to the greeting of Paris. He did not grasp what that greeting meant. Clemenceau, Parisian himself, knew that the power to change the world was in the hands of the man riding ahead of him. But this is retrospect! I did not realize then that one of the greatest tragedies of history was being enacted under my eyes. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking so now. Who knows?

More significant in its potentiality than the initial greeting to President Wilson was the acclamation that greeted him when he went to the Hôtel de Ville. Belleville turned out. From the heart of the common people came the cry, "_Vive la paix Wilsonienne!_" It was taken up and re-echoed with frenzy when the guest of Paris appeared on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville.

The coming of the King of Italy was an anti-climax. Paris, of course, responded with her customary politeness to the duty of welcoming the sovereign of France's Latin ally. But heart was lacking in the reception to Victor Emanuel III. The comparative coolness was not intentional. I am sure of that. It was simply that we were coming down from the mountain top to earth.

And when the Peace Conference assembled, Paris very quickly realized that the hope of a new world was an illusion. Our royal visitors came at the right moment. Paris will give enthusiastic welcome to other rulers in future days. But not in our generation! A famous saying of Abraham Lincoln's comes into my mind. There is no need to quote it.