Courtesy of Collier’sNicholas II and the Heir of Russia
Courtesy of Collier’sNicholas II and the Heir of Russia
Courtesy of Collier’s
Nicholas II and the Heir of Russia
wielded by the motionless figure beneath the gay pavilion. Nobody rejoiced more than I did when the Emperor published the Manifesto of April, 1905, granting his subjects religious liberty, and I realised that the stupendous claim which had made me shudder when I thought of it, as I watched the sumptuous Twelfth Day ceremony from the windows of the Winter Palace, had been renounced for ever. In point of fact, Nicholas II. had no desire to maintain it, and he renounced it as soon as an appropriate occasion arose.
After the picturesque ceremony which had stirred these thoughts had ended and the Archbishop had dipped a golden cross in the water running below the ice of the river, the holy water was brought into the palace to the Empress, and the Emperor joined us. He gave me a characteristically Russian welcome. His manner was engagingly simple and unaffected. The contrast between him and the German Emperor was extraordinary. The Kaiser, a constitutional monarch, whose power is strictly limited, shows by his bearing and his manner, as I have indicated in another chapter, that he holds the divine right of kings to be a cardinal article of faith.When one is with the Tsar it requires a certain effort of the imagination to remember that he possesses autocratic power over the lives of 160,000,000 human beings. The Russians are the most hospitable people in the world, and the Emperor and Empress are not excelled by any of their subjects in kindness and generosity to guests. They both insisted that, so long as I remained in Petersburg, I must be with them as much as possible, and, in point of fact, although I slept at the hotel, I was constantly at the Winter Palace, and had my part in the intimate family life of the Imperial family.
When a man likes nothing better than to remain at home with his wife, it is a sure sign that he is very much in love with her. Judged by that test, there is no happier couple in Europe than the Emperor and Empress of Russia. They are never more contented than when together, and it was obvious to me that the Tsar simply adores his wife. It would be strange if he did not, for there is not a gentler or sweeter woman in the world than the beautiful Tsaritsa. And both of them are devoted to their children. They used to make me come with them sometimes to the nursery, where the littleGrand Duchesses used to welcome us with shrieks of delight. What games there were! People who think of the Tsar as a frowning despot would have been astonished to see a vigorous pillow-fight going on between him and his children. And away from the formalities of the Court, closeted with her children, the Tsaritsa was always radiant and happy. Under the spell of their prattle and of their caresses she was transformed. The smiling mother seemed a different woman to the beautiful but grave lady seen by the public in the ceremonies of the Court.
“Do try and get the Empress to smile, Eulalia,” said one of the Grand Duchesses to me at some Court function.
But that was sooner said than done. There is not a trace of artificiality in the Empress’s character. She seemed unable to pretend she was enjoying herself, when, in point of fact, she was fatigued and bored. Moving as the central figure of a splendid pageant, I think she was always wishing the ceremony to be at an end and to find herself free to be with her children again.
The tastes of the Emperor are as simple as those of the Empress and in curious contrast to those ofmost of the Imperial family. Neither of them likes the late supper-parties in which the majority of their relations indulge. Early to bed and early to rise is my motto, and supper-parties, hardly finished at two o’clock in the morning, bored me unutterably. When I went to the opera with the Emperor and Empress, we used to take time by the forelock and sup in the secondentr’acte, in order to be able to go straight to bed when we got home. The ballets given at the Marinsky Theatre were exceedingly beautiful, and the Empress followed the movements of the dancers with evident enjoyment from the stage-box. Behind the box is a charming room, and there it was that supper used to be served.
“Here is your high tea, Eulalia,” the Empress would say merrily, and then we sat down to a square meal of cold meat and countless cups of tea, to which I used to do ample justice, as I did not dine before going to the theatre.
His love of simplicity does not, however, prevent the Emperor from enjoying Society. Like most Russians, he is fond of it, and his animation and vivacity at Court balls were delightful and, moreover, genuine. I liked to watch him dance the mazurka, that rushing, almost violent, dance that they say only a Slav can dance to perfection. It was so obvious that he enjoyed it. When supper was served we went to a long table on a dais, set at one end of a great hall, and I discovered that the Russian Court has a very charming custom which does not obtain elsewhere. The Emperor and Empress took their places, facing the general company, with their Royal guests and other members of the Imperial family to right and to left of them; but we had hardly been a minute at table before the Emperor rose and went to one of the tables below the dais, where he sat down and chatted with the people supping at it. After talking for five minutes, he went to another table to greet other guests, and then passed from group to group, sitting down at each table for a few minutes. And, with the Russian instinct of hospitality, the Emperor played the part of host so well that the conversation became more animated at each table he visited. The presence of some sovereigns, too careful of preserving the distance between themselves and persons who are not of the blood royal, sometimes casts a gloom on their guests.
Perhaps the Emperor’s obvious enjoyment of a ball was due to the fact that it is but seldom he can allow himself relaxation. There is not a busier man in the world. I once remarked to him that I find it impossible to get through the work of the day unless I follow a definite rule, and I asked him how he divided up his time.
“I get up early,” he answered, “and after a light breakfast I work until eleven. Then I take a walk and come back for luncheon at half-past twelve. After that comes the task of giving audiences to ministers and others, and, when work allows it, I take a drive before tea in order to get some fresh air. Immediately after tea I am busy again with my secretaries, and work with them lasts until dinner-time.”
“A strenuous day,” I said.
“But that is not the end of it,” he answered, smiling. “I am very often obliged to go back to work straight from the dinner-table, and sometimes it is not finished until far on into the night.”
The Emperor’s devotion to duty is in striking contrast to the almost traditional love of pleasure displayed by the Grand Dukes. A foreigner mighteasily be led to suppose that the House of Romanoff is at heart in sympathy with democratic ideas. The lack of formality at Court, the marriages between Grand Dukes and commoners, the presence of unlettered peasants at certain of the ceremonies of the Winter Palace, the share taken by some of the members of the Imperial family in amusements accessible to anybody who has money in his pocket, their supper parties in restaurants and their enjoyment of thecafé concertsof the capital—all these things might deceive the stranger. To know the Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses is to realise that they neither understand the aspirations of the democracy nor sympathise with them, for, reflecting the glory of Autocracy they are more firmly convinced than any other Royal persons in Europe that a gulf divides them from the rest of mankind. And this conviction is so deep that they appear to believe that the most ordinary actions are ennobled by the mere fact that they are performed by persons in whose veins flows the Imperial blood.
The life led by most of them would be unbearable to me. A perpetual round of amusements becomes in the end as wearisome as the treadmill.How people who are not in the first flush of youth can day after day sit up until two o’clock in the morning, as too many of them do, eating unnecessary suppers and drinking champagne, I can not understand. High tea with the Emperor and Empress pleased me better than late suppers with the Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses. Indeed, when I yielded to persuasion and went out with them for an evening’s amusement my sleepiness used to divert them immensely.
“Eulalia, you’re yawning,” they would say.
“It is two hours past my bedtime,” I would answer.
And then we laughed, and it was probably the Grand Duke Alexis who would suggest that we should all drive out to the Islands and have another supper at acafé concert. Then I would strike and go home, scolding myself for sitting up so late and marvelling at the extraordinary vitality of the rest of the company, starting merrily on the long sledge drive to the Islands, where they would sit by the hour in a private room overlooking the little stage on which the unsuccessful artists of Paris danced and sang.
Perhaps it is because I am Spanish and not Russian that I failed to see the pleasure to be derived from spending the night in frivolity; for, in point of fact, there is nothing characteristically grand-ducal in this curious craze; it is simply Russian, and Moscow merchants will spend thousands of roubles in extravagant amusements between midnight and sunrise. The Grand Dukes are typical Russians. They have the virtues and the failings of the typical Russian, and—I am not sure whether it is a virtue or a failing—they are, like all the Russians I have ever met, exceedingly susceptible to feminine charms. To the Russian, love is everything, and in Russia women have more power to change men’s lives than in any other land.
To please the woman he loves a Russian will exile himself to a foreign country, will alter his habits, and change his manner of life completely. It is not, therefore, surprising that members of the House of Romanoff have deliberately incurred the anger of the Emperor and voluntarily left Russia to live abroad for the sake of the women they love. They make their homes in Paris or in the English countryside, and become the humble slaves of the wivesthey have chosen; while these ladies, although perhaps of humble origin, find themselves treated by Society, always anxious to gain the approval of princes, with hardly less reverence than princesses of the blood royal.
But if the majority of the members of the Imperial family love extravagant amusement, there is one notable exception to the rule. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth, widow of the Grand Duke Serge, who was assassinated by revolutionists, shares the simple tastes of her sister, the Empress, and detests the empty formality of Courts as much as I do. When we were girls we saw a great deal of each other at Windsor and in the Isle of Wight, and it was a great delight to me to talk over the old days when I visited her in her palace within the fantastic battlements of the Kremlin.
She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women in Europe, and her husband was extraordinarily handsome; indeed, their beauty and their bearing made them the most distinguished couple at the great gathering of Royal personages I met at Buckingham Palace when the Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated. After the terrible death of her husband, the Grand Duchess devoted herself to the education of the Grand Duke Paul’s motherless children, the Grand Duke Dmitri and the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, and, that task accomplished, she became a sister of charity. She has founded a convent in Moscow, where she follows a severe rule and devotes herself to hospital work and the care of the poor, realising that even a princess has no excuse to shirk the responsibilities of life and to lead a useless existence.
How is it that there is such a marked difference between the tastes of the Emperor and those of his uncles and cousins? The answer is not difficult to find. The Emperor’s love of simplicity comes from his mother, the Empress Marie, who, now that she can indulge her own tastes, lives the greater part of the year with Queen Alexandra in a small villa on the Danish coast. When I visited them there I found that they were living as simply as private persons who know nothing of the life of Courts.
But, while recognising the influence of his mother in the formation of the Emperor’s character, I like to think that something of the spirit of Peter the Great has been conserved in the Imperial family,and that the love of work, the courage, and the simplicity displaced by Nicholas II. are in some measure gifts from his great ancestor. One afternoon I drove out to the Islands in a troika, a sledge that might have come from Fairyland, covered with glistening trappings and luxurious furs and drawn by three horses abreast, and, on my way, I stopped to visit the little house in which Peter the Great lived when he was building his new capital. It is a tiny cottage, a mere hut, with two rooms. Nothing could be simpler or more unlike the vast Winter Palace. Yet I felt, as I left this humble abode, that the spirit of the man who was content to live in it still reigns in the splendid home of his descendant, the present Emperor.
I have alluded to the courage of Nicholas II., and it may surprise those who only know him by repute that I should emphasise this trait of his character. I myself had often heard that he was timorous and dreaded assassination. It was therefore a great surprise to me to find that he often walked from the palace to my hotel, with only a single aide-de-camp in attendance. Although his grandfather had been assassinated by revolutionists, he himself appearedto be absolutely fearless and to disregard the risk he ran by walking about Petersburg. If precautions are taken to protect him now, he permits them solely because he is convinced that his life is of value to his people. Russia is his one thought. During recent months he has proved this, too, by the way he has identified himself personally with the campaign in which his soldiers are engaged.
Those who do not know him often speak or write of him as cruel, tyrannical, caring for nothing but the conservation of the Imperial power and wealth. That is an absolutely false estimate of his character. One has only to look into his beautiful blue eyes to realise that he is neither harsh nor cruel and to understand his great tenderness. Indeed, it is his tenderness that distinguishes him from most of the sovereigns I know. His affection for his mother, his devotion to his wife and children, are the outcome of this quality, and its exercise is not confined to his domestic life. I have heard him speak on more than one occasion with the utmost feeling of persons who had been condemned to exile in Siberia. It was perfectly clear to me from the way in which he spoke of them that, had he followed the dictatesof his own heart, he would have cancelled the sentences and pardoned the offenders. I could see that the thought of their sufferings made him suffer himself, and that it was only a stern sense of duty that made him acquiesce in penalties he regretted.
The bulk of the Tsar’s subjects are peasants, and he very often spoke of their life and their customs. Indeed, he displayed the keenest interest in plans to better their condition and to raise their standard of culture. Sovereigns, I have noticed, carefully eschew any reference to questions which they and their ministers are unable to solve, and it is to me significant that neither the Tsar nor the Kaiser has ever spoken to me of the Polish question. The Tsar was, however, aware that the Bourbons and the great Polish family of Zamoyski are now connected—my cousin, Princess Caroline of Bourbon, married a Zamoyski—and he very delicately appointed a gentleman of that family to be in attendance on me during my stay in Petersburg. From intercourse with this gentleman and with other Poles I met in Russia I discovered that there is a profound difference between the Russian and the Polish character. There always remains something of the Asiatic inthe Russian, but the Pole belongs to the West. He has the Slav charm and the Latin culture. I know of nothing sadder than the tragedy of Poland. That splendid nation, which once saved Europe from the Turks, has been parcelled out between three Empires, but neither the iron will of the German Emperor nor the autocratic power of Nicholas II. has succeeded in killing the Polish spirit. Small wonder that both at Berlin and Petersburg the subject was not broached at Court. Since then the war has come. Will the end of it witness the resurrection of Poland as a nation?
The Emperor is perfectly well aware that my sympathies are with the democracy. But naturally I never attempted to force my ideas upon him. I am able to understand that a sovereign who wields absolute power and to whom the most powerful of his ministers is obliged to yield may be necessary for Russia at the present day. I am convinced that the world will be happier—princes and people alike—when democracy has triumphed, but I realise that in a country like Russia, the bulk of whose population is unlettered, it would be foolish, as well as dangerous, to introduce suddenly and without preparation methods which are successful in the West. Education, and education alone, can establish the victory of democracy.
From my home in the capital of a great people, in whose motto is enshrined a profound belief in the brotherhood of mankind and the essential equality of prince and peasant, I look out over Europe and see the decay of old institutions and the movements which are slowly but certainly reducing those monarchs who still retain power to the position of decorative figureheads. In Norway the process is already finished, and, although I confess that I was first surprised, I was immensely pleased to find, during a recent visit to King Haakon and Queen Maud, that they were simply the first among equals. I am firmly convinced that this will be the ultimate form of monarchy throughout Europe, but long years must pass before the Russian people have the culture and political knowledge which make a simple Norwegian the equal of his sovereign. Meanwhile, it is satisfactory to know that the man guiding the destinies of the Russian people possesses the fine qualities which distinguish Nicholas II.
Willdemocracy 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 reignhe 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 applythemselves 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,
King Albert of Belgium
King Albert of Belgium
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, asidle 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.
“I amso glad that I am queen of a country in which everybody loves simplicity.”
This was the testimony to the charm of Norway which Queen Maud gave me, when I saw her in her little home near Christiania in the autumn of 1913. She spoke with enthusiasm of her adopted country, and I was not in the least surprised, for Norway is undoubtedly the happiest and most progressive country in Europe. Indeed, if anybody wants to know what life will be like in the good time that is coming, when Capitalism will be dead and Democracy triumphant on both sides of the Atlantic, let him go to Norway and study its institutions and the life of its people.
“When I am at Lourdes,” said a devout Catholic, “I do not believe—I know.” And when I was in Norway I did not need to make an act of faith in democracy, as I must in Paris or New York or London; I saw for myself that a nation is happier when its life is based on democratic principles.
“How deadly dull!” said a fashionable woman to me, when I told her of the simplicity of life in Christiania. “Surely Your Royal Highness does not want to eliminate the colour and brilliancy of life!”
She had never realised that the glitter and magnificence of Society in great capitals can only exist against a background of misery and starvation. Norway is not a wealthy country and it does not afford capitalists opportunities for piling up fortunes. Nobody is very rich, and everybody appears to have a sufficiency. The cosmopolitan plutocrats, who corrupt the Society of Western Europe, would be wretched there, and, in point of fact, they avoid a country in which they are perfectly well aware they would be unable to display their wealth. And if the citizens of Christiania are deprived of the sight of millionaires darting about the town in illuminated motor-cars, with jewelled wives and daughters, they are compensated for the loss by the knowledge that, thanks to the equitable distribution of such wealth as the country possesses, crime androbbery are practically unknown. Education and common sense have broken down the barriers of pride of purse and pride of rank, which separate man and man in other countries, and the King himself is simply the first among equals.
When the Norwegian people determined that the industrial and commercial life of the country should no longer be hampered by Sweden, and declared their independence, they placed a king at the head of the State. They were clever enough to see that the country would have more prestige in the eyes of Europe as a monarchy than as a republic, and they were wise enough to give the king no power. Possibly they thought that a prince, who, if the expression be allowed me, is born to the business, would make a more effective figure-head than a commoner, and they may have considered that the peaceful succession of hereditary monarchs is less agitating to the nerves of the nation than recurring presidential elections. However this may be, their king is to them what their flag is: a symbol of national unity. Both are saluted with respect, but neither one nor the other is invested with power.
King Haakon’s fine figure and handsome face make him look the part he has to play. He is a man of great tact and kindliness, and has the simple tastes characteristic of the Danish Royal Family. To these advantages the King adds the supreme one of having a clever Queen, who helps him wisely and loyally in his work. Their son, little Prince Olaf, is utterly charming and, in spite of being an only child, not the least spoilt.
I had not seen Queen Maud in her kingdom until I went to Norway in the autumn of 1913, and I wondered whether her rise from the rank of mere “Royal Highness” to that of a “Majesty” would have altered or spoilt her. She was staying at a little château near Christiania when I arrived in the city, and she asked me to come out and have luncheon with her. When a royal carriage arrived at my hotel to take me to the country, and I noticed that the servants wore plain, dark liveries, instead of the regal scarlet, I began to feel that the charming Maud had not changed. Half an hour’s drive brought me to the château, and as the Queen welcomed me I felt ashamed of the suspicions I hadentertained, and realised that she remains the same simple and unaffected girl I used to know in England.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said, and as she spoke I heard in her voice and saw in her manner the charm she has inherited from her mother, Queen Alexandra.
The château is a small house of one story, standing in a public park. A plot of ground has been railed off round the house, so that the King and Queen may have a garden in which they can enjoy privacy. Not that they are annoyed, like most kings and queens, with demonstrative manifestations of loyalty. The Norwegians contrive to make life agreeable for the Royal Family by allowing them to go about the countryside or through the streets of the capital as freely as ordinary citizens. Queen Maud revels in her new liberty.
“I find it so nice to be able to go out shopping without any fuss,” she said, and told me that she could go into a shop in Christiania without anybody taking any notice of her, buy what she wanted, and leave with her parcels tucked under her arm to walk back to the palace.
I could understand her delight better than most people, for in Madrid I have experienced the misery of knowing that I can not get in or out of a carriage without attracting a small crowd. To find oneself perpetually a public show is beyond words exasperating.
Queen Maud’s Court consists of two ladies-in-waiting and a Grand Mistress, a suite which is no larger than that of the least important of the numerous Austrian archduchesses. And, moreover, these ladies do not make deferential curtsies to Her Majesty. The Queen shakes hands with them when she meets them, and treats them, not as glorified servants, but as friends. The point may appear trivial, but it is worth mentioning, for it shows with what tact a princess, accustomed to the etiquette and the splendour of the English Court, has adapted herself to the spirit of a democratic people.
“You were perfectly right,” she said to me, “in what you used to tell me about the happiness of simplicity.”
“Of course I was right,” I said, “and I do not believe you would care to go back to the old Court life.”
“I am much happier in this life,” she said, and then it was that she told me how glad she was to be Queen of a country in which everybody loves simplicity.
It was obvious to me that both the King and Queen adore the fascinating little Olaf; but I noticed that he has been very well brought up and is very obedient. He is being educated with Norwegian boys of his own age and leads a healthy out-of-door life.
“I want you to see Olaf driving the motor-car his grandmother has sent him,” said the Queen; and Queen Alexandra’s present, the tiniest and most dainty little car imaginable, was brought round to the door of the château. The little prince made a splendid chauffeur, and evidently thoroughly enjoyed rushing round the park in his car.
I left the château feeling that I had had a glimpse of ideal family life, and thoroughly convinced that the democratic Norwegian Court is the nicest in Europe.
I do not in the least mind confessing that when I advocate democratic principles I have the interests of the royal personages at heart as well as those oftheir peoples. There are plenty of princes and princesses, bound hand and foot by etiquette and galling restrictions, who, whatever their present views may be, will welcome the liberty democracy will bring them. Happy King Haakon and Queen Maud; although they are addressed as “Your Majesties,” they are allowed to live in a tiny red bungalow, up in the mountains at Holm Kelm, when winter comes, and there they and Prince Olaf dart about on skis, talking to everybody, making every one happy, happy themselves in being three Norwegian citizens.
And beyond the circle of the Court the constitution of Norwegian society is utterly different from that of society in the more powerful European countries. Both the law and society regard woman as in every respect the equal of man. Women have the same civic rights as men and use them. At the last parliamentary elections, in 1913, 75 per cent, of the women of the towns who had the right to vote used it; indeed the proportion of women who did their duty as citizens and recorded their votes was higher than that of men. All the higher professions are open to women, and at the present time the mostimportant of the professors at the university is a woman and the leading lawyer connected with the Supreme Tribunal is also a woman. The Norwegians refuse to tolerate cheap female labour; if a woman does the same work as a man she gets the same pay.
Society is equally just. It does not apply one standard of morals to man and another to woman. Both are judged by the same standard, and a girl does not lose her position in society for conduct which in other countries is blamed in a woman and condoned in a man. Some Norwegian couples prefer to contract free unions instead of legal marriages, and now that the influence of Lutheranism on the life of the country is practically dead, society does not look at such unions askance. Married and unmarried couples live in peace and associate freely. In a country where everybody works there is little time or opportunity for the development ofcrimes passionels, so if a couple find that they have made a mistake and that life in common is too difficult, they just part without quarrelling and build up their lives anew.
The happy relations existing between the men
King Haakon of Norway
King Haakon of Norway
King Haakon of Norway
and women of Norway are, I am convinced, largely due to the fact that they are educated together at school and in the university. The equality of male and female students at the university seems to be symbolised by the wearing of identical caps of the same gay colours. From childhood they grow up together and become good comrades, understanding each other thoroughly and withoutarrière pensée, having the same moral code and the same views of life. In most countries boys and girls are segregated apart and only allowed to meet under the supervision of their elders. The system is not a good one. Indeed, I have often thought that nothing gives a girl’s brain such a wrong twist as the false view given her at school about the companionship of men. Why perpetually dread man and see in him only the seducer? By doing so I believe we very often wake up in him instincts that might otherwise lie dormant.
The education the girls and boys receive together is an excellent one. Norwegians understand the importance of acquiring foreign languages, which they require in commerce and for dealing with the numerous foreign tourists who make their beautiful fiordsand mountains a holiday playground. Hence both English and German are taught in all the schools, and the instruction given is so good that the children actually learn to converse in these languages. More than once I was astonished to find that a cabman could answer me in English or German.
The Norwegians are a vigorous and hardy race. In their veins flows the blood of Vikings, and they are determined that the nation shall not deteriorate physically. With this end in view the law provides for the protection of the mother during her time of expectation and for her support and comfort during the six weeks following the birth of her child. Moreover, careful provision is made for the upbringing of children born outside wedlock, and neither father nor mother is allowed to shirk the responsibility of parentage.
The separation of Norway and Sweden was due to the desire of the Norwegians, whose merchant fleet is twice the size of the Swedish, to have their commercial interests abroad properly looked after by an independent consular service. This was the formal cause of separation, but undoubtedly the marked difference between the social organisation of the twocountries facilitated the unloosing of the bonds that held them together. Sweden still has an aristocracy, and the nobles who sit in the Upper House of the Swedish Parliament are able to check in some degree the advance of democracy. Yet in their love of simplicity the two nations are alike. This was made clear to me in rather an amusing way soon after my arrival in Stockholm during my autumn tour. I was going to the theatre with a friend, and when she arrived to fetch me I was getting into an evening gown.
“Is Your Royal Highness going to wear a low dress?” she said in a manner that made me feel I was doing something thoroughly unconventional.
“Oughtn’t I to?” I asked.
“We do not go in evening-dress to the theatre,” she said.
“Then what am I to wear?” I asked.
“Just a skirt and blouse,” she said.
And accordingly in a skirt and blouse I went. It was rather a pretty blouse—I confess that I love pretty things—and when I got into the theatre I felt just a trifle overdressed.
“What sensible people you Swedish women are!” I said to my friend, when I looked round the theatre and saw how simply the women were dressed. “You save hours and hours which women in London and Paris fritter away at their toilet-tables.”
In point of fact the Swedish woman has not usually either the time or money required to turn herself into a woman of fashion. And even if she had, she is too sensible to make her appearance the absorbing care of life. Careers which are closed to women in other lands are open to her, and she prefers to be independent and to earn her living. At the present time the Swedish women have not been granted electoral rights, but there can be no doubt that they will obtain the same right as men in the course of time. The Conservative party in the Upper House shrinks from yielding to the demands of the women, fearing that their votes will strengthen the Socialists in the Lower House. But the nobles are certain to do justice to women sooner or later, and at the present time there is only a majority of twelve in the Upper House against the granting of the suffrage to women.
As it is, that Upper House puts too strong a brake on the wheels of progress. At one Swedishrailway-station I saw a number of emigrants who were starting for America. They did not display the least sorrow at leaving their native land; on the contrary, they were bearing wreaths of flowers and singing joyfully, as if they were only too thankful to get away from Sweden. It was a sad and eloquent testimony to the evils that still mar the social structure of Sweden. Indeed, the stream of emigrants who cross the Atlantic to enrich the life of America with their work is so great and so constant that a Royal Commission has been endeavouring to find out its causes. In their report the Commissioners state that the principal cause of emigration is the failure of the Government to accelerate legislation for the improvement of the conditions of the working classes. In the circumstances, it is but natural that there should be a powerful Socialist party in the country. The Crown Prince is clever enough to see that this party is one which will increase in power with the lapse of time, but his efforts to establish friendly relations with its leaders have not been very well received. He talks good-humouredly and shakes hands with prominent Socialists, but the party appears to see in these little attentions nothing morethan a symptom of the future king’s fear of the rising power of the working classes.
The Court of Sweden is, however, characterised by Scandinavian simplicity, although this is naturally not so strongly marked as at the ideal Court of King Haakon and Queen Maud. The Queen of Sweden’s health is too bad to allow her to appear in public. Hence the principal figure at Court, apart from the King, is the Crown Princess, before her marriage Princess Margaret of Connaught, and she has contrived to give it just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St. James’s. I lunched with her when I was in Stockholm, and she told me how much she loves her Swedish life. Her marriage is a very happy one. King Gustav has inherited from his father a great charm of manner and a fine figure, which devotion to tennis helps him to keep. He is fond of all sorts of sport and is an excellent shot.
I used to see a good deal of the late King Oscar. His French ancestry and his personal charm made him very popular in France, a country he loved, and during his numerous visits to Paris I had the opportunity of getting to know him well, and I became very fond of him. I was in Sweden in 1897, travelling incognito, and I remember sitting down to rest one day within sight of Sophie Rue, King Oscar’s Norman villa, and, as I looked at the peaceful home of my old friend, I hoped that his last years would not be embittered by the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway. But the blow came to the “poet king,” whose spirit seemed to live above the dull realities of life, and it came when he was old and broken down with the illness which at last caused his death. Kings must yield to the imperious will of democracy, and I look forward to the time when Sweden will have the advantages enjoyed by her sister kingdom.
I visited Denmark as well as Norway and Sweden that autumn, and there also I remarked the growth of democratic ideas. It is a peaceful country, and the souls of the people seem as clear as their blue eyes. The Danes are a kind, industrious and simple race, and, if they strike one as being less hardy and vigorous than the other Scandinavian races, they certainly have the same courteous manners as the Swedes and the Norwegians.
The first time that I visited Denmark King Christian, the father of Queen Alexandra and the EmpressMarie, was reigning, and the castle, in which his large family used to assemble for those reunions which he loved, was looked on by the Danes with a sort of reverence. But I remember that once, when I was travelling incognito, I drove past the castle in a cab, and the friendly driver, anxious to oblige a tourist, told me that a great family gathering was taking place there. He reeled off the names of the world-famous personages who had gathered round the King, and he did so with as much indifference as a London cabman displayed when he pointed out Mme. Tussaud’s to me the first time I was in London, and casually explained that wax figures were kept there. The attitude of the Danish cabman towards the Royal Family, which seemed to me curious years ago, appears to be that of most Danes at the present time. They have ceased to take any particular interest in the doings of their Sovereign and his relations. Nothing strikes me more, as I go about Europe, than the fact that, if I may be allowed the expression, the market value of princes and princesses has enormously decreased.
I went to an hotel in Copenhagen, and I had notbeen long in the capital before a card, inscribed with a single Danish word, was brought to me. I stared at it, not recognising the name and wondering who it was had been to see me. Then it suddenly dawned on me that the word on the card was simply the Danish for “Queen.” Her Majesty had been to see me, and, of course, I went to see her. The Royal Family appears now to live in retirement, and its members form a small caste, penned off from the rest of mankind by their rank. Their chief amusement seems to be paying calls on each other. Most of them live at their country villas and châteaux, and in these pleasant homes there is a constant succession of cousinly meetings, when family news is exchanged, and while the children play the elders take a stroll in the park surrounding the house at which the family gathering is taking place.
The King displays that peculiar form of wit which I have often noticed is characteristic of crowned heads who have lived much in retirement. With them the gaiety of childhood seems, with the passing of the years, to turn into a curious spirit of mockery. Trifles create shouts of laughter, enlivening the family circle and confusing those who are unacquainted with the type of witticisms which goes down in royal circles.
And beyond the tranquil enclosures of the royal parks the Danish people is moving surely and steadily towards a broader and more democratic life than it has hitherto enjoyed. And women are in the forefront of the movement. The Danish women refuse to be slaves of fashion and display a certain charming coquetry in their dress. Numbers of them earn their own living and are thus independent of men. This is the sure road for women to take if they desire to have the same rights and privileges as men. As it is, the Danish woman has established for herself a position which her Latin sisters may well envy, and the law secures her independence. She will, I am convinced, be given electoral rights, and she will have no need to resort to militant methods to obtain them.
On the road between Copenhagen and Helsingfors a milk-white villa stands out against the faint blue background of the northern sky. There it was that I passed the happiest moments of my stay in Denmark, and there I found at least two crowned headswho have remained human in spite of the crushing weight of the crowns they have worn for so many years. The Italian villa is the home of Queen Alexandra and the Empress Marie, and the two sisters, who adore each other, are absolutely happy in each other’s society, and in the simplicity of the life they lead. They welcomed me with enthusiasm, kissed me, and were quite excited to have somebody to whom they could show their little house. In the sitting-room they share they both wanted to show me their special corners at the same time.
“Come and see my writing-table,” said the Empress, pulling me to her end of the room.
“No,” cried Queen Alexandra gaily, pulling me in the opposite direction; “come and see my writing-table.”
How we all laughed!
“This is my chair,” said the Empress, showing me one in her corner of the room.
“And this is my chair,” echoed the Queen, calling my attention to the favourite chair in her corner.
I had to see everything and admire everything. The two sisters seemed particularly proud of their kitchen garden, and seemed to be delighted to findthat I knew something about growing vegetables. I have a kitchen garden of my own in Normandy, where I have a little house, and we were able to compare notes.
And after we had inspected flowers and vegetables we went through an underground passage, which their Majesties have had cut beneath the road that divides the garden of the cottage and the sea-shore, a tiny stretch of which has been walled off, so that the Empress and the Queen may enjoy it undisturbed. When we were inside the cottage the Empress offered me a thin Russian cigarette, and lit one herself. Then Queen Alexandra showed me their tea-kettle and the little kitchen in which they make their own cakes and brew their own tea.
“This is where I make my tea,” cried the Queen.
“And this is where I cut the bread-and-butter,” said the Empress.
They were as happy as two schoolgirls, revelling in the simple life of a home where they can live like two ordinary women, untrammelled by Court etiquette and without even a single lady-in-waiting to attend them.
After visiting the Norwegian cottage I had to seea new marvel. We went down to the beach, and the two sisters explained to me that it was a splendid place for picking up bits of amber. I had seen so much amber in the Castle of Rosenberg and in the shops of Copenhagen that it seemed improbable that there could be any more in the Baltic. Nevertheless, there appears to be plenty left, for both the Empress and the Queen showed me the boxes in which they store the treasure they find on the shore. The Empress is luckier in finding amber than the Queen, and her box contained more than her sister’s.
“It is most unfair,” said the Queen gaily.
“I always pick up more than you do,” said the Empress triumphantly.
We searched for amber until it was time for me to go, and we enjoyed ourselves like children.
Both the Empress and the Queen have played the great parts they have had to fill on the stage of life with dignity and distinction, but they are Danes, and they have never lost the love of simplicity which is the most notable characteristic of the peoples of Scandinavia. Now that they can live their lives as they like, they deliberately leave their palaces and spend a great part of their time more simplythan many commoners. To see their happiness made me happier myself, and, indeed, my tour in Scandinavia has given me new courage. All that I saw and heard made me feel that the time will come when democracy will make many of the crooked things of this life straight.
I wasat Genoa, and one spring morning I strolled through a network of narrow streets to the harbour. The sea was as blue as a turquoise, gleaming like a jewel in the sunshine, and I could not resist the temptation to hire a boat and waste an hour gliding over the enchanted waves. The boatman who rowed me was a lively fellow. Luckily for me, as I afterwards realised, he had not the faintest idea who I was, and I let him chatter to his heart’s content.
“The old Duke of Galliera gave many million lire to make that,” he said, indicating, with a jerk of his head, the new harbour, hidden from sight by the building on the Molo Vecchio.
“The Duke of Galliera,” he went on, “was a fine gentleman. The Duchess was left a widow, and inherited the enormous, the colossal fortune of her husband. And what did she do? Does the signora know what she did?”
I did know, but I thought it prudent to shake my head.
The man leant on his oars, and looked intently at me.
“The Duchess,” he said, “left the title and every lira she had, and her palace in Bologna, and all the estates of her Duchy, to foreigners. A curse on them! And the Duchess belonged to Genoa; she had relatives in Genoa. Everything went to the Duca di Montpensier, a Frenchman who had become a Spaniard, and now it belongs to his son.”
“Really,” I said; and I did not mention that the Duc de Montpensier was my father-in-law, and that I was actually Duchess of Galliera.
“If I could get hold of that man and his wife, although she is an Infanta of Spain, I would kill them,” he shouted at me fiercely. “I would show them no mercy.”
On the whole I was not sorry when I found myself on land again, and I am convinced that the man would have upset his boat and let me drown, if he had discovered who I was. And I have often wondered who he was; perhaps a relative of the old Duchess. There was truth in the story he told, amystery which neither I nor anybody else is ever likely to solve. The Duke of Galliera had a son, Philippo Ferrari, who refused absolutely to use the privileges which his birth bestowed upon him. What were his reasons, nobody knows. And why in default of the son, one of the richest duchies in Italy was left to my father-in-law is a question which remains, and is likely to remain, unanswerable. And partly through the strange connection of the family into which I married with Italy, partly through my love of the most beautiful and romantic land in Europe, I have lived there a great deal. I used to stay often at the magnificent palace of the Galliera family in Bologna, a sumptuous place with vast rooms paved with mosaic and glittering with rare marbles. The people of that city of colonnades and cool courtyards took a kindlier view of the new owners of the palace than the Genoese boatman did, and the ancient families of the place had that charm of manner which gives such a fascination to the cultured society of Italian towns. It was a great delight to receive them, and I used to enjoy the balls and parties in that wonderful palace.
In most countries society gathers in the capital,and when there is a Court it acts as a magnet to draw people from the provinces. The unification of Italy, and the erection of the Italian kingdom, had not materially altered the structure of Italian society. It remains what it was when Italy was divided into a number of small states. Rome and the Quirinal do not attract the nobles of Venice, or Florence, or Bologna, or of other historic Italian towns: they continue to spend the winter in the cities with which their families have been associated for centuries, giving to them a certain brilliance which is not to be found in the provincial towns of France or England.
It seems to be the special prerogative of a Queen Mother to be Queen of Hearts, and Queen Margherita holds the same place in the affection of the Italian people as beautiful Queen Alexandra—has ever a Queen been more beloved than she?—holds in England, and the Empress Marie in Russia. I paid a visit to her and King Humbert at the Castle of Monza, their summer home in the outskirts of the town in which the kings of Lombardy were crowned, and, although the etiquette of the Court was severe, she had a charm which made one tolerate the restrictions of palace life. Those about her used to complain that she hardly ever sat down. I have remarked that several queens whom I know have this rather trying capacity for standing, and, as nobody can sit down while they stand, their guests and their ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting are sometimes a good deal fatigued. Numbers of women are not aware that they owe to Queen Margherita the pretty fashion of wearing a string of pearls in the daytime. But she did not limit herself to the single string of pearls worn by women of fashion, she was simply hung with ropes of pearls morning, noon and night; in fact, I have never seen her without them.
Although the King of Italy made Rome his capital, the other members of the Royal Family have never gone to live there, and continue to make their home in Turin. Among these are the Duke and Duchess of Genoa and the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and the exasperating etiquette peculiar to Royal personages is rigorously maintained in their palaces. Gentlemen-in-waiting and ladies-in-waiting are always in attendance on them, and it used to surprise me that people could be found to devote themselves to such an insufferably dull occupationas that of serving in miniature Courts, until I remembered that some of them might be glad to do the work, if work it can be called, for the sake of being maintained and of receiving the salaries attached to their offices. English princesses have the daily distraction of opening bazaars, but little happens to enliven the Courts of Turin. When I have stayed there, the chief excitement of the day has invariably been a drive to a park outside the city, where the Royal personages walked for a little, attended by the inevitable ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting, and after half an hour of that mild form of exercise, drove back to their homes. These proceedings did not appear to awaken any great interest in the citizens of Turin, for in Italy, as in most other countries, the public has ceased to concern itself about the little doings of princes and princesses.
The Dowager Duchess of Aosta sometimes shows her independence by freeing herself from Royal bonds when she is abroad, and I remember her once arriving in Paris entirely unattended. She was Princess Lætitia Bonaparte before her marriage, and enjoys the style of Imperial Highness, while, rather oddly, the young Duchess of Aosta is a Princess of