Part 7

"Hoping in the circumstances to be of some use to you, I beg Your Majesty to accept the expression of my most profound respect.

"R. G."

Let us pass to the children. Less unreasonable than their parents, they content themselves with asking for postage-stamps, bicycles or autographs.

First comes a public schoolboy, quite proud of incidentally showing that he knows his classics:

"_Sire_,--

"When you first set foot on French soil, you were pleased to take notice, at Maubeuge railway-station, of a young public schoolboy, who, not knowing your quality, was only able to give you a very respectful greeting. That young schoolboy was myself.

"I realised the extent of the signal honour which Your Majesty did me when I learnt that I had received it from the sovereign of Persia, the country of Xerxes and Darius, the land whose children have filled the world with the fame of their exploits. And, descending the course of the ages, reverting to the lessons of my masters, I hailed in you 'the wise and enlightened monarch whose reign opens out so many hopes.'

"Sire, I shall never forget that moment, which will probably be the only one of its kind in my life; but, if I were permitted to express a desire, I would humbly confess to Your Majesty that my greatest happiness would be to possess a collection of Persian postage-stamps, as an official token of the honour which you condescended to do me.

"Deign, Sire, etc.

"R. W.

"_Pupil at The Lycée Faidherbe, Lille_ "(on my holidays)."

The next has not yet learnt the beauties of literary style; he has less notions of form; but his ambition is more far-reaching:

"_Your Majesty_,--

"I begin by begging your pardon for my presumption; but I have heard everybody say and I read in the paper that Your Majesty is greatly interested in motor-cars. I therefore thought that you must also have ridden the bicycle, which you now, no doubt, care less for; and it occurred to me that, if you happened to have an old one put by, Your Majesty might do me the honour to give it to me.

"Papa and my big brother Jean go out riding on their bicycles and I am left at home with mamma, because I have not a machine and they cannot afford to buy me one.

"I should be so proud to have a bicycle, given me by Your Majesty.

"I shall not tell papa that I am writing to Your Majesty, because he would laugh at me, and I shall take three sous from my purse for the stamp on this letter.

"I pray God not to let those wicked anarchists attack Your Majesty, to whom I offer my profound respect.

"MAURICE LELANDAIS,

"_aged 9½ years_,

"living with his family, _Faubourg Bizienne_,

"GUÉRANDE (_Loire-Inférieure_)."

Another schoolboy:

"VERVIERS, 3 September.

"_Great King of Persia in France, Sir_,--

"I have read in the paper that you are very rich and have lots of gold.

"My father promised to give me a gold watch for my first communion next year, if I worked hard at school.

"I did study, Sir, for I was second and the first is thirteen years old and I am only eleven and a half. To prove it to you, here is my prize-list. Now, when I ask if I shall have my watch, my father answers that he has no money and he wants it all for bread. It is not right, Sir, to deceive me like that. But I hope that you will give me what they refuse. Do me that great pleasure. I will pray for you.

"I love you very much.

"M. J."

Here is an artless request from a little English girl:

"_Your Majesty_,--

"I hear you are taking a holiday in Paris and I think that this must be the best time to write to you, for you will not be so busy as in your own kingdom.

"First of all, I want to tell you that I am an English girl, fourteen years of age, and my name is Mary. I love collecting autographs and so far I have been very lucky and have got some of celebrities, but I have none of a King, except Menelik, who is a black majesty.

"Now I should ever so much like to have a few lines in your handwriting.

"Do be so very kind as to write to me.

"MARY ST. J."

To conclude with, here are a few lively letters from ladies dark and fair:

"PARIS, 27 July.

"_Sir_,--

"I won the last beauty-prize at Marienbad and I am simply dying to make your acquaintance.

"In this hope, I have the honour to greet you.

"FERNANDE DE B."

"MARSEILLES, 1 August.

"_Sire_,--

"It is a pleasure to me to write to you. From my childhood's days, I have admired Persia, that beautiful country, so dear to my heart. Since I have heard you mentioned, I love you, Sire; I should like to be at your service. I do not know the Persian language, but, if you adopt me, I shall know it in a few days and you shall be my master.

"Receive, Sire, my sincere greetings.

"MIREILLE----.

"P. S.--Please reply. I will start for Paris at once."

"PARIS, 29 July.

"_To Monsieur Muzaffr-ed-Din._

"_Monsieur Le Chah_,--

"Forgive me for taking the liberty of writing to you. I had the pleasure of seeing you yesterday in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and of receiving a wave of the hand from you and a most gracious smile.

"How I should love to make your acquaintance and to have the pleasure of pressing your hand!

"You may be certain of my entire discretion. You can, if you do not mind, appoint whatever time and place you please.

"I should be very happy to see you; and I may venture to add that I am a very handsome woman.

"Believe me, "Monsieur le Chah, "Yours most cordially, "MADAME MARGUERITE L.

"P. S.--I beg you to destroy this letter."

"_To His Majesty, Muzaffr-ed-Din_,--

"We should be greatly honoured if you would do us the honour to come and spend a few days in the principality of Monaco.

"A group of ladies: "BLANCHE. "JEANNE. "ADÈLE."

5.

All these efforts of the imagination, all these prodigies of ingenuity, all these amorous suggestions were wasted. As I have said, the Shah took no notice whatever of the six hundred and odd begging letters of different kinds addressed to him during his visits to France. Pleasure-loving and capricious, careful of his own peace of mind, he dreaded and avoided emotions. Nevertheless, he was not insensible to pity nor indifferent to the charms of the fair sex. At certain times, he was capable of sudden movements of magnificent generosity: he would readily give a diamond to some humble workwoman whom he met on his way; he would of his own accord hand a bank-note to a beggar; he freely distributed Persian gold-pieces stamped with his effigy.

He would also fall a victim to sudden erotic fancies that sometimes caused me moments of cruel embarrassment. I remember that, one afternoon, when we were driving in the Bois de Boulogne, near the lakes, Muzaffr-ed-Din noticed a view which he admired, ordered the carriages to stop and expressed a desire himself to take some snapshots of the charming spot. We at once alighted. A little further, a group of smart ladies sat chatting gaily without taking the smallest heed of our presence. The Shah, seeing them, asked me to beg them to come closer so that he might photograph them. Although I did not know them, I went upand spoke to them and, with every excuse, explained the sovereign's whim to them. Greatly amused, they yielded to it with a good grace. The Shah took the photograph, smiled to the ladies and, when the operation was over, called me to him again:

"Paoli," he said, "they are very pretty, very nice; go and ask them if they would like to come back with me to Teheran."

Imagine my face! I had to employ all the resources of my eloquence to make the King of Kings understand that you cannot take a woman to Teheran, as you would a piano; a cinematograph or a motor-car, and that you cannot say of her, as of an article in a shop, "_Je prends_."

I doubt whether he really grasped the force of my arguments, for, some time after, when we were at the Opera in the box of the President of the Republic, we perceived with dismay that His Persian Majesty, instead of watching the performance on the stage--consisting of that exquisite ballet _Coppélia_, with some of our prettiest dancers taking part in it--kept his opera-glass obstinately fixed on a member of the audience in the back row of the fourth tier, giving signs of manifest excitement as he did so. I was beginning to wonder with anxiety whether he had caught sight of some "suspicious face," when the court minister, in whose ear he had whispered a few words, came over to me and said, with an air of embarrassment:

"His Majesty feels a profound admiration for a lady up there. Do you see? The fourth seat from the right. His Majesty would be obliged to you if you would enable him to make her acquaintance. You can tell her, if you like, as an inducement, that my sovereign will invite her to go back with him to Teheran."

"Again!"

Although this sort of errand did not fall within the scope of my instructions, I regarded the worthy Oriental's idea as so comical that I asked one of my detectives who, dressed to the nines, was keeping guard outside the presidential box, whether he would care to go upstairs and, if possible, convey the flattering invitation to the object of the imperial flame. My Don Juan by proxy assented and set out on his mission.

The Shah's impatience increased from moment to moment. The last act had begun when I saw my inspector return alone and looking very sheepish:

"Well," I asked, "what did she say?"

"She boxed my ears."

The sovereign, when the grand vizier conveyed this grievous news to him, knitted his bushy eyebrows, declared that he was tired, and ordered his carriage.

My duty as a conscientious historian obliges me, however, to mention the fact that Muzaffr-ed-Din did not always meet with such piteous rebuffs in the field of gallantry upon which he gladly ventured. He kept up a very fond and regular flirtation in Paris with a French favourite, a charming and exceedingly beautiful person, who had been seduced by the bejewelled opulence of the King of Kings. She had rooms in the monarch's hotel each time he came to France; and they retained a sort of affection for each other notwithstanding the mutual disappointment which they had experienced: she, because she thought that he was generous; he, because he hoped that she was disinterested. That she was anxious to turn a great man's friendship to account can, strictly speaking, be imagined; on the other hand, it is incomprehensible that the Shah, who was so easily moved to generosity towards the first comer, should display a sordid avarice towards the woman whom he himself had selected from among so many. Perhaps he was ingenuous enough to wish to be loved for his own sake. At any rate, this continual misunderstanding led to intensely funny scenes. The young woman, exasperated by obtaining nothing but promises each time she expressed the desire to possess a pearl necklace or a diamond ring, ended by resorting to heroic methods: she locked her door when the Shah announced his coming. The King of Kings stamped, threatened, implored.

"My diamonds first! My pearls first!" she replied, from behind the locked door.

In vain he offered the worn-out journey to Teheran: it was no good. Then, resigning himself, he sent for the necklace or the ring. In this way, she collected a very handsome set of jewellery.

Although, as I have said, her rooms were next to his own, Muzaffr-ed-Din saw comparatively little of her; he had not the time; his days were too full of engagements. Rising very early in the morning, he devoted long hours to his toilet, to his prayers and to his political conversations with the grand vizier. He worked as little as possible, but saw many people; he liked giving audiences to doctors and purveyors. He always had his meals alone, in accordance with Persian etiquette, and was served at one time with European dishes, which were better suited to his impaired digestive organs, and at another with Persian fare, consisting of slices of Ispahan melon, with white and flavoursome flesh; of the national dish called _pilaf tiobab_, in which meat cut up and mixed with delicate spices lay spread on a bed of rice just scalded, underdone and crisp; of hard-boiled eggs and young marrows; or else of _stilo_ grill, represented by scallops of mutton soaked in aromatic vinegar and cooked over a slow fire of pinewood embers; lastly, of aubergine fritters, of which he was very fond. I am bound, for that matter, to say that Persian cooking, which I had many opportunities of tasting, is delicious and that the dishes which I have named would have done honour to any Parisian bill of fare.

After rising from table, Muzaffr-ed-Din generally devoted an hour to taking a nap, after which we went out either for a drive round the Bois or to go and see the shops or the Paris sights. To tell the truth, we hardly ever knew beforehand what the sovereign's plans were. He seemed to take a mischievous delight in altering the afternoon programme and route which I had worked out with his approval in the morning. Thanks to his whims, I lived in a constant state of alarm.

"I want to see some museums to-day," he would say at eleven o'clock. "We will start at two."

I at once informed the minister of fine-arts, who told off his officials to receive him; I telephoned to the military governor of Paris to send an escort.

At three o'clock, we were still waiting. At last, just about four, he appeared, with a look of indifference and care on his face, and told me that he would much prefer to go for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne.

One day, after he had spent the morning in listening to a chapter of the life of Napoleon I, he beckoned to me on his way to lunch.

"M. Paoli," he said, "I want to go to the Château de Fontainebleau to-day."

"Well, Sir, you see."

"Quick, quick!"

There was no arguing the matter. I rushed to the telephone, warned the panic-stricken P. L. M. Co., that we must have a special train at all costs and informed the keeper of the palace and the dumb-foundered sub-prefect of our imminent arrival at Fontainebleau.

When the Shah, still under the influence of his morning's course of reading, stepped from the carriage, two hours later, before the gate of the palace, he was seized with a strange freak: he demanded that the dragoons who had formed his escort from the station should dismount and enter the famous Cour des Adieux after him. Next he made them fall into line in the middle of the great quadrangle, leant against the steps, looked at them long and fondly, muttered a few sentences in Persian and then disappeared inside the palace.

Greatly alarmed, we thought at first that he had gone mad; at last we understood: he had been enacting the scene in which the emperor takes leave of his grenadiers. It may have been very flattering for the dragoons; I doubt if it was quite so flattering for Napoleon.

His visit to the Louvre Museum will also linger in my memory among the amusing episodes of his stay in Paris. M. Leyques, who was at that time Minister of Fine Arts and in this capacity did the honours of the museum to the Shah, had resolved carefully to avoid showing our guest the Persian room, fearing lest the King of Kings, who perhaps did not grasp the importance of the priceless collection which Mme. Dieulafoy and M. Morgan had brought back with them, should show a keen vexation at finding himself in the presence of jewels and mosaics which he might have preferred to see in his own country.

The minister, therefore, conducted him through the picture and sculpture-galleries, trying to befog his mind and tire his legs, so that he might declare his curiosity satisfied as soon as possible.

Lo and behold, however, the Shah suddenly said:

"Take me to the Persian room!"

There was no evading the command. M. Leyques, obviously worried, whispered an order to the chief attendant and suggested to the Shah that he should take a short rest before continuing his inspection. The Shah agreed.

Meantime, in the Persian room, keepers and attendants hurriedly cleared away the more valuable ornaments and mosaics, so that Muzaffr-ed-Din should not feel any too cruel regrets; and at last the King of Kings, far from revealing any disappointment, declared himself delighted to find in Paris so well-arranged a collection of curious remains of ancient Persian architecture and art. And he added, slily:

"When I have a museum at Teheran, I shall see that we have a French room."

For that matter, he was often capable of administering a sort of snub when we thought that we were providing him with a surprise. For instance, one day, when, with a certain self-conceit, I showed him our three camels in the Jardin d' Acclimatation:

"I own nine thousand!" he replied, with a scornful smile.

Our Zoological gardens did not interest him; he only really enjoyed himself there twice to my knowledge. The first time was when, at his own request, he was allowed to witness the repugnant sight of a boa-constrictor devouring a live rabbit. This produced, the next morning, the following letter from "a working milliner," which I print "with all faults:"

"_Monsieur le Chah_,--

"You have been to the Jardin d' Aclimatation (_sic_) and watched the boa-constrictor eating a live rabbit. This was very interesting, so you said. Ugh! How could the King of Kings, an excellency, a majesty, find pleasure in the awful torments of that poor rabbit? I hate people who like going to bull-fights. Cruelty and cowardice go hand in hand. Are you one of the company, monsieur le Chah?"

The second time that he seemed to amuse himself was on the occasion of a wedding-dance that was being held in a room next to that in which he had stopped to take tea. On hearing the music, he suddenly rose and opened the door leading to the ball-room. The appearance of the devil in person would not have produced a greater confusion than that of this potentate wearing his tall astrakhan cap and covered with diamonds. But he, without the least uneasiness, went the round of the couples, shook hands with the bride and bridegroom, gave them pieces of Persian gold money and made his excuses to the bride for not having a necklace about him to offer her. I was waiting for him to invite her to accompany him to Teheran; the husband's presence no doubt frightened him.

He seldom left his rooms at night. Sometimes he went to circus performances or an extravaganza or musical play; he preferred, however, to devote his evenings to more domestic enjoyments; he loved the pleasures of home life: sometimes, he played with his little sons, "the little Shahs," as they were called, nice little boys of seven to thirteen; at other times, he indulged in his favourite games, chess and billiards. He played with his grand vizier, his minister of the ceremonies or myself. The stakes were generally twenty francs, sometimes a hundred. We did our best to lose, for, if we had the bad luck to win, he would show his ill-temper by suddenly throwing up the game and retiring into a corner, where his servants lit his great Persian pipe for him, the _kaljan_, a sort of Turkish narghileh, filled with a scented tobacco called _tombeki_. Often, also, to console himself for his mortification at billiards, he called for music. I then heard songs behind the closed hangings, harsh, strange and also very sweet songs, accompanied on the piano or the violin; it was a sort of evocation of the East in a modern frame; and the contrast, I must say, was rather pleasing.

6.

The Shah and I grew accustomed to each other, little by little, and became the best of friends. He refused to go anywhere without me; I took part in the drives, in the games at billiards, in the concerts, in all the journeys. We went to Vichy, to Vittel, to Contrexéville. It was here, at Contrexéville, where he had come for the cure, that I saw him for the last time. His eccentricities, his whims and his diamonds, had produced the usual effect on the peaceful population of the town.

A few days after his arrival, hearing that H. I. H. the grand-duchess Vladimir of Russia had taken up her quarters at an hotel near his own, he hastened to call and pay his respects and departed from his habits to the length of inviting her to luncheon.

On the appointed day, the grand-duchess, alighting from her carriage before the residence of her host, found the Shah waiting for her on the threshold in a grey frock-coat with a rose in his buttonhole. He ceremoniously led her by the hand to the dining-room, making her walk through his rooms, the floors of which he had had covered with the wonderful kachan carpets that accompanied him on all his journeys. The princess, charmed with these delicate attentions on the great man's part, was beginning to congratulate herself on the pleasant surprise which Persian civilisation caused her when--we had hardly sat down to table--a chamberlain went up to the King of Kings, bowed low and handed him a gold salver on which lay a queer-looking and at first indescribable object. The Shah, without blinking, carelessly put out his hand, took the thing between his fingers and, with an easy and familiar movement, inserted it in his jaw: it was a set of false teeth. Imagine the consternation!

But it was worse still when, about the middle of the meal, the sovereign, suddenly interrupting his conversation with Her Imperial Highness, rose without a word, disappeared and returned in five minutes to resume his place with a smile, after the court minister had taken care to announce aloud that "His Majesty had had to leave the room."

The grand-duchess, as may be imagined, retained an unforgettable memory of this lunch, the more so as the Shah, perhaps in order to wipe out any unpleasant impression that might linger in her mind, did a very gallant thing; the next day, the Princess Vladimir received a bale of Persian carpets of inestimable value, accompanied by a letter from the grand vizier begging her, in the name of his sovereign, to accept this present, His Majesty having declared that he would not allow other feet to tread carpets on which Her Imperial Highness's had rested.

I, less fortunate than the grand-duchess, never, alas, succeeded in obtaining possession of the one and only carpet which Muzaffr-ed-Din had deigned--quite spontaneously--to offer me.

"My ministers will see that you get it," he said.

When the day for his departure for Persia drew near, I thought that it would be wise to ask the court minister for my carpet in my most respectful manner.

"Oh," he replied, "does it belong to you? The only thing is that it has been packed up, by mistake, with the others. If you want it, they can give it to you in the train."

As I was to accompany our guest as far as the German frontier, I waited until we had left Vichy and discreetly repeated my request at the first stop.

"Certainly," said the minister, "you shall have it at the next station."

I was beginning to feel uneasy. At the following stopping-place, there was no sign of a carpet. We were approaching the frontier, where my mission ended. I, therefore, resolved to apply to the minister of public-works.

"Your excellency."

"Your carpet?" he broke in. "Quite right, my dear M. Paoli. The orders have been given and you shall have it when you leave us at the other station."

But here again, alas, nothing! And, as I complained to a third excellency of this strange piece of neglect:

"It's an omission. Come with us as far as Strassburg, where you will receive satisfaction."