SIR RICHARD BURTONThe effigy dressed in the clothes he wore on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca, modeled by John T. Tussaud.
SIR RICHARD BURTON
The effigy dressed in the clothes he wore on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca, modeled by John T. Tussaud.
A great name with the past generation was that of Sir Richard Burton, who, sixty-six years ago, in fulfilment of a lifelong dream, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the prophet Mahomet at Mecca when it was believed that no Christian could go there. Besides being a great explorer he was a man of scholarly attainments, and his translation of theArabian Nightsbears the stamp of an intimate familiarity with the Orient.
When Sir Richard died his remarkable career became so much a subject of general comment in the Press that the British public awakened to the fact that a great Englishman had just passed away.
Apart from his literary achievements, the account of his exploits revealed so great a love of adventure and so much disregard for narrowing conventionalitiesas to leaven the story of his life with a very strong tincture of romance.
When modelling his figure I saw a great deal of his handsome and stately widow, and I am sure no woman could have taken a greater pleasure or more pains in assisting an artist with such an undertaking. Every thought, every action, she bestowed upon the work showed how deeply she cherished her husband’s memory and how vividly the portrait stirred her imagination.
She clothed the model with perhaps the greatest personal treasure of his she possessed—that is to say, the actual garments her husband wore when he went on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca. She tarried long over the finishing touches that should make his presentment look its best before the critical eyes of the public should scan it. Ornaments, beads, trappings, had each her full consideration, and the very weapons of defence stuck anglewise in his belt were subjected to her most careful arrangement.
Of the capacity for taking pains there was no limit in Isabel Lady Burton’s nature; but the labour in producing the figure, after many trying weeks, at last came to an end; and there readily springs to my mind the pathetic picture of her bestowing upon the figure the few final touches, her fingers lingering over the pleats and folds of his robe ere she could declare herself satisfied that the task she had undertaken in helping with the model had been done at her very best.
There was one little difficulty, however, that she could not quite surmount. The costume was completein every respect except one—the sandals he had worn on his hazardous journey to Mecca had become, owing to the wet and heat and the passage of time, mere tinder, and could not be placed upon the figure.
The following brief but interesting letter explains how this difficulty was overcome:
67, Baker Street, Portman Square, W., May 22nd, 1894.Dear Mr. Tussaud,I sent you a pair of sandals yesterday belonging to me, but to-day I have had the promise of a pair from the Prior of the Franciscans which would suit much better. I shall send them directly I receive them.Yours sincerely,Isabel Burton.
67, Baker Street, Portman Square, W., May 22nd, 1894.
Dear Mr. Tussaud,
I sent you a pair of sandals yesterday belonging to me, but to-day I have had the promise of a pair from the Prior of the Franciscans which would suit much better. I shall send them directly I receive them.
Yours sincerely,
Isabel Burton.
The monument at Mortlake, on the Thames, within which now repose the remains of Sir Richard and his wife, consists of a white marble mausoleum, sculptured in the form of an Arab tent, its cost having been partly defrayed by public subscription.
Removal of the Exhibition to the present building—Sleeping “figures”—History of the Portman Rooms—The Cato Street Conspiracy—Baron Grant’s staircase.
Removal of the Exhibition to the present building—Sleeping “figures”—History of the Portman Rooms—The Cato Street Conspiracy—Baron Grant’s staircase.
After fifty prosperous years at the old Baker Street Rooms—now known as the Portman Rooms—it became necessary that Madame Tussaud’s should find more commodious premises to meet the growing popularity of the Exhibition.
The removal to the present well-known red building was made in July, 1884, and the change took about a week, during which the staff put in very long hours. So strenuous a time was it that some of them could hardly keep their eyes open towards the end of this transition period.
There were considerably more than four hundred figures, not to mention countless other things, to transfer; and the models were cloaked for conveyance, as the idea could not be entertained of portraits of royalties, celebrities, and notorieties being carried uncovered and exposed to the vulgar gaze.
The wrapping of the images in sheets led to an amusing incident after they had been removed. Before they could be properly arranged and a fitting place assigned to each, the exhibits were placed in their coverings on the floor. This fact, it appeared, suggested to tired members of the staff a way by which they might be able to snatch a little rest.
Missing some of the men, my suspicions were directed to the prostrate exhibits, and I proceeded to prod the sheeted figures, with the result that here and there my attentions called forth manifestations of life. The weary helpers had laid themselves down to sleep among the models, hoping not to be disturbed. Although time was pressing, they were permitted to continue a few hours’ well-earned rest with their pack-sheet cloaks around them.
Few of our visitors on the closing night were aware of the forthcoming change-over, and it was only when the band, after playing the last bar of the National Anthem, struck up “Auld Lang Syne” that the visitors realised what it all signified. There was a touch of pathos in the farewell scenes, and for the next week Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition was not included among the sights of London.
When the old rooms in Baker Street were taken over for hospital uses in the war, my mind reverted to an historic coincidence of considerable military interest.
More than a hundred years ago what is now the Baker Street Carriage Bazaar formed the barracks and stabling of the Royal Life Guards. The place was then known as the King Street Barracks. Old inhabitants of the neighbourhood used to tell me that a regiment of the Guards marched from these quarters on their way to the field of Waterloo.
A little way off was the Portman Street Barracks, from which Captain Fitzclarence set out to arrest Arthur Thistlewood and his confederates in connection with the Cato Street Conspiracy—one of the most desperate and foolhardy episodes in modern English history.
Thistlewood and other members of the Spencean Society—which might almost be described as the prototype of latter-day Bolshevism—conceived the mad idea that they could capture, among other strongholds, the Bank of England, the Mansion House, the Tower of London, and Coutts’s Bank; but they found that the public sympathy on which they counted did not exist. Thistlewood was thrown into gaol for treasonable utterances, and instead of imprisonment bringing him to his right senses, he became more fanatical than ever.
The crowning act of infamy on the part of this nineteenth-century “Guy Fawkes” and his followers was to hatch a plot for the assassination of Ministers at a Cabinet dinner in Lord Harrowby’s house, Grosvenor Square. The conspirators took a loft over a stable in Cato Street, Marylebone, where they accumulated arms, bombs, and hand-grenades, vainly imagining that the police knew nothing of their movements, whereas the authorities were only waiting the right moment for action.
Thistlewood and his gang of desperadoes were arrested in the act of arming themselves for the wholesale assassination of the heads of the Government. In the scuffle Thistlewood killed a police-officer with hissword. The ringleader and four others, named Brunt, Davidson, Ings, and Tidd, were executed on the evidence of one of their own associates, who told the court that it was intended, in the first instance, to set fire to the King Street Barracks and either take the Life Guardsmen prisoners or kill them as they sat in their mess-room. This mess-room, fifteen years later, was occupied by Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition.
Few, if any, of the thousands of persons who mount and descend the marble staircase which adorns the entrance-hall of Madame Tussaud’s are aware that it originally formed part of a lordly pleasure house which was erected by the late Baron Grant on the site of what was one of the vilest slums (then known as “The Rookery”) in Kensington.
Who was Baron Grant?
The late Baron was born in Dublin in 1830. His real name, it appears, was Gottheimer. His parents were poor, and he had a hard upbringing. By dint, however, of industry, the sharpness of his wits and his great aptitude for business, he acquired wealth and a reputation in the City of London.
At the age of thirty-five he was elected M.P. for Kidderminster, standing as a Liberal-Conservative and defeating Lord Annaly, who was at that time a Lord of the Treasury. In 1868 he was appointed a Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets, and in the same year the King of Italy conferred upon him the hereditary dignity of Baron and appointed him a Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and Lazare.
These distinctions were well deserved by the then Mr. Grant for the services he had rendered in connection with the completion of the famous Victor Emmanuel Gallery in Milan, though in one of the burlesques of the period the decoration was scathingly referred to in the following couplet:
Kings can titles give, but honour can’t,So title without honour’s but abarren Grant.
Kings can titles give, but honour can’t,So title without honour’s but abarren Grant.
Kings can titles give, but honour can’t,So title without honour’s but abarren Grant.
Kings can titles give, but honour can’t,
So title without honour’s but abarren Grant.
At the height of his prosperity Baron Grant built his princely mansion at Kensington Gore. It was never occupied, except for one night, when the “bachelors of London”—in other words, the smart young men of London Society—hired the house from the Baron’s creditors and gave a ball of exceptional splendour.
The Baron was unable to pay the contractor, and the mansion, known as “Grant’s Folly,” was pulled down because no one could afford to buy or rent it. The magnificent marble staircase, which cost £11,000, was bought by Madame Tussaud’s for £1,000, and placed in our Exhibition.
The beautiful iron railings and gates of the “Folly” were purchased for the Sandown Park Club, where, I understand, they may still be seen.
Baron Grant was a keen collector of works of art, and once obtained the honour of being voted the thanks of the House of Commons for presenting a picture to the National Gallery.
It came about in this way:
On the 18th of May, 1874, a very valuable portrait of Sir Walter Scott was put up to auction at Christie’s,and was eventually secured by Baron Grant for 800 guineas. The same evening Sir Stafford Northcote, the Leader of the House, was asked by a private member why the Government had not purchased so fine a work of art for the nation. He replied that the Treasury had no funds available for the outlay. Thereupon the Baron rose and stated that he had already written offering the picture to the Trustees of the National Gallery.
Sir Stafford immediately proposed a vote of thanks, and this was carried with much enthusiasm.
Eight hundred guineas, however, was far from being the largest sum which the Baron spent on a single picture. He gave £10,000 for Landseer’s “Otter Hunt,” and the value of his collection may be judged from the fact that it realised £106,000 when the inevitable crash came and his art treasures passed under the hammer to pay his creditors.
The great benefaction for which Baron Grant will always be remembered is the gift of Leicester Square to the Metropolis at a cost to him of upwards of £30,000. For years this Square had been dilapidated and a disgrace to London, with a huge hoarding round it. Baron Grant secured, by purchase, all the rights of the owners. He then planted the gardens, and erected in the centre the statue of Shakespeare by Signor Fontana. This was, at the time, the only statue of the world’s greatest dramatist existing out of doors in his own country. The liberal donor also placed in the Square busts of celebrated men who had lived in the neighbourhood. These included Sir Isaac Newton,John Hunter, William Hogarth, and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
This act of munificence did not bring the Baron the popularity he so much desired, for after the princely gift was presented by him to the Metropolitan Board of Works on the 2nd of July, 1874, the following verses were freely sold at the opening ceremony:
Of course, you’ve heard the news that Baron Grant,To gain what most he wants—a good repute,Has promised to reclaimWild Leicester Square, so long the West End’s shame,And turn that waste ground, nigh Alhambra’s towers,Into a smiling garden full of flowers.But will the world forget these flowers of Grant’sAre but the product of his City “plants”?And who, for shady walks, will give him praiseFor wealth thus spent,when gained in shady ways?In short, what can he hope from this affair?Save to connect his name with one thing Square!
Of course, you’ve heard the news that Baron Grant,To gain what most he wants—a good repute,Has promised to reclaimWild Leicester Square, so long the West End’s shame,And turn that waste ground, nigh Alhambra’s towers,Into a smiling garden full of flowers.But will the world forget these flowers of Grant’sAre but the product of his City “plants”?And who, for shady walks, will give him praiseFor wealth thus spent,when gained in shady ways?In short, what can he hope from this affair?Save to connect his name with one thing Square!
Of course, you’ve heard the news that Baron Grant,To gain what most he wants—a good repute,Has promised to reclaimWild Leicester Square, so long the West End’s shame,And turn that waste ground, nigh Alhambra’s towers,Into a smiling garden full of flowers.
Of course, you’ve heard the news that Baron Grant,
To gain what most he wants—a good repute,
Has promised to reclaim
Wild Leicester Square, so long the West End’s shame,
And turn that waste ground, nigh Alhambra’s towers,
Into a smiling garden full of flowers.
But will the world forget these flowers of Grant’sAre but the product of his City “plants”?And who, for shady walks, will give him praiseFor wealth thus spent,when gained in shady ways?In short, what can he hope from this affair?Save to connect his name with one thing Square!
But will the world forget these flowers of Grant’s
Are but the product of his City “plants”?
And who, for shady walks, will give him praise
For wealth thus spent,when gained in shady ways?
In short, what can he hope from this affair?
Save to connect his name with one thing Square!
It was this same public-spirited though erratic “plunger” in stocks and shares who, in February, 1875, widened, at his own cost, the road leading to Kensington House, so as to avoid the curve which was dangerous to carriages when driving in. It was an approach that Queen Victoria frequently used.
King of Siam’s visit—The Shahzada’s clothing—King of Burmah’s war elephant—Tale of two monkeys.
King of Siam’s visit—The Shahzada’s clothing—King of Burmah’s war elephant—Tale of two monkeys.
The King of Siam and the Shahzada of Afghanistan are linked in my memory because of the peculiar interest King Chulalongkorn took in the Afghan Prince, whose model appeared in all the splendour of one of the Shahzada’s own State dresses.
The moment the King of Siam was confronted by this portrait he exclaimed in surprise:
“How did the uniform come here? Where did you get it?”
“Oh,” I replied, “we purchased it.”
“Whom did you get it from?” the King of Siam persisted. “From the Shahzada himself?”
The information was imparted that the elaborate costume had been offered to us by a member of the Shahzada’s suite, who took a keen personal interest in the transaction, and gave us to understand that his royal master would prefer that the portrait should not wear his own clothes till after his departure from this country.
We complied with this condition, and while writing these reminiscences the gorgeous apparel of the Afghan Prince lies heaped in a corner of my studio, havingbeen brought out that I may again for a moment gaze upon its faded glories of purple and gold; for the portrait of the Shahzada has long since been removed from its pedestal.
The King of Siam was a very decorous and unassuming little gentleman, who gave no hint of disappointment that his own portrait did not appear in the collection, while I wondered, as I walked with him, whether he regretted or welcomed the omission.
As we came face to face with the Shah of Persia, whose gorgeous habiliments glittered with a veritable firmament of jewels, the King again harped upon the question of the Shahzada’s clothes.
Looking hard at the “lion” of a former season, the King exclaimed:
“His own clothes, too, I suppose?”
“Not this time,” I replied. “We were not so fortunate in the case of the Shah.”
“An exact duplicate, though,” was the compliment of the laughing King.
The Eastern potentate was a most minute and intelligent observer of all he saw, and questioned me unceasingly.
“Who is that beside the Prince?” he inquired, pointing at the Prince of Wales in a howdah on the back of the elephant Juno, a tableau which depicted a tiger-hunting incident in the late King Edward’s Indian tour.
On being told that the Prince was accompanied by his “loader,” the King replied, “Yes, yes,” as if he thought his question a superfluous one.
From hall to hall we passed, and I was astonished at the knowledge of English history displayed by King Chulalongkorn. He picked out the figure of Richard I, and, pointing to the white doublet with the red cross on the breast, said, “The costume of a Crusader—certainly, certainly.” The representation of King John with the Magna Charta in his hand did not appear to produce a very pleasing impression upon the Siamese autocrat.
“Whata name! Who was he?” remarked the King in front of Houqua, the big Chinaman who earned his place in the Exhibition on account of certain services he had rendered this country. I had withdrawn for a moment, and was called back to explain that Houqua was a Chinese merchant, whereat the royal interlocutor turned away with a contempt for trade clearly indicated on his face.
It was surprising to note that King Chulalongkorn passed the portraits of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and other British statesmen without a pause or comment. He stood some minutes in front of the case containing the orders of the Duke of Wellington, and then remarked, with admiring emphasis:
“These are surely all the orders a man could have; he must have had nearly everything.”
The group of Henry VIII and his six wives was surveyed in stolid silence by a monarch not likely to be moved by such a spectacle. In a shadowed portion of the gallery he nearly mistook (and slightly frightened) two nice English girls in white for wax figures.
In the Chamber of Horrors he showed from his observationsthat he was familiar with the main features of several of the crimes commemorated there.
I may add that every honour was done the King on that occasion. We had the public excluded from the Exhibition, and the Siamese National Anthem was played on his arrival and departure.
The King of Siam’s inspection of the elephant reminds me that, beside the stuffed monkey which one of the wives of Henry VIII is fondling, the only animals ever shown in the Exhibition were in the “Tiger Hunt” scene in question. The tusker was the famous Juno, which was for many years the King of Burmah’s war elephant.
The Prince of Wales had just mortally wounded a male tiger, and was about to give thecoup de graceto another beast which, unexpectedly springing from the jungle, had been pinned to the ground by Juno. The animals were stuffed and staged by the late Mr. Rowland Ward.
When I say that these were the only animals shown in the Exhibition I mean, of course, dead ones.
Within the past twelve months a monkey that escaped from the Zoo, barely a mile away, entered the Exhibition by a back window, and was seen in the act by a crowd of people, who had been amused by its antics outside.
It appears that the monkey, in scurrying through the building, caught sight of its dead counterpart on the lap of Henry’s Queen, and tried to attract its attention. Failing in this, the little creature pawed it, and the result was electrical.
The strangeness of coming unexpectedly in contact with a dead animal which was thought to be alive seems to have startled the monkey beyond measure, for it became terrified, and, springing away, went at great speed to the remotest part of the Exhibition, where it took refuge in one of the side rooms.
Several visitors, mostly ladies, were in the room at the time, and they at once made for the door, which was thereupon locked upon the animal. Meanwhile we had telephoned to the Zoo that one of the monkeys had escaped and was in the Exhibition.
A keeper arrived shortly afterwards, and said he had missed it from its cage. Both keeper and monkey were delighted at their reunion. The monkey had not seemed to trouble much about the figures, which it probably took for living people, but the dead monkey on the lap of one of them had been more than it could stand.
Queen Victoria’s copperplates—Another Royal Persian visit—“Perished by fire”—“Viscount Hinton” and his organ—The Coquette’s jewels lost and found.
Queen Victoria’s copperplates—Another Royal Persian visit—“Perished by fire”—“Viscount Hinton” and his organ—The Coquette’s jewels lost and found.
In the early part of 1898 we purchased from an enterprising journalist four interesting copperplates—three of them etched by Queen Victoria and one by the Prince Consort. Of the four plates, three were done by the Queen within a year of her marriage.
Although not altogether faultless from an artistic point of view, the work is most conscientiously executed, showing how painstaking was the Queen even in comparatively trivial matters.
After her marriage Her Majesty found in the Prince Consort a fellow craftsman, and forthwith a room in Buckingham Palace was fitted up as a sort of combination studio and workshop. Here, under the guidance and advice of Sir Edwin Landseer, assisted by Mr. Henry Graves, the fine art publisher, the young couple worked for two or three hours in the morning.
Nor would the Queen allow any portion of the process to be performed by an assistant. Even the printing was done either by herself or her husband, a small press being set up for that especial purpose.
It is understood that portraits of the royal childrenthus reproduced are preserved in the print-room at Windsor Castle.
I have already described how the Shah of Persia (Nasr-ed-Din) paid a private visit to the Exhibition in the year 1873.
I must now relate the circumstances that attended the visit of his son, Muzafir-ed-Din, who came to this country for the coronation of King Edward in 1902, thirty years later.
The “Brother of the Sun” came on the 19th of August. He was attended by the Earl of Kintore and Sir Arthur Hardinge, and I received His Majesty, while the orchestra played the Persian National Anthem.
The first model he asked to see was that of his late father, but unfortunately his picturesque parent had disappeared to make room for more up-to-date people.
The horrible fact of the remelting to cast a possibly much less distinguished personage could not, of course, be divulged to the royal visitor. A hint to the entourage was sufficient. “Perished by fire—great accidental fire,” explained Sir Arthur Hardinge with the aplomb of a true diplomat. “Big fire,” echoed the sombre Persians sadly in their own tongue.
The Shah listened to a description of the models in French and made his comments in Persian, a course of procedure which was not helpful to those who would have liked to glean His Majesty’s impressions.
By this time the news that the Shah was in the buildinghad spread, and the people began to throng around him. It was difficult to say whether he appreciated the curiosity of the crowd or not. A merry little party of Japs beamed upon the dusky potentate from the Far East, and the two extremities of Asia thus metaphorically rubbed shoulders.
The tableau of “Queen Victoria at Home” pleased the Eastern sovereign most. He looked at it longest.
The scene depicting the Gordon Highlanders storming the Heights of Dargai also captivated him. The place where the battle was fought was not very remote from the borders of His Majesty’s dominions, and he was, no doubt, familiar with the history of the wild tribesmen of the north-west frontier of India. He was an eager auditor while the Gay Gordons’ feat was narrated in French and Persian.
Face to face with his own portrait model, the Shah addressed some presumably humorous remark to it, for sovereign and suite relaxed their facial muscles simultaneously, and a Persian outburst of mirth succeeded.The stolid monarch actually laughed outright.It was the only recorded laugh of His Majesty during his visit to this country.
But what did he say to that waxen presentment? The features of the model were certainly rather darker than those of the Shah, but the observation in Persian of the monarch was darker still—at any rate to me. Turning aside, he remarked, in French, that though the features were excellent, the complexion was not quite fair enough—a disclosure of an undoubted Eastern vanity.
He closely scrutinised the figures of reigning sovereigns, and on coming to that of the young Queen of Holland he exclaimed, in French, “Ah, I have seen Her Majesty.” The Shah quickly noticed Mr. Balfour among the group of politicians, and gazed eagerly at the representation of the meeting between Lord Roberts and Cronje at Paardeberg.
THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE TO LORD ROBERTSA Boer War tableau modeled by John T. Tussaud.
THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL CRONJE TO LORD ROBERTS
A Boer War tableau modeled by John T. Tussaud.
Whether the Shah was made nervous through the proximity of the crowd, I cannot say, but he neglected to visit the Chamber of Horrors and the Napoleonic relics (which latter he had expressed a desire to see), and made a straight line for the exit before those who were chaperoning him realised the meaning of the movement.
The Chamber of Horrors would have been an attraction to at least one member of the suite. This gentleman was fascinated by the group in the Hall of Tableaux representing the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. He stood gazing with dilated eyes upon the scene, and had to be called on by a touch on the arm before he could be made to realise the unreality of the drama.
VISCOUNT HINTONThe wax figure on exhibition at Madame Tussaud’s dressed in subject’s own clothes and shown with the organ used by this eccentric gentleman on his organ-grinding career.
VISCOUNT HINTON
The wax figure on exhibition at Madame Tussaud’s dressed in subject’s own clothes and shown with the organ used by this eccentric gentleman on his organ-grinding career.
At an Exhibition supper at which “Viscount Hinton” was present, we having modelled his figure and purchased his organ on the death of the old Earl, to which title he now laid claim, a speaker, in proposing my health, began “Mr. Chairman, my Lord, Ladies and Gentlemen.” That was enough for “Earl Poulett.” He rose and bowed in recognition of the compliment paid to his degree, and when the speaker finished hemade a speech in which he referred to a few incidents in his organ-grinding career.
He sat to me for his model, and we bought the suit of clothes he was wearing, although a friend of his told his “lordship” that he would not have picked them up from the gutter.
It appears that “Hinton” went to the Bank of England with the £50 note we gave him, and, as is customary, he was asked to sign his name. With a flourish he wrote down “Poulett,” whereupon the cashier said, “Christian name as well, please.” Hinton drew himself up and said, “We earls always sign our names like that,” a remark which, doubtless, duly impressed and abashed the cashier.
In June, 1901, as the Exhibition was closing for the day, several pieces of jewellery, valued at between 50 and 60 guineas, were discovered to be missing from the figure of the Old Coquette, facing the model of the sardonic but courtier-like Voltaire, who is seen raising his hat to her. The gems had served to adorn the representation of this curious-looking old dame for a period of more than a century.
As soon as the discovery was made the usual notification was given to the police. Strange to say, while the detective-officer was in consultation with us discussing the most likely means of recovering the articles, a bulky envelope, bearing the mark of the Earl’s Court postal district, was handed in containing the missing property, with the following short note enclosed: “Found at Madame Tussaud’s—thrown down.”
Royal visitors—King Alphonso and Princess Ena—The late Emperor Frederick—A penniless trio—Princess Charles—The Prince of Wales and Prince Albert.
Royal visitors—King Alphonso and Princess Ena—The late Emperor Frederick—A penniless trio—Princess Charles—The Prince of Wales and Prince Albert.
Madame Tussaud’s was one of the last places visited by the King of Spain and Princess Ena before they left this country for their wedding at Madrid in May, 1906.
Somehow there seemed to be at the time an atmosphere of anxiety attending the visit of this vivacious royal couple, and I feel sure this uneasiness was felt by many who observed them pass freely and jocularly among the visitors, who were very numerous that afternoon in the Exhibition rooms. Disquieting rumours had reached this country that an attempt would be made by certain disaffected ruffians to interfere with their marriage. Plots and threats of a sinister character were in the air, and, as we all know, these culminated in a crime of a particularly atrocious nature in the Spanish capital.
Yet none seemed to be less affected by these disturbing influences than the young royalties themselves, while I am quite certain neither of them was acting a part. They were simply as happy as a bride and bridegroom ought to be who were counting the days till they should be united.
The young King took a positive delight in moving among the visitors, and none was less self-conscious than he. I was amused to find him bubbling over with fun and frolic standing in front of his own portrait.
Then he did the thing one almost expected he would do. To the amusement of all beholders he exclaimed, “Let me shake hands with myself,” suiting the action to the words, and laughing heartily with his bride and her friends. It is for traits like this that King Alphonso enjoys popularity wherever he goes.
The visit passed off happily, and I for one felt somewhat relieved when they had taken their departure without molestation, although I had no tangible reason to harbour the doubts that possessed me.
On returning to this country soon after the tragic accompaniments of their marriage, the light-hearted young King took an early opportunity of revisiting the Exhibition, and in passing gave a familiar nod of recognition at his own portrait, as one might salute an acquaintance in the street.
He roamed about the place in the least ostentatious way, and took a noticeably keen interest in the figure of the great Duke of Wellington, who, among his numerous foreign honours, received the titles of Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo and a Grandee of the first class, 1812—titles granted by predecessors of King Alphonso on the Spanish throne. As was the case with the King of Spain and his bride, members of the Royal Family on numerous occasions have paid their shillings and gone in “with the crowd,” their objectbeing to stroll round without having to undergo the worry of a “reception” and its attendant red baize and “blowing of trumpets.”
Soon after his marriage with our then Princess Royal, the late Emperor Frederick of Germany, who was at that time Prince Frederick of Prussia, decided to pay us a visit. This was rather more than fifty years ago.
Hearing of his intention, my father decided to withdraw his figure, deeming it to be too youthful and out-of-date to bear a favourable comparison with its living counterpart—a severe test for even the best of portraits.
When the Prince arrived it appeared that he had come with the main object of inspecting his own model, for he had not been long in the place before he exclaimed, “Where is my figure?”
This was a question that rather nonplussed the member of my family who had undertaken to cicerone His Royal Highness through the Exhibition.
There was nothing for it but to make the plain, straightforward admission that it had only just been removed, and to give the reason for this having been done.
Notwithstanding this, the Prince’s request to view the portrait was reiterated, and he was so emphatic and persistent that there was nothing to be done but to replace the figure before his very eyes.
It was a strange proceeding, that of having to withdraw the model from the side room into which it hadbeen removed, to march it through the spacious galleries with the Prince amusedly looking on the while, and ultimately to dump it down in its old place among the figures in our big royal group.
The Prince, with great good-humour, scanned it with a lenient eye, and pronounced it to be by no means a portrait of which anyone need be ashamed; in fact, he appeared quite pleased with it, and when he left the Exhibition he seemed to be highly delighted with his unique and interesting experience.
Many years ago, in the late seventies, Alexander III of Russia (then the Tsarevitch), accompanied by the Tsarevna and her sister, the Princess of Wales, visited the Exhibition in Baker Street.
On reaching the entrance to the Napoleon Rooms and the Chamber of Horrors, where an extra admission fee of sixpence is charged, my uncle, who was standing near, heard the Tsarevitch say to his companions that he had no money.
The Princess of Wales was obliged to admit that she was in the same penniless plight, while the Tsarevna exclaimed with emphasis, “Et moi aussi; je n’ai pas un penny dans ma poche!”
Here, then, it may be said, was a trio of monarchs-to-be in the amusing predicament of not having a sixpence among the three of them!
My uncle was bound to respect the royal visitors’ incognito, and so could not venture to “pass them in,” which, of course, he would have been very proud and happy to do.
The difficulty was overcome by one of the gentlemen in attendance on the royal party, who came up shortly afterwards and produced the necessary fees.
Princess Charles of Denmark is reported to have said many years ago, “I sometimes get tired of being a royal, especially when I am looked at and wondered at as though I were one of Madame Tussaud’s wax models. I even think how glorious it must be to be able to jump on the top of a ’bus, pay my fare like any ordinary person, and have a day out. I have never tried to do so yet, but I think I shall some day.”
Mention of this brings to my mind one of several visits paid to the Exhibition by the Princes of our own Royal House.
I was notified by telephone that the present Prince of Wales and his brother, Prince Albert, were visiting the Exhibition. They were received by me, and I conducted them over the place.
The royal boys needed very little “conducting,” as they were soon engrossed in all they saw around them, and seldom found it necessary to address any questions to me.
I was amused to find that they preferred to dispense with the Catalogue, taking a boyish delight in recognising the figures for themselves and displaying what knowledge they possessed, which was considerable. Nor did they seem in the least concerned to know whether members of the general public recognised them, as I could see many did from the way they contrived to keep near to them.
Among the Napoleonic relics the Princes lingered an unusually long time, as if reluctant to leave them; and the Prince of Wales betrayed so much interest in the carriage in which Napoleon was all but captured after the Battle of Waterloo that he was invited to sit in it, if he cared. Without a moment’s hesitation he embraced the opportunity, and his brother joined him.
It happened that we were just then about to have the carriage glazed in, as it has been since, to protect it from ruthless souvenir hunters, whose mutilations necessitated our keeping in stock rolls of cloth of the same pattern to renew the lining from time to time.
I wonder how many people in different parts of the world now show their friends strips of cloth purporting to be taken from the original lining of the Napoleon carriage, whereas the “souvenirs” are really “relics” of the looms of Yorkshire.
The last to sit in Napoleon’s carriage were the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert.
The Begum of Bhopal pays us a visit—Lord Rosebery and Lord Annaly—Lord Randolph Churchill—Lady Beatty, Lady Jellicoe, and Mrs. Asquith.
The Begum of Bhopal pays us a visit—Lord Rosebery and Lord Annaly—Lord Randolph Churchill—Lady Beatty, Lady Jellicoe, and Mrs. Asquith.
It was on the 29th of June, eight years ago, that we had a visit from the Begum of Bhopal, a lady who rules over millions in India.
She was in London for the coronation of King George and Queen Mary. As the Begum was a Moslem, we were somewhat concerned as to how we should receive Her Highness, it being rumoured that she could not be chaperoned by one of the opposite sex. I must deny the story that we had to turn all the males out of the Exhibition, for there was no occasion to do so.
The Begum was dressed in brown, with a flowing white yashmak hanging from a quaint head-dress shaped like a top-hat of the Leech period. This veil, by the etiquette of her country, is worn in the company of men, the wearer looking through two eye-holes.
In order that the exhibits might be explained to her, my wife and a friend of hers, Mrs. Arthur Dulcken, who spoke Hindustani fluently, acted as guides. Two turbaned gentlemen were in attendance, and the Begum walked between her little grandson and granddaughter, whose hands she held.
Her knowledge of English history was surprising. Even the Prince, who was only six years old, prattled about different English kings, though he insisted that the good King Alfred, shown in the neatherd’s cottage, where he is being rated by the shrew for allowing her cakes to burn, was a fairy-tale like that of the Sleeping Beauty.
When the party came to the Grand Hall in which King George and Queen Mary sat arrayed in their coronation robes, with six Princesses of the Royal House standing around them, “Bara Salaam,” said the Begum, as she bowed to the Emperor of India.
Before the scene which shows Queen Victoria receiving the news of her accession to the throne the little lady halted.
“She was very beautiful,” she said, “and so wise and kind and sympathetic.”
It was the tribute of one woman ruler to another.
“She was very beautiful,” she said again, “and so small. In Bhopal we think small people beautiful.”
The Begum’s inches were some sixty-two.
She glanced approvingly at the model of Tom Thumb, and proudly placed her grandson by the figure of the Russian giant to accentuate her admiration for small people.
As she passed through the Chamber of Horrors, with its guillotine and gallows, she said, with some degree of satisfaction, “We do not execute in Bhopal.”
“I thank you,” she said, as she departed in state; and her retainers added an official word of praise:“The Begum has found Madame Tussaud’s extremely interesting.”
Lord Rosebery has more than once visited Madame Tussaud’s, and made a fairly long stay on each occasion.
Only very recently he and Lord Annaly, Lord-in-Waiting to the King, came to the Exhibition together. Our lecturer happened to notice them among the visitors in the building, and observed the two noblemen makes a careful inspection of the exhibits, conversing in a lively manner, and occasionally calling each other’s attention to models which struck them as being specially interesting.
It is, of course, difficult to judge whether they were prompted by any particular motive, or paid the visit merely to enjoy a few minutes’ respite from the more serious affairs of life; but they both minutely examined the relics of the French Revolution and, curiously enough, the figures of the criminals in the Chamber of Horrors, where they spent some considerable time.
Lord Rosebery, as a citizen of Edinburgh, called his friend’s attention to the striking figures of Burke and Hare, with the story of whose crimes Lord Rosebery must, of course, have been familiar. These ghoulish men perpetrated a series of murders in the Scottish capital in the year 1828 for the purpose of obtaining money by selling the bodies to anatomical schools as subjects for dissection.
It may not be generally known that the verb “toburke” is derived from the villainous miscreant of that name.
One would like to have heard what passed between Lord Rosebery and Lord Annaly as, having left the abode of criminals, they stopped in front of the former’s portrait in the main hall of the Exhibition.
As they were leaving the building our representative, as an act of courtesy, opened the middle gate to let them pass with greater freedom, and, in doing so, said, “Good-night, my lord.” Lord Rosebery smiled in response like one who is pleased at being recognised. It was evident from their demeanour that both the peers had enjoyed their experience.
Lord Randolph Churchill once said that the two proudest moments in his life were neither his first election to Parliament nor his first appearance on the Treasury Bench, but the publication of a speech of his in leaflet form and the appearance of his effigy at Madame Tussaud’s. He added that he had long wished to see how he looked there, but had never dared to go. Notwithstanding this remark he was seen in the flesh on more than one occasion at a later date sauntering through the Exhibition rooms.
That the wives of famous men invariably feel curious to see the models of their husbands goes without saying, and very many instances might be cited of their having done so. Among those who visited the Exhibition during the war were Lady Jellicoe, Lady Beatty, and Mrs. Asquith.
Lady Beatty made a very intelligent criticism ofthe Admiral’s portrait, and as the result of her suggestions certain alterations were made.
Lady Jellicoe’s criticism was quite favourable. “You have been extremely fortunate in catching my husband’s expression,” she said.
Mrs. Asquith did not make any comments, but her young son, who came with her, derived not a little amusement from his distinguished father’s presentment, and showed his appreciation by coming again and bringing a boy friend to see it the very next day.