Just as the Bulgarians say they are going into Europe when they leave Bulgaria, Ferdinand decided that he was quitting Europe and civilization when he entered his new kingdom. He went with his mind fixed on thoughts of assassination; and turning to account the course of Machiavelli on which he had been reared, he decided that the assassins could be made the servant of the Prince. He has himself confessed that his initial resolve was to have the assassins on his side.

Between the resignation of Prince Alexander and the election of Prince Ferdinand, Stambuloff had ruled as dictator, and with the arrival of Ferdinand the situation was only nominally altered. Ferdinand was Prince, but Stambuloff ruled the country. To remedying this state of affairs Ferdinand exercised all his craft, and his mother, the Princess Clementine, all her wealth.

The secret police of the country, like all its other services, were controlled by Stambuloff, and it became necessary for Ferdinand to organize a secret service of his own, paid out of his own pocket. The purpose to which this service was applied was not to detect crime and conspiracy, but to gain for Ferdinand information to the detriment of the principal men around him.

While he was so employed the energies of Stambuloff were concentrated in crushing a widespread conspiracy against Ferdinand, which had been conceived even before he arrived in Sofia. The ringleader in this was Major Panitza, an old friend and fellow-conspirator with Stambuloff in the days when Bulgaria was not yet a country with a separate existence. Panitza was a bluff, jolly fellow, afflicted with the complaint known to our American cousins as “slack jaw.” Consequently he was able to boast about the cafÉs of Sofia that the new Prince would soon be overthrown or killed, without much attention being paid to his talk.

But Stambuloff was alert, and found that Panitza had really organized a plot which was backed by quite half the officers in the Bulgarian Army, and that risings were arranged in several important centres at the same time. The method to be employed with Ferdinand was to seize him, and offer him the choice between instant resignation or sudden death. Nobody doubted which choice the new Prince would make.

Stambuloff had Panitza arrested by two of the other ringleaders of the plot, who had to perform this task in the presence of a band of men loyal to Stambuloff. A list of officers implicated was obtained, and precautions were taken that completely foiled the conspiracy.

That night a dramatic scene was enacted at a ball given at the Palace, possibly one of the most surprising entertainments ever offered, even by a Balkan ruler. Two hundred officers were bidden, and of these seventy were implicated in the plot. The Prince knew of their guilt, and they knew that he knew.

He stood to receive them in his glittering uniform. On one side of him stood his mother, a picture of aristocratic, frigid scorn. On the other stood Stambuloff, his face set in a cynical, mocking smile. As each of the culprits advanced, the furious Prince rolled his eyes to his mother, who gazed at the trembling man with cold, inscrutable rage, while the “Tapster” made no attempt to hide his derisive triumph.

It was a trying evening for the plotters. Whenever two or three gathered together to discuss the situation, they became aware of the presence of mysterious guests at the ball. They were shadowed and harassed, and knew not what might be the end of that evening. To their great relief they were allowed to depart unhindered.

Panitza was tried and sentenced to death. None thought the sentence would be carried out, Panitza least of all. He relied on his ancient comradeship with Stambuloff; and besides, it was recognized on all sides that he was a mere figurehead in the conspiracy. But Ferdinand insisted, and after his usual fashion rushed off to Carlsbad before the sentence was carried out. “He had Panitza shot in order to leave for Carlsbad the same day,” said Stambuloff to the Cologne Gazette.

Of course, the whole of the odium of this execution attached itself to Stambuloff. This enabled Ferdinand to gather round him many of the men who were spared, and who hated Stambuloff, both for the death of Panitza, and for the derision with which he treated them as unsuccessful plotters. With true Machiavellian craft, Ferdinand represented to these men that the whole blame for the severe repressive measures taken lay with Stambuloff.

Among the dishonest plotting toadies he attached to his person was the man Natchevitch, who goes down in Bulgarian history under the well-earned designation of Beelzebub. A bankrupt merchant, he attached himself to Ferdinand by reason of his lack of scruple and his capacity for eating dirt. He was soon installed at the Court as one of the chief among the useful toadies the Prince maintained around him.

Among his intimates were three brothers named Tufektschieff, all of whom were implicated in that attempt to murder Stambuloff, which ended in the death of his friend Beltcheff. One of them was arrested, but the other two escaped. The arrested man was handled by Stambuloff’s agents in such a manner that he died in prison—in plain English he died under torture rather than betray his associates. I have said, I think, that the customs of Bulgaria were those of the Middle Ages.

Another brother was concerned in the murder of Dr. Vulkovitch at Constantinople, where he was sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labour for the crime. He fled back to Sofia and remained in hiding till the fall of Stambuloff, when he moved openly about the city under the protection of Natchevitch, who had now become Minister of Foreign Affairs. In equal security lived a number of other men, whose complicity in both these murders was a matter of notoriety.

Stambuloff, after his quarrel with Ferdinand and his imprisonment in his own house, gave an interview to the Frankfurter Zeitung, in which the character of Ferdinand was delineated with scathing accuracy. When Ferdinand read it the story of Henry II and Thomas À Becket rose to his mind. The ready tool Natchevitch was present, and throwing down the paper he cried, “Will no one rid me of this gutter-snipe?”

Henry, when his sinister order was carried out, confessed his sin in the sight of the English people by a penance more remarkable than any made by a monarch in the pages of history. His barefoot pilgrimage to the tomb of the murdered Archbishop was probably made in genuine sorrow for a petulant wish, repented before its suggestion had been carried into effect. It is like Ferdinand to repeat the crime and to omit the atonement.

The creatures he employed to perpetrate his crimes remain unpunished to this day. They were permitted to organize bands to desecrate the grave of Stambuloff, while yet it was lying open to receive the mangled body of the statesman. And Ferdinand, from the safety of Carlsbad, dared to send expressions of sympathy and a wreath to the bereaved woman, who had lived for months in the shadow of the impending crime.

His creatures lived to murder Stambuloff’s friend Petkoff. They lived to wax fat in idleness in the cafÉs of Sofia; some of them are alive at this day. Their deeds are known and they make no concealment of them. For Ferdinand is on their side. Well has he kept his wise vow to be on the side of the assassins.

Not that he would stoop to assassination himself. He is always absent in Carlsbad when any of this vile work is in train. He himself has a sensitive disposition that revolts at all deeds of violence and bloodshed. As we shall see, he cannot even bear to see a dumb animal suffer.