The tradition that great monarchs are many-sided men has no warmer adherent than Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who is ever ready to exemplify it in his own person. To those who are familiar with his pursuits and amusements, his method of spending his days constitutes a most cruel parody upon the thousand different avocations of his “glorious ally” the Kaiser. But the Kaiser, as I have had occasion to show elsewhere, is in many respects a remarkable and successful man, who makes practical use of his wide store of information. Ferdinand’s alleged serious occupations are a daily round of sheer futilities.

For instance, some portion of the Kaiser’s day was always spent in reading a selection of Press cuttings carefully chosen for him, and by this means he was able to keep abreast with current news, commerce, inventions, and art. Ferdinand is also a close student of newspapers, which he studies with the sole object of reading what is written about himself. When he finds anything that displeases him, he tears up the offending news-sheet into little pieces, swearing most savagely.

When he first went to Bulgaria, there was great destruction of newspapers by him, for it was hard to find a paper that could say anything good about him. Indeed, it is recorded that his mother, Princess Clementine, wept tears of pure joy when for the first time she saw an appreciative account of her darling in an important French daily.

Stambuloff annoyed the Prince beyond all forgiveness by his early comments on this weakness. “Do not read so many papers,” he used to say, “but study public affairs. Get a French or English colonel to teach you the elements of military knowledge, so that you may be able to understand your War Minister.” But Ferdinand’s egotism caused this excellent if blunt counsel to be rejected; and to this day he is unable really to understand his War Minister.

After a time he evolved a fine method of seeing nice things about himself in the papers. Any one can do it, especially a reigning Prince. The art lies in being very kind to journalists—of a certain type. Once Ferdinand had mastered this art; which is colloquially known as “squaring the Press”—no Prince got so many favourable notices as he. He was just as confidential and communicative to a foreign journalist as he was reticent and baffling to a Bulgarian notable.

Yet Ferdinand, among other qualifications, is the easiest monarch to interview in all Europe, and is almost as accessible as some of the dusky princes of Afric’s sunny interior. The scene is usually mon fumoir, and begins with the exhibition of a sketch of the Czar’s predecessor, Prince Alexander of Battenberg—“Bulgaria’s hero,” says Ferdinand with becoming emotion.

Then there is the stuffed eagle which Ferdinand shot himself “with a valorous gunshot,” as M. Hepp says. And the little silver truck in which he keeps the first spadeful of earth dug up by himself to commemorate the opening of the railway line to Burgas. You must see that, and the golden keys of the Palace, as they were presented to him on the day he did his “sacred duty,” and set foot on Bulgarian soil.

Then he rings an electric bell, to show how clever Prince Cyril has fitted out the Palace with these marvels, laying all the wires himself. All his children are bidden to cultivate useful hobbies, the Bulgarian Czar will tell you, very much after the manner of Mr. Subbubs when he has lured you to Lonelitown for a week-end.

Thus, as an American scribe who had endured the process told me, Ferdinand “pulls domestic stuff on you.” He actually told one American—and his newspaper printed it—that his fondness for his children had saved his life from the vile assassin. According to Ferdinand, he was playing with his young children peacefully in the palace garden, when a Stambulovist emissary crept stealthily behind him with a dagger. But the rough man was so touched at the sight of this proud Bourbon playing with his innocent children just like any ordinary man, that he wiped away a tear, threw down his yataghan, and fled, sorely pricked by his conscience.

With some of his visitors Ferdinand affects the martyr, and tells how badly he is misunderstood, and how shamefully he is misrepresented. With others he is the genial man-of-the-world, and tells stories that involve the laying of his forefinger on the side of his long dishonourable nose—a favourite trick of his when he displays any portion of his stock of knowingness. To others again he tells stories of his kindness to animals.

On this count let me quote the beautiful anecdote of “The Prince and the Sparrow,” as touchingly related by M. Hepp, who had it from the mouth of this kind-hearted monarch.

One day, when Ferdinand was out walking, he found a poor little sparrow, which had fallen right in his path. He took it up in his hand, cherished it, and carried it with him to the Palace, where he gave orders that it should be carefully tended.

Some time later he was sitting at Council surrounded by his ministers, engrossed in serious affairs of State. At this juncture the thought of the poor little sparrow occurred to him. He rang for an attendant, and demanded instant news of the sad little cripple.

It is not astonishing, says M. Hepp, that with such a charm of sensibility the Prince attracts to him all shrinking souls.

Now read another instance of his charming sensibility, for the truth of which I can vouch, though Ferdinand himself has never related the story, to my knowledge.

Animated by a sense of duty, he set out to see the tomb of his uncle, the Prince de Joinville, at Eu, near Paris. But when, with his Grand Chamberlain, he reached the mortuary chapel, he found the door locked. The priest, it was explained, had gone away and taken the key with him. Should it be sent for? “No, no; don’t trouble,” said Ferdinand, immensely relieved, “let us go and get some lunch.” This they did, and the subject of dead uncles was not referred to, even over the coffee.

Naturally Ferdinand dabbles in the fine arts. He does wonderful things with a camera, and plays the piano most beautifully. Once he composed the libretto of an opera, and took some part in the arrangement of the music. When I think that the people of Sofia had to listen to that opera, my conscience smites me for some of the harsh things I have written about the Bulgarians. They have done wrong, certainly; but they have suffered. I have read that libretto, and I know.

Another much-vaunted accomplishment of the Shoddy Czar is his skill as an engine-driver. He is said to be quite at his best on the foot-plate of a locomotive. I remember what a commotion there was on the boulevards one summer evening when the news went round that Ferdinand was approaching Paris dressed as an engine-driver, and actually driving the locomotive of the train which was bearing him to the City of Light. What a rush there was to the railway station, and what a gang of secret police! But the Bulgarian Prince had dismounted from the cab at Abbeville, and indulged in a wash and a brush-up before he reached the city.

On another occasion, when he was staying at Bad-Neuheim, he asked permission to drive a train to Frankfort and back, and this was granted. There was quite a crowd to greet him when the journey was finished, but his beaming face was all clouded when a sarcastic lady stepped forward and handed him a bouquet inscribed with the simple word “Bravery.” The best way out of the ridiculous situation that he could devise was to hand the flowers to the real engine-driver, with the remark, “This lady has confused you with me, my friend.”

On another occasion he was telling some journalist of his skill on the engine-plate, and this man, wishing to please him, remarked that the accomplishment was a useful one, and might one day save his life. It was a tactless remark to make to a man of sensibility.

“I am sorry I have no locomotive now,” he growled, “to escape from such silly remarks.”

Yet it is difficult to imagine any use for what appears to be the nearest thing to a manly accomplishment he possesses. Unless he wants to run away from somewhere, his engine driving is hardly likely to be of any benefit to himself or anyone else.

It is a futile accomplishment, as nearly all his occupations and amusements are futile. Compared with such a king as our own, who does an immense amount of hard, useful work, in an unassuming way; or even with the Kaiser, who makes a lot of fuss, but certainly gets a good deal done, this Ferdinand is surely a make-believe monarch.

He sits in his thug-proof den, surrounded by his photographs and his absurd silver model of a railway truck and other trumpery, and allows it to be understood that his labours of State keep him up to all hours of the morning. But the net result of his labours is a new fÊte dress for himself, some fault-finding with the garden plans of a landscape expert, or something equally useless.

With the exception of the expensive capital, Bulgaria remains as Stambuloff left it. He claims, this shoddy Czar, that he has worked unremittingly to improve a semi-barbarous kingdom; while he has been engaged in the most trifling and useless occupations. Beyond ministering to his own inordinate vanity, and scheming darkly to some one else’s disadvantage, all his occupations are as childishly futile as those I have described.