Part 10

"Did that surprise you?" I was asked. "It does not surprise us at all. One of our haughty princesses of the House of Savoy said, sarcastically, that we had gone back to the times when kings used to mate with shepherdesses. This was merely a disrespectful sally. The truth is that both our King and Queen have very simple tastes and that they like to live as ordinary people, in so far as their obligations permit them. Let me give you an instance in point; whenever they come to Milan--and they never stay for more than two or three days--they go to the royal palace, of course, but, instead of living in the state apartments and bringing a large number of servants, they prefer to occupy just a few rooms, have their meals sent in from the Ristorante Cova and order the dishes to be all brought up at the same time and placed on a sideboard. Then they dismiss the servants, shut the doors and wait upon themselves."

In our sunny countries--I can speak for them, as a Corsican--we love pomp and ceremony. I seemed to observe in the friends who gave me this striking illustration of the royal simplicity a touch of bitterness, perhaps of regret. Remarks that came to my ears later led me to the conclusion that the aristocracy, if not the people, disapproved of their sovereign's democratic tendencies, which contrasted with the ways of the old court, of which Queen Margherita had been the soul and still remained the living and charming embodiment.

No doubt. Queen Helena's "manner" was entirely different from that of Margherita of Savoy, whose highly-developed and refined culture, whose apposite wit, whose engaging mode of address, built up of shades that appealed to delicate minds, had attracted to the Quirinal the pick of intellectual, artistic and literary Italy and held it bound in fervent admiration. Educated at the court of her father, Prince Nicholas, Helena of Montenegro had grown up amid the austere scenery of her native land, in constant contact with the rugged simplicity of the Montenegrin highlanders; her wide-open child-eyes had never rested on other than grave and manly faces; her girlhood was decked not with fairy-tales, but with the old, wild legends of the mountains, or else, with epics extolling the heroism of those who, in the days of old, had driven the foreign invader from the valleys of Antivari or the lofty plateaux of Cetinje. At the age of twelve, she was sent to St. Petersburg to finish her studies. There, in the promiscuous intercourse of a convent confined to young ladies of gentle birth, she had known the charm of friendships that removed all differences of social rank between her fellow schoolgirls and herself, while her mind opened to the somewhat melancholy beauties of Slav literature. On returning to her country, she enjoyed, in the fulness of an independence wholly undisturbed by the demand of etiquette, the healthy delights of an open-air life, which she divided between water-colour drawing, in which she excelled, and sport in which she showed herself fearless.

When, therefore, she saw Italy for the first time in 1895 and saw it through the gates of Venice, where her father had taken her on the occasion of an exhibition; when, one evening, in the midst of the fanciful and to her novel scene of the lagoon arrayed in its holiday attire, she saw the homage of a glowing admiration in the eyes of the then Prince of Naples, it will readily be conceived that she was flurried and a little dazzled. When, lastly, in the following year, she bade farewell to her craggy mountains and to the proud highlanders, the companions of her childhood, and saw the gay and enthusiastic nation of Italy hastening to welcome her, the twenty-years-old bride, with the hopes and promises which she brought with her, it will be understood that she at first experienced a sense of confusion and shyness.

The shyness, I am told, has never completely worn off. On the other hand, in the absence of more brilliant outward qualities, Queen Helena has displayed admirable domestic virtues; she has known how to be a queen in all that this function implies in regard to noble and delicate missions of devotion and goodness to the poor and lowly. And she has done better than that: she has realised her engrossing duties as wife and mother; and they are sweet and dear to her.

Had this been otherwise, the King's character, which is quick to take offence, and his jealous fondness would have suffered cruelly. He too is shy, he too is a man of domestic habits, who has always avoided society and pleasure. Possessing none of the physical qualities that attract the crowd, endowed with an unimaginative, but, on the other hand, a reflective and studious mind, remarkably well-informed, highly-intelligent, passionately enamoured of social problems and the exact sciences, none was readier than he to enjoy the charm of a peaceful home which he had not known during his youth. Touching, in fact, though the attachment between the son and mother was, they nevertheless remained separated by the differences in their character, their temperament and their ideas. Whereas Queen Margherita kept all her enthusiasm for art and literature, the Prince of Naples displayed, if not a repugnance, at least a complete indifference to such matters. When he was only ten years of age, he said to his piano-mistress, Signora Cerasoli, who was appointed by his mother and who vainly struggled to instil the first principles of music into his mind:

"Don't you think that twenty trumpets are more effective than that piano of yours?"

To make amends, he showed from his earliest youth a marked predilection for military science. He had the soul of a soldier and submitted, without a murmur, to the strict discipline imposed upon him by his tutor, Colonel Osio. He is still fond of relating, as one of the pleasantest memories of his life, the impression which he felt on the day when King Humbert first entrusted him with the command of a company of foot at the annual review of the Roman garrison:

"The excitement interfered so greatly with my power of sight," he says, "that the only people I recognised in the cheering crowd were my dentist and my professor of mathematics."

His keen love of the army became manifest when, as heir apparent, he received the command of the army-corps of Naples. Frivolous and light-headed Neapolitan society looked forward to receiving a worldly-minded prince and rejoiced accordingly; but it soon discovered its mistake; the prince, scorning pleasure, devoted himself exclusively to his profession and left his barracks only to go straight back to the Capodimonte Palace, where he spent his spare time in perfecting himself in the study of military tactics.

When, at last, the tragedy of Monza called him suddenly to the throne, the manliness of his attitude, the firmness of his character and the soberness of his mind impressed the uneasy and scattered world of politics. He insisted upon drawing up his first proclamation to the Italian people with his own hand and in it proved himself a man of the times, thoroughly acquainted with the needs and aspirations of modern Italy.

"I know," he said to Signor Crispi, a few days after his accession, "I know all the responsibilities of my station and I would not presume to think that I can remedy the present difficulties with my own unaided strength. But I am convinced that those difficulties all spring from one cause. In Italy, there are few citizens who perform their duty strictly: there is too much indolence, too much laxity. Italy is at a serious turning-point in her history; she is eaten up with politics; she must absolutely direct her energies towards the development of her economic resources. Her industries will save her by improving her financial position and employing all the hands at present lying idle in an inactivity that has lasted far too long. I shall practise what I preach by scrupulously following my trade as king and by encouraging initiative, especially by encouraging the social and economic evolution of the country."

Let me do him this justice: he has kept his promises. A will soon made itself conspicuous under that frail exterior. He applied to the consideration of every subject the ardour of an insatiable curiosity and his wish to know things correctly and thoroughly. He studied the confused conditions of Italian parliamentary life with as much perseverance as the social question. It is possible that, by democratising the monarchy, he has forestalled popular movements which, in a country so passionate in its opinions and so exuberant in its manifestations as Italy, might have caused irreparable disorders and delayed the magnificent progress of the nation.

Pondering over these serious problems, his vigilant and studious mind sought relaxation and, at times, consolation and encouragement for its rough task in the ever-smiling intimacy of the home. It resolved that this home should be impenetrable to others, so impenetrable that it excluded the sovereign and _à fortiori_ his official "set": the husband and father alone are admitted. This is the secret of that close union which has made people say of the Italian royal couple that they represent the perfect type of a middle-class household which found its way by accident into a king's palace.

I have tried to give a psychological picture of the two sovereigns arising from the impressions which I picked up in the course of my trip to Italy. Their visit to Paris was destined to confirm its accuracy and to complete its details.

3.

I little thought, on the afternoon when I caught so unexpected a glimpse of Queen Helena in a Milan glove-shop, that, two years later, I was to have the honour of attending both Her Majesty and the King during their journey to France. It was their first visit to Paris in state; and our government attached considerable importance to this event, which accentuated the scope of what Prince von Bülow, at that time chancellor of the German Empire, called, none too good-humouredly, Italy's "little waltz" with France.

The letter of appointment which I received at the beginning of October, 1903, directed me to go at once and await our guests at the Italian frontier and bring them safely to Paris. It was pitch-dark, on a cold, wet night, when the royal train steamed out of the Mont-Cenis tunnel and pulled up at the platform of the frontier-station of Modany where I had been pacing up and down for over an hour. My curiosity was stimulated, I must confess, by the recollection of the episode in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele at Milan. Amused by the chance which was about to bring me face to face with "the lady with the gloves," I was longing to know if my first impressions were correct and if the features which I had conjectured, rather than perceived, behind the blue veil were really those which I should soon be able to view in the full light.

The blinds of the eight royal railway-carriages were lowered; not a sign betrayed the presence of living beings in the silent train.

After a long moment, a carriage-door opened and a giant, in a long pale-grey cavalry cloak and a blue forage-cap braided with scarlet piping and adorned with a gold tassel, stepped out softly and, making straight for me, said:

"Hush! They are asleep."

It was two o'clock in the morning. The first official reception had been arranged to take place at Dijon, where we were due to arrive at nine o'clock. I took my seat in the train and we started. Not everybody was asleep. In the last carriage, which was reserved for the servants, a number of maids, wrapped in those beautiful red shawls which you see on the quays at Naples, were chattering away, with the greatest animation, in Italian. The echoes of that musical and expressive language reached the compartment in which I was trying to doze and called up memories of my childhood in my old Corsican heart.

It was broad daylight and we were nearing Dijon when Count Guicciardini, the King's master of the horse, came to fetch me to present me to the sovereigns.

Two black, grave, proud and gentle eyes; a forehead framed in a wealth of dark hair; beautiful and delicate features; a smile that produced two little dimples on either side of the mouth; a tall, slight figure; I at once recognised the lady of Milan in the charming sovereign, stately and shy, who came stepping towards me. It was the same little white hand that she put out again, this time, however, that I might press upon it the homage of my respectful welcome. Should I recall the incident of the gloves? I had it on my lips to do so. I was afraid of appearing ridiculous; of course, she did not remember. I said nothing.

"Delighted, M. Paoli, delighted to know you!" exclaimed the King, fixing me with his piercing eyes and shaking me vigorously by the hand.

"Sir."

"But stay; Paoli is an Italian name!"

"Very nearly, Sir; I am a Corsican."

"A fellow-countryman of Napoleon's, then? I congratulate you!"

Our conversation, that morning, was limited to these few words. From Dijon onwards, the journey assumed an official character; and I lost sight of the King and Queen amid the crowd of glittering uniforms. However, a few minutes before our arrival at Paris, I surprised them both standing against a window-pane, the Queen in an exquisite costume of pale-grey velvet and silk, the King in the uniform of an Italian general, with the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest. While watching the landscape, they exchanged remarks that appeared to me to be of an affectionate nature.

Meanwhile, a sedate footman entered and discreetly placed upon the table, behind the sovereigns, an extraordinary object that attracted my eyes. It looked like an enormous bird buried in its feathers; it was at one and the same time resplendent and voluminous. I came closer and then saw that it was a helmet, just a helmet, covered with feathers of fabulous dimensions. I was not the only one, for that matter, to be astonished at the imposing proportions of this head-dress; whenever the King donned it in Paris, it met with a huge success; it towered above the crowds, the livery-servants' cockades, the soldiers' bayonets; it became the target of every kodak.

The Queen's shyness? The occasion soon offered to observe it; in fact, that solemn entry into Paris was enough to make any young woman, queen or no queen, shy. The authorities wished it to be as grand as possible and sent the procession down the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and the Champs-Élysées. No doubt, the charming sovereign was deeply impressed and a little bewildered; but the warmth of her welcome, the heartiness of the cheering afforded her, as well as her consort, a visible pleasure; and, from that very first day, she was full of pretty thoughts and he of generous movements. At a certain moment, she took a rose from a bouquet of _roses de France_ which she was carrying and gave it to a little girl who had thrust herself close up to the carriage. He, on the other hand, walked straight to the colours of the battalion of Zouaves who were presenting arms in the courtyard of the Foreign Office and raised to his lips the folds of the standard on which were inscribed two names dear to Italian hearts and French memories alike: Magenta and Solferino.

The Foreign Office was turned into a "royal palace" for the occasion of this visit. While the government had set its wits to work to decorate in the most sumptuous style the apartments which the King and Queen of Italy were to occupy on the first floor, Madame Delcassé, the wife of the foreign minister, on her side, did her best to relieve the somewhat cold and solemn appearance of the rooms. With this object, she procured photographs of the little Princesses Yolanda and Mafalda and placed them in handsome frames on the Queen's dressing-table. The Queen was greatly touched by the delicate attention. On entering the room, she uttered a spontaneous exclamation that betrayed all a mother's fondness:

"Oh, the children! How delightful!"

The children! How often those words returned to her lips during her stay in Paris! She spoke of them incessantly, she spoke of them to everybody, to Madame Loubet, to Madame Delcassé, to the Italian ambassadress, even to the two French waiting-maids attached to her service:

"Yolanda, the elder, with her black hair and her black eyes is like me," she would explain. "Mafalda, on the other hand, is the image of her father. They both have such good little hearts."

Her maternal anxiety was also manifested in the impatience with which she used to wait for news of the princesses. Every evening, when she returned to the Foreign Office after a day of drives and visits in different parts of Paris, her first words were:

"My wire?"

And, a little nervously, she opened the telegram that wras dispatched to her daily from San Rossore, where "the children" were, and greedily read the bulletin of reassuring news which it contained.

On the morning after her arrival, she rang for a maid as soon as she woke up:

"I have an old friend in Paris," she said, "whom I want to see; it is my old French mistress, Mlle. E----. She lives on the Quai Voltaire; please have her sent for."

An attaché of the office hastened off at once and, in half an hour, returned triumphantly with Mlle. E----, a charming old lady who had once been governess to Princess Helena of Montenegro at Cetinje. She had not seen her for ten years; and the reader can imagine her surprise and her confusion. The mistress and pupil threw themselves into each other's arms. And, when Mlle. E---- persisted in addressing the Queen as "Your Majesty," the latter interrupted her and said:

"Why 'Your Majesty'? Call me Helena, as in the old days."

The authorities, conforming to royal usage, had considered it the proper thing to prepare two distinct suites of rooms, one for the King and one for the Queen, separated by an enormous drawing-room. Great was our surprise when, on the following morning, the rumour ran through the passages of the Foreign Office that the King's bed-room had remained untenanted. Had he found it uncomfortable? Did he not like the room? Everyone began to be anxious and it was felt that the mystery must be cleared up. I therefore went to one of the officers of the royal suite, took him aside and, while talking of "other things," tried to question him as to the King's impressions:

"Is His Majesty pleased with his apartments?"

"Delighted."

"Was there anything wrong with the heating arrangements?"

"No, nothing."

"Perhaps the King does not care for the bed provided for His Majesty's use? I hear it is very soft and comfortable, in addition to being historic."

"Not at all, not at all; I believe His Majesty thought everything perfect."

Alas, I felt that my hints were misunderstood! I must needs speak more directly. Without further circumlocution, therefore, I said:

"The fact is, it appears that the King did not deign to occupy his apartment."

The officer looked at me and smiled:

"But the King never leaves the Queen!" he exclaimed. "With us, married couples seldom have separate rooms, unless when they are on bad terms. And that is not the case here!..."

They never were parted, in fact, except at early breakfast. The King was accustomed to take _café au lait_, the Queen chocolate; the first was served in the small sitting-room, where the King, already dressed in his general's uniform, went through his letters; the second in the boudoir, where the Queen, in a pink surat dressing-gown, trimmed with lace, devoted two hours, after her toilet, every morning, to her correspondence, or to the very feminine pleasure of trying on frocks and hats.

I twice again had the honour of seeing her shopping, as on a former celebrated occasion; but this time I accompanied her in the course of my professional duties. She bought no gloves, but made up for it by purchases of linen, jewels, numerous knick-knacks and toys; and one would have thought that she was buying those china dolls, with their tiny sets of tea-things, for herself, so great was the child-like joy which she showed in their selection.

"This is for Yolanda; this is for Mafalda," she said, as she pointed to the objects that were to be placed on one side.

I saw her for the first time grave and thoughtful at the Palace at Versailles, which she and the King visited in the company of M. and Madame Loubet. I think that she must have retained a delightful recollection of this excursion to the palace of our kings, an excursion which left a lively impression on my mind. It seemed as though Nature herself had conspired to accentuate its charm. The ancestral park was as it were shrouded in the soft rays of the expiring autumn: the trees crowned their sombre tops with a few belated leaves of golden brown; the distances were mauve, like lilac in April; and the breeze that blew from the west scattered the water of the fountains and changed it into feathery tufts of vapour.

The sovereigns, escorted by the distinguished keeper of the palace, M. de Noblac, first visited the state apartments, stopping for some time before the portraits of the princes and princesses of the House of France. And, in those great rooms filled with so many precious memories, Queen Helena listened silently and eagerly to the keeper's explanations. She lingered more particularly in the private apartments of Marie Antoinette, where the most trifling objects excited her curiosity; obviously her imagination as a woman and a queen took pleasure in this feminine and royal past. Sometimes, obeying a discreet and spontaneous impulse, when the overpowering memory of some tragic episode weighed too heavily upon our silent thoughts, she pressed herself timidly against the King, as a little girl might do. And once we heard her whisper:

"Ah, if things could speak!"

4.

And the King? The King, while appreciating, as an expert, the archæological beauties which we had to show him and the imperishable evidences of our history, did not share the Queen's enthusiasm for our artistic treasures. When coming to Paris, he had looked forward to two chief pleasures: to see our soldiers and to visit the Musée Monétaire, or collection of coins at our national mint.

As is well-known, Victor Emanuel is considered--and rightly so--an exceedingly capable numismatist. He is very proud of his title as honorary president of the Italian Numismatical Society and, in 1897, undertook the task of drawing up the catalogue of the authentic old coinages of Italy. He derived the necessary materials for his work from his own collection, which at that time consisted of about forty thousand pieces. Now, of the two hundred and sixty types of Italian coinage known, barely one-half could lay claim to absolute genuineness; and the work which he had to perform in bringing them together, completing them and authenticating them was no light one.

A rather interesting story is told of the manner in which the King, when still little more than a child, acquired a taste for the science of numismatics. One day, he received a _soldo_ bearing the head of Pope Pius IX, which he kept. A little later, finding another, he added it to the first; and, in this way, he ended by collecting fifteen. Meanwhile, his father, King Humbert, presented him with some sixty pieces of old copper money; and he thus formed the nucleus of his collection.

Thenceforward, at every anniversary, on his birthday, at Christmas, at Easter, the different members of the royal family, who used to chaff him about his new passion, gave him coins or medals. He made important purchases on his own account; and, finally, in 1900, he doubled the dimensions of his collection at one stroke by buying the inestimable treasure of coins belonging to the Marchese Marignoli, which was on the point of being dispersed to the four corners of the earth.