Part 2

"And now?"

"Now," he answered with a smile, "the experiment has been made. You have fortunately broken with an ugly tradition. In your case, we forget the official, and remember only the friend."

2.

In the course of the three visits which the Empress Elizabeth paid to France between 1895 and 1898, I had every opportunity of studying, in the intimacy of its daily life, that little wandering court swayed by the melancholy and fascinating figure of its sovereign. She led an active and solitary existence. Rising, winter and summer, at five o'clock, she began by taking a warm bath in distilled water, followed by electric massage, after which, even though it were still dark, she would go out into the air.

Clad in a black serge gown, ultra-simple in character, she walked at a smart pace along the paths of the garden, or, if it were raining, perambulated the long passages which run out of the halls or "lounges" of most hotels. Sometimes she would venture on the roads and look for a fine point of view--by preference, the top of a rock--from which she loved to watch the sunrise.

She returned at seven o'clock and breakfasted lightly on a cup of tea with a single biscuit. She then disappeared into her apartments and devoted two hours to her toilet.

Her second meal was taken at eleven and consisted of a cup of clear soup, an egg and one or two glasses of meat-juice, extracted every morning out of several pounds of fillet of beef by means of a special apparatus which accompanied her on her travels. She also tasted a light dish or two, with a preference for sweets. Immediately after lunch, she went out again, accompanied, this time, by her Greek reader.

This Greek reader was a very important person. He formed one of the suite on every journey. Selected from among the young scholars of the University of Athens, and often appointed by the Greek Government, he was changed year by year. I, for my part, have known three different readers. Their duties consisted in talking with the Empress in the Greek language, ancient and modern, both of which she spoke with equal facility.

This might have appeared to be a quaint fancy, but it was explained as soon as the Empress's mental condition was better understood. Haunted by a melancholy past, romantic by temperament and poetic by instinct, she had sought a refuge in literature and the arts. Greece personified in her imagination the land of beauty which her dreams incessantly evoked; she had a passionate love for antiquity, loved its artists and its poets; she wanted to be able, everywhere and at all times, when the obsession of her sorrowful memories became too intense, to escape from the pitiless phantoms that pursued her and in some way to isolate her thoughts from the realities of life. The scholarly conversation of the young Greek _savant_ made this effort easier for her; in the varied and picturesque surroundings which her æsthetic tastes demanded, she took Homer and Plato for her companions; and thus to the delight of the eyes was added the most delicate satisfaction of the mind.

The Greek reader, therefore, was the faithful participator in her afternoon walks, which lasted until dusk, and the Empress often covered a distance of fifteen to twenty miles on end. For twenty years, she had obstinately refused to allow herself to be photographed; she dreaded the professional indiscretion of amateur photographers; and no sooner did she perceive a camera aimed in her direction than she quickly unfurled a black feather fan and modestly concealed her face, leaving nothing visible above the feathers but her great, wide, never-to-be-forgotten eyes, which had retained all the splendour and fire of her youth.

The young Greek's duties, however, were not confined to talking to the Empress on her walks. Sometimes the reader would read. Carrying a book which she had selected beforehand, he read a few chapters to her during the rests by the roadside, on the mountain-tops, or at the deserted edge of the sea. Later, he added the daily budget of cuttings from the newspapers and reviews which I prepared for Her Majesty, knowing the interest which she took in the current events of the day.

He also carried on his arm a dark garment--a skirt, in short. The Empress had the habit, in the course of her long walks, of changing the skirt in which she had started for one of a lighter material. It was a question of health and comfort. This little change of attire was effected in the most primitive fashion. The Empress would disappear behind a rock or a tree, while the reader, accustomed to this rapid and discreet proceeding, waited in the road, taking care to look the other way. The Empress handed him the skirt which she had cast off; and the walk was resumed.

On returning to the hotel, she made a frugal dinner, consisting sometimes merely of a bowl of iced milk and some raw eggs washed down with a glass of Tokay, an almost savage dietary to which she had forced herself in order to preserve the slimness of figure which she prized so highly. She took all her meals alone, in a private room, and seldom passed the evening with her suite. Its members hardly ever set eyes on her; sometimes the lady-in-waiting spent day after day without so much as seeing her imperial mistress.

Of the different places in France which Her Majesty visited, the one which she loved above all others was Cap Martin, the promontory which separates the Bay of Monaco from that of Mentone. She came here for three years in succession and returned to it each time with an equal pleasure. The softness of the climate, the wild beauty of the views, the splendour of the luxurious vegetation and the poetic solitude of the pine-forests and orange-groves, reminded her of her property of Achilleon in the island of Corfu and of her palace of Miramar on the shores of the Adriatic. She selected as her residence the enormous hotel that stands at the end of the point, among the tall pines, the fields of rosemary, the clusters of myrtle and arbutus.

The furniture of the imperial apartments was marked by extreme simplicity, combined with perfect taste, most of the pieces being of English workmanship. Her bed-room was just the ordinary hotel bed-room, with a brass bedstead surmounted by a mosquito net, a mahogany dressing-table and a few etchings hanging on the walls. On the other hand, the management had placed beside the bed, at her request, a system of electric bells distinguished by their colours--white, yellow, green and blue, which enabled her to summon that person of her suite whose presence she required, without having to disturb any of the others.

In addition to the ground floor, one other room was reserved for her on every Sunday during her visits. This was the billiard-room, which on that day was transformed into a chapel. When the Empress came to the Cap Martin Hôtel for the first time, she inquired after a church, for she was very religious. There was none in the immediate neighbourhood; to hear mass one had to go to the village of Roquebrune, the parish to which Cap Martin belongs. The Empress then decided to improvise a chapel in the hotel itself and, for this purpose, selected the billiard-room, to which she could repair without attracting attention. But the rites of the Church require that every room in which mass is said should first be consecrated; and none save the bishop of the diocese is qualified to perform the consecration. A ceremony of this kind in an hotel and in a billiard-room would have been rather embarrassing. The difficulty was overcome in a curious and unexpected manner. There is an old rule, by virtue of which the great dignitaries of the religious Order of Malta enjoy the privilege of consecrating any room in which they drop their cloak. It was remembered that General Berzeviczy, the Empress's chamberlain, occupied one of the highest ranks in the knighthood of Malta. He was therefore asked to drop his cloak in the billiard-room. Thenceforward, every Sunday morning, the Empress's footman put up a portable altar in front of the tall oak chimney-piece. He arranged a number of gilt chairs before it; and the old rector of Roquebrune came and said mass, served by a little acolyte to whom the lady-in-waiting handed a gold coin when he went away....

The Empress was extremely generous; and her generosity adopted the most delicate forms. Herself so sad, she wished to see none but happy faces ever about her. And so she always distributed lavish gratuities to all who served her; and she succoured all the poor of the country-side. Whenever, in the course of her walks, she saw some humble cottage hidden in the mountain among the olive-trees, she entered it, talked to the peasants, took the little children on her knees and, as she feared lest the sudden offer of a sum of money might offend those whom she was anxious to assist, she employed the most charming subterfuges. She would ask leave to taste their fruit, paying for it royally ... or else she bought several quarts of milk, or dozens of eggs, which she told them to bring to the hotel next day.

She ended, of course, by knowing all the walks at Cap Martin and the neighbourhood. She set out each morning with her faithful tramping companion, the Greek reader. Sometimes, she would go along the rocks on the shore, sometimes wend her way through the woods; sometimes she would climb the steep hills, scrambling "up to the goats," as the herds say.... She never mentioned the destination or the direction of her excursions, a thing which troubled me greatly, notwithstanding that I had had the whole district searched and explored beforehand. How was I to look after her?

"Set your mind at ease, my dear M. Paoli," she used to say, laughing. "Nothing will happen to me. What would you have them do to a poor woman? Besides, we are no more than the petal of a poppy or a ripple on the water!"

Nevertheless, I was not easy, the more so as she obstinately refused to let one of my men follow her, even at a distance. One evening, however, having heard that some Italian navvies, who were at work on the Mentone road, had spoken in threatening terms of the crowned heads who are in the habit of visiting that part of the country, I begged the Empress to be pleased not to go in that direction and was promptly snubbed for my pains.

"More of your fears," she replied. "I repeat, I am not afraid of them ... and I make no promise."

I was determined. I redoubled my supervision and resolved to send one of my Corsican detectives, fully armed, disguised and got up like a navvy, with instructions to mix with the Italians who were breaking stones on the road. He rigged himself out in a canvas jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers and made up his face to perfection. Speaking Italian fluently, he diverted all suspicion on the part of his mates, who took him for a newly-arrived fellow-countryman of their own.

He was there, lynx-eyed, with ears pricked up, doing his best to break a few stones, when suddenly a figure which he at once recognised appeared at a turn in the road. The night was beginning to fall; the Empress, accompanied by her reader, was on her way back to Cap Martin. Bending over his heap of stones, the sham navvy waited rather anxiously. When the Empress reached the group of road-makers, she stopped, hesitated a moment and then, noticing my man, doubtless because he looked the oldest, went up to him and said, in her kind way:

"Is that hard work you're doing, my good man?"

Not daring to raise his head, he stammered a few words in Italian.

"Don't you speak French?"

"_No, signora._"

"Have you any children?"

"_Si, signora._"

"Then take this for them," slipping a louis into his hand. "Tell them that it comes from a lady who is very fond of children." And the Empress walked away.

That same evening, seeing me at the hotel, she came up to me with laughing eyes:

"Well, M. Paoli, you may scold me, if you like. I have been disobedient. I went along the Mentone road to-day and I talked to a navvy."

It was my faithful Corsican.

Sometimes she ventured beyond the radius of her usual walks. For instance, one afternoon she sent for me on returning from a morning excursion:

"M. Paoli, you must be my escort to-day. You shall take me to the Casino at Monte Carlo; I have never been there. I must really, for once in my life, see what a gambling-room is like."

Off we went--the Empress, Countess Sztaray, and myself. It was decided that we should go by train. We climbed into a first-class carriage in which two English ladies were already seated. The Empress, thoroughly enjoying her _incognito_, sat down beside them. At Monte Carlo, we made straight for the Casino and walked into the roulette-room. The august visitor, who had slipped through the crowd of punters leaning over the table, followed each roll of the ball with her eyes, looking as pleased and astonished as a child with a new toy. Suddenly, she took a five-franc piece from her hand-bag:

"Let me see if I have any luck," she said to us. "I believe in number 33."

She put the big coin on number 33 _en plein_. At the first spin of the wheel, it lost. She put on another and lost again. The third time, number 33 turned up. The croupier pushed 175 francs across to her with his rake. She gathered it up, and then, turning gaily to us, said:

"Let us go away quickly. I have never won so much money in my life."

And she dragged us from the Casino.

Whenever she went to Monte Carlo, she never failed to go and have tea at Rumpelmayer, the famous Viennese confectioner's, for, as I have already said, she adored pastry and sweets. The Rumpelmayer establishments at Mentone, Nice and Monte Carlo were well aware of the identity of their regular customer; but she had asked them not to betray her _incognito_. When there were many people in the shop, she would sit down at a little table near the counter; and nobody would have suspected that the simple, comely lady in black, who talked so familiarly with the girls in the pay-box and at the counter, was the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary.

3.

The Emperor joined the Empress on three occasions during her visits to Cap Martin. The event naturally created a diversion in the monotony of our sojourn. Though travelling _incognito_ as Count Hohenembs, he was accompanied by a fairly numerous suite, whose presence brought a great animation into our little colony. I had, of course, to redouble my measures of protection and to send to Paris for an additional force of detective-inspectors.

Francis Joseph generally spent a fortnight with his consort. I thus had the opportunity of observing the touching affection which they displayed to each other, in spite of the gossip of which certain sections of the press have made themselves the complacent echo. Nothing could be simpler or more charming than their meetings. As soon as the train stopped at Mentone station, where the Empress went to wait its arrival, accompanied by the members of her suite, the Austrian Consul, the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, the Mayor of Mentone and myself, the Emperor sprang lightly to the platform and hastened, bare-headed, to the Empress, whom he kissed on both cheeks. His expressive face, framed in white whiskers, lit up with a kindly smile. He tucked the Empress's arm under his own, and, with an exquisite courtesy, addressed a few gracious words to each of us individually.

During the Emperor's stay, the Empress emerged for a little while from her state of timid isolation. They walked or drove together and received visits from the princes staying on the Côte d'Azur or passing through, notably the Prince of Wales, the Archduke Regnier, the Tsarevitch, the Prince of Monaco, the King and Queen of Saxony and the Grand-duke Michael. Sometimes, they would call on the late Queen of England, at that time installed at Cimiez, or on the Empress Eugénie, their near neighbour. It was like a miniature copy of the Court of Vienna, transferred to Cap Martin.

Francis Joseph, faithful to his habits, rose at five o'clock in the morning and worked with his secretaries. At half-past six, he stopped to take a cup of coffee and then closeted himself once more in his study until ten. The wires were kept working almost incessantly between Cap Martin and Vienna; as many as eighty telegrams have been known to be dispatched and received in the space of a single morning. From ten to twelve, the Emperor strolled in the gardens with the Empress.

Francis Joseph often had General Gebhardt, the Governor of Nice, to dinner and generally took a keen interest in military affairs. When he went to Mentone to return the visit which President Faure had paid him at Cap Martin, the French Government sent a regiment of cuirassiers from Lyons to salute him. The Emperor, struck by the men's fine bearing, reviewed them and watched them march past.

It also occurred to me, during his stay in the south in the spring of 1896, to obtain an opportunity for His Imperial Majesty to witness a sham fight planned by the 87th battalion of Alpine Chasseurs on the height of Roquebrune. The manoeuvres opened one morning at dawn in the marvellous circle of hills covered with olive-trees and topped by the snowy summits of the Alps. For two hours, the Emperor followed the incidents of the fight with close attention, not forgetting to congratulate the officers warmly at the finish.

On the next day, he invited the officer in command of the battalion, now General Baugillot, to luncheon. The major was a gallant soldier, who was more accustomed to the language of the camp than to that of courts, and he persisted in addressing the Emperor as "Sire" and "Monsieur" by turns. Francis Joseph smiled, with great amusement. At last, not knowing what to do, the major cried:

"I beg everybody's pardon! I am more used to mess-rooms than drawing-rooms!"

The Emperor at once replied:

"Call me whatever you please. I much prefer a soldier to a courtier."

Cap Martin and Aix were not the only places visited by the Empress of Austria. In the autumn of 1896 she was anxious to see Biarritz; she returned there in the following year and I again had the honour of accompanying her. The inclemency of the weather shortened the stay which she had at first intended to make; and yet the rough and picturesque poetry of the Basque coast had an undoubted attraction for her. She spent her days, sometimes, on the steepest points of the rocks, from which she would watch the tide for hours, often returning soaked through with spray; at other times, she would roam about the wild country that stretches to the foot of the Pyrenees, talking to the Basque peasants and interesting herself in their work.

She had a mania for buying a cow in every district which she visited for the first time. She chose it herself in the course of her walks and had it sent to one of her farms in Hungary. As soon as she saw a cow the colour of whose coat pleased her, she would accost the peasant, ask the animal's price and tell him to take it to her hotel.

One day, near Biarritz, she saw a magnificent black cow, bought it then and there, gave her name of Countess Hohenembs to its owner and sent him to the hotel with her purchase. When he arrived, however, and asked for Countess Hohenembs, the porter, who had not been prepared, took him for a madman and tried to send him away. The peasant insisted, explained what had happened and ended by learning that Countess Hohenembs was no other than the Empress of Austria. An empress? But then he had been cheated! And he began to lament and shout and protest and lose his temper:

"If I had known it was a queen," he yelled, "I'd have asked more money! I must have a bigger price!"

The discussion lasted for two hours and I had to be called to put a stop to it.

This was not the only amusing adventure that occurred during the Empress's stay at Biarritz. One day, returning from an excursion to Fuentarabia, she stood waiting for a train on the platform of the little frontier station at Hendaye. The reader, who was with her, had gone to ask a question of the station-master. The conversation seemed never-ending and the train arrived. The Empress, losing patience, called a porter:

"You see that gentleman in black?" she said. "Go and tell him to hurry, or the train will leave without us."

The porter ran up to the reader and exclaimed:

"Hurry up, or your wife will go without you!"

The Empress, who rarely laughed, was greatly amused at this incident.

The strange form of neurasthenia from which she suffered, instead of decreasing with time, seemed to become more persistent and more painful as the years went on; and it ended by gradually impairing her health. Not that the Empress had a definite illness--she simply felt an infinite lassitude, a perpetual weariness, against which she tried to struggle, with an uncommon display of energy, by pursuing her active life in spite of it, her wandering life and her long daily walks.

She hated medicine and believed that a sound and simple plan of hygiene was far preferable to any number of doctors' prescriptions. One day, however, seeing her more tired than usual, I begged her permission to present her with a few bottles of Vin Mariani, of the restorative virtues of which I had had personal experience.

"If it gives you any satisfaction," she replied, with a smile, "I accept. But you must let me, in return, send you some of our famous Tokay, which is also a restorative and, moreover, very pleasant to take."

A little while after, Count von Wolkenstein-Trosburg handed me, on behalf of the Empress, a beautiful liqueur-case containing six little bottles of Tokay; and I was talking of drinking it after my meals, like an ordinary dessert-wine, when the count said:

"Do you know that this is a very costly gift? The wine comes direct from the Emperor's estates. To give you an idea of what it is worth, I may tell you that, recently, at a sale in Frankfort, six little bottles fetched eleven thousand francs.... It stands quite alone."

I at once ceased to treat it as a common Madeira. The proprietor of the hotel, hearing of the present which I had received, offered me five thousand francs for the six bottles. I need hardly say that I refused.... I have four bottles left and am keeping them.

Towards the end of the same year, 1897, when she was staying for the second time at Biarritz, the Empress, feeling more restless and melancholy than ever, resolved to make a cruise in the Mediterranean on board her yacht _Miramar_. But she wished first to spend a few days in Paris.

She had engaged a suite of rooms at an hotel in the Rue Castiglione and naturally wanted to preserve the strictest _incognito_. Still, it was known that she was in Paris; and the protection with which I surrounded her was even more rigorous than before. She was out of doors from morning till evening, went through the streets on foot to visit the churches, monuments and museums and at four o'clock called regularly at a dairy in the Rue de Surène, where she was served with a glass of ass's milk, her favourite beverage, after which she returned to the hotel.

One day, however, we had a great alarm; at seven o'clock she was not yet back. I anxiously sent to her sisters, the Queen of Naples and the Countess of Trani, to whom she occasionally paid surprise visits. She was not there. To crown all, she had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the inspector who was charged to follow her at a certain distance. We had lost the Empress in the midst of Paris! Picture our mortal anxiety!

I was about to set out myself in search of her, when suddenly we saw her very calmly appearing.

"I have been gazing at Notre Dame by moonlight," she said. "It was lovely. And I came back on foot along the quays. I went among the crowd and nobody took the least notice of me."