Once, in the days when Ferdinand was a sub-lieutenant of Austrian hussars, the Emperor Franz Joseph stood talking to Kossuth, the Hungarian statesman, at the window of the palace. As they talked Ferdinand chanced to pass through the courtyard below, and the Emperor asked the Hungarian his opinion of the young prince.

“That boy, sire,” said Kossuth, “has a long nose, but it will not be you who will pull it.”

The prophecy may or may not prove an accurate one, but the personal observation was inevitable. No one can possibly look at Ferdinand without being struck by the size and prominence of his nose. “Too copious for one man,” it has been pronounced, and in the modern gallery of kings there is certainly no nose like it.

For the rest, the Prince Ferdinand who first affronted the eyes of the rough Bulgarians was an exquisite, with artificially waved and golden locks, white hands with long slim fingers, a small waist confined by obvious corsets, and cold blue eyes that sparkled with self-esteem.

A quarter of a century has not served to modify the dominance of his all-pervading nose, though it has altered the rest of the man in no small degree. The long fair moustache and the delicately tended imperial have given way to a thick crop of grey hair, and a carefully trimmed and pointed beard. His pinched figure has expanded into a burly stoutness, his fine hands have gone plump and coarse; he is no longer the “Prince Charming” of the adventure of 1887; although he still preserves his personal vanity—for not long ago he had a journalist sent to gaol for nothing more than making some rude remarks about the length of his nose. The Ferdinand we are now to see surrounded by his home influences is a man who affects the manner of a bluff country gentleman.

Of course it is not possible to speak with any confidence of the manner of a man so entirely artificial as Ferdinand. He has a separate manner for every occasion and for every person with whom he comes into contact. As we have seen, his manner to the Sofiotes is ever one of aloof and portentous gravity. This pose of the monarch absorbed in the affairs of State is not an original one. It is copied from the Kaiser, who has for many years taken the utmost pains to avoid smiling in public. Not long ago a photographer, to whom the Kaiser was posing, startled him into a smile by the imperious manner of his instructions. All the prints made and the negative itself had to be destroyed.

The same pose of a man immersed in matters of superhuman importance has suited Ferdinand very well in Sofia, and I have shown that it has served very well to impress the people of that city. But when he was under a cloud, and forced to remain entirely at his country palaces, one found him doing the heavy benevolent father of his people, with the unfortunate Bulgarian peasants as his victims.

The two palaces between which he divided his time were that of Vrana, a suburb of Sofia where he has an estate at the foot of Mount Vitosch, and Euxinograd, the “Sandringham” he maintains on the border of the Black Sea, which was recently shelled with good effect by the Russian fleet.

Here you might have seen Ferdinand, gotten up in a shooting suit, with gaiters, thick leather gloves and a heavy stick, walking about the farms of the peasants and prodding the cattle in the ribs with a knowing air. Nice clean old peasant women were kept always at hand, to kiss his finger graciously extended to them, and to impress any foreign visitor with the urbanity of this monarch, and the good terms on which he existed with the simple country folk.

Let me quote his English biographer:—

“For the country people the King was a gentleman farmer, knowing everything about agriculture, tobacco-growing, wine-growing, the state of the markets, and most pleasant to gossip with. Every village on the railway line or country road along which the King was coming would turn out its crowd of people to salute him. In an automobile journey he would stop to watch or chat with labourers at work in the fields, or at some hamlet where the teacher took care to have his young folk lined up in front of their seniors. A pathetic love for childhood is one of the distinctive traits of Czar Ferdinand’s character.”

One of Ferdinand’s own stories is of a village teacher whom he met under such circumstances, and whom he graciously invited to come and see him if ever he visited Sofia. There was a grand levee at the palace, the story goes, and everybody was attired for the most formal of Ferdinand’s formal evenings. When the revelry was at its height, a rough man in baggy brown trousers and a country coat came to the door and asked to see the King. He was promptly told to go away. But he refused, and said he had been invited. Then a squabble took place, the rustic insisting on being allowed an entry.

In the midst of the trouble the King put in an appearance and cordially greeted his visitor. Shaking him heartily by the hand he led him through the brilliant throng to his study where he gave him refreshment. Then he conducted him about the palace, introducing him to this one and that.

That is a story that Sofia scoffs at, and that is believed by bucolic Bulgaria. And ninety per cent. of the Bulgarians are essentially bucolic.

Ferdinand takes the interest in his family that might have been expected of such a man. He has insisted that each of his four children shall have a hobby, and is more than a little proud of the electric bells which Prince Cyril has installed in the Vrana Palace. He alleges that this feat proves that the younger of his sons has a great mechanical genius, in which he takes after his father, who can drive a locomotive to perfection. It is an established theory, therefore, that eventually Prince Cyril shall succeed his father as Lord High Admiral of the handful of torpedo craft which constitute the Bulgarian fleet.

The Princesses have been taken in hand by the Czarina, and have effectually seconded her in the works of mercy that have so occupied her leisure of recent years. Both are pretty girls resembling their gentle mother rather than Ferdinand; indeed, there is little resemblance shown to the Balkan Czar by any of his family.

Ferdinand also goes in for sport in a mild sort of way. One cannot expect many such remarkable feats as the “valorous” shot that brought down the eagle which he has had stuffed and mounted in his den. But he does considerable execution among the little birds along the seashore, when the dare-devil fit comes upon him. He has also a rooted antipathy to owls, and will go to the utmost trouble to put one of these birds out of action.

The reason is a superstitious one. He declares that when any misfortune is about to overtake him, warning is given by the circumstance of an owl settling on the flagstaff of his Euxinograd Palace. The fewer owls, of course, the less opportunity of giving warnings, and so the less likelihood of misfortune overtaking the Balkan Czar. It is a fine piece of reasoning, which involves its originator in conduct which in a man less kind-hearted might almost be accounted as cruelty.

But he makes up for his harshness to owls by a great tenderness to birds that have bright plumage or sing sweetly. To all such the Euxinograd estate is a sanctuary, and is consequently the resort of feathered visitors from the whole country around. They, and the beautiful collection of caged birds which he maintains, form another interest to his life at this retreat.

And so, amid his tame peasants and tame birds in the seclusion of his beautiful gardens, Ferdinand waited for the home storm to blow over, and for the storm to rise without his kingdom. We understand now that he knew as well as anyone what was preparing, for he was deep in the councils of his friend Franz Ferdinand, and not without an inkling of what was in the mind of his friend’s friend, the Kaiser. The scheme of these two dark-minded men to attack Russia through Serbia was now in course of execution.

Ferdinand was still leading the simple life when the world was startled and horrified by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Who can say where the guilt of that bloody act really lies? Its effect can be discerned by the most superficial observer. While Franz Ferdinand lived there was in Austria a rival to the Kaiser in intellect, in force of character, in the art of concentrating national effort to the furtherance of his ambitious schemes.

The murder of the heir to the Austrian throne not only afforded a pretext for the attempt to inflict German predominance upon the face of Europe; it also removed from the path of Germany the one man who could have prevented Austria from sinking to the position of Germany’s vassal.

When the murder was done, Ferdinand, as if by a preconceived signal, returned from his retirement to actual life. He was now prepared to embark upon his last and greatest treachery, to put into execution schemes so devious and so dishonourable that all the perfidy of his early career sinks into insignificance. His part in the drama of 1914 was set and rehearsed; he now appeared on the stage, taking his cue with a promptitude that speaks volumes for the thoroughness with which he had been rehearsed.