KING ALFONSO XIII

1.

"You wanted me to complete your collection, didn't you, M. Paoli?"

The presidential train had left Hendaye; the distant echoes of the Spanish national anthem still reached our ears through the silence and the darkness. Leaning from the window of the sleeping-car, I was watching the last lights of the little frontier-town disappear one by one.

I turned round briskly at the sound of that gay and bright voice. A tall, slim young man stood at the door of the compartment, with a cigarette between his lips and a soft felt hat on his head, and gave me a friendly little wave of the hand. His long, slender figure looked very smart and supple in a pale-grey travelling-suit; and a broad smile lit up his bronzed face, his smooth, boyish face, adorned with a large Bourbon hooked nose, planted like an eagle's beak between two very black eyes, full of fire and humour.

"Yes, yes, M. Paoli, I know you, though perhaps you don't yet know me. My mother has often spoken to me of you and, when she heard that you had been appointed to watch over my safety, she said, 'With Paoli, I feel quite at ease.'"

"I am infinitely touched and flattered, Sir," I replied, "by that gracious mark of confidence. It is true that my collection was incomplete without your Majesty."

That is how I became acquainted with H. M. Alfonso XIII, in the spring of 1905, at the time of his first official visit to France. "The little king", as he was still called, had lately completed his nineteenth year. He had attained his majority a bare twelve-month before and was just entering upon his career as a monarch, if I may so express myself. The watchful eyes of Europe were beginning to observe with sympathetic interest the first actions of this young ruler who, with the exuberant grace of his fine and trusting youth, brought an unexpected and amusing contrast into the somewhat constrained formality of the gallery of sovereigns. Though he had no history as yet, plenty of anecdotes were already current about him and a plenty of morals were drawn in consequence:

"He has a nature all impulse," said one.

"He is full of character," said people who had met him.

"He is like his father: he would charm the bird from the tree," an old Spanish diplomatist remarked to me.

"At any rate, there is nothing commonplace about him," thought I, still perplexed by the unconventional, amusing, jocular way in which he had interrupted my nocturnal contemplations.

No, he was certainly not commonplace! The next morning, I saw him at early dawn at the windows of the saloon-carriage, devouring with a delighted curiosity the sights that met his eyes as the train rushed at full speed through the verdant plains of the Charente. Nothing escaped his youthful enthusiasm: fields, forests, rivers, things, people. Everything gave rise to sparkling exclamations:

"What a lovely country yours is, M. Paoli!" he cried, when he saw me standing near him. "I feel as if I were still at home, as if I knew everybody: the faces all seem familiar. It's 'stunning'!"

At the sound of this typically Parisian expression (the French word which he employed was Épatant) proceeding from the royal lips, it was my turn to be "stunned." In my innocence, I was not yet aware that he knew all our smart slang phrases and used them freely.

His spirits were as inexhaustible as his bodily activity; and, upon my word, we were hard put to it to keep up with him. Now running from one window to another, so as to "miss nothing," as he said, with a laugh; now leaning over the back of a chair or swinging his legs from a table; now striding up and down the carriage, with his hands in his pockets and the everlasting cigarette between his lips, he questioned us without ceasing. He wanted to know everything, though he knew a great deal as it was. The army and navy excited his interest in the highest degree; the provinces through which we were passing, their customs, their past, their administrative organisation, their industries supplied him with the subjects of an exhaustive interrogatory, to which we did our best to reply. Our social laws, our parliament, our politicians as eagerly aroused his lively curiosity, and then came the turn of Paris which he was at last about to see, whose splendours and peculiarities he already knew from reading and hearsay, that Paris which he looked upon as a fairyland, a promised land; and the thought that he was to be solemnly welcomed there sent a slight flush of excitement to his cheeks.

"It must be wonderful!" he said, his eyes ablaze with pleasurable impatience.

He also insisted upon our giving him full details about the persons who were to receive him:

"What is M. Loubet like? And the prime minister? And the governor of Paris?"

When he was not putting questions, he was telling stories, recalling his impressions of his recent journeys in Spain.

"Confess, M. Paoli," he said, "that you have never had to look after a king as young as I."

His conversation, jesting and serious by turns, studded with judicious reflexions, with smart sallies, with freakish outbursts and unexpected digressions, revealed a young and keen intelligence, eager after knowledge, a fresh mind open to effusive ideas, a quivering imagination, counterbalanced, however, by a reflective brain. I remember the astonishment of the French officers who had come to meet him at the frontier, on hearing him discuss matters of military strategy with the authority and the expert wisdom of an old tactician; I remember also the surprise of a high official who had joined the train midway and to whose explanations the King was lending an attentive ear when we crossed a bridge over the Loire, in which some water-fowl happened to be disporting themselves.

"Oh, what a pity!" the King broke in. "Why haven't I a gun?" And, taking aim with an imaginary fowling-piece, "What a fine shot!"

Again, I remember the spontaneous and charming way in which, full of admiration for the beauties of our Touraine, he tapped me on the shoulder and cried:

"There's no doubt about it, I love France! France forever!"

What was not my surprise, afterwards, at Orleans, where the first official stop was made, to see him appear in his full uniform as captain-general, his features wearing an air of singular dignity, his gait proud and lofty, compelling in all of us a respect for the impressive authority that emanated from his whole person! He found the right word for everybody, was careful of the least shades of etiquette, moved, talked and smiled amid the gold-laced uniforms with a sovereign ease, showing from the first that he knew better than anybody how to play his part as a king.

There is one action, very simple in appearance, but in reality more difficult than one would think, by which we can judge a sovereign's bearing in a foreign country. This is his manner of saluting the colours. Some, as they pass before the standard surrounded by its guard of honour, content themselves with raising their hand to their cap or helmet; others stop and bow; others, lastly, make a wide and studied gesture which betrays a certain, almost theatrical affectation. Alfonso XIII's salute is like none of these: in its military stiffness, it is at once simple and grave, marked by supreme elegance and profound deference. On the platform of the Orleans railway-station, opposite the motionless battalion, in the presence of a number of officers and civil functionaries, this salute which so visibly paid a delicate homage to the army and the country, the graceful and respectful salute moved and flattered us more than any number of boasts and speeches. And, when, at last, I went home, after witnessing the young King's arrival in the capital and noticing the impression which he had made on the government and the people, I recalled the old Spanish diplomatist's remark:

"The King would charm the bird from the tree!"

2.

I saw little of King Alfonso during his first stay in Paris. The protection of sovereigns who are the official guests of the government did not come within the scope of my duties. I therefore left him at the station and was not to resume my place in his suite until the moment of his departure. The anarchist revolutionary gentry appeared to be unaware of this detail, for I daily received a fair number of anonymous letters, most of which contained more or less vague threats against the person of our royal visitor. One of them, which the post brought me as I was on the point of proceeding to the gala performance given at the Opera in his honour, struck me more particularly because of the plainness of the warning which it conveyed, a warning devoid of any of the insults that usually accompany this sort of communication:

"In spite of all the precautions that have been taken," it read, "the King had better be careful when he leaves the Opera to-night."

This note, written in a rough, disguised hand, was, of course, unsigned. I at once passed it on to the right quarter. The very strict supervision that was being exercised no doubt excluded the possibility of a successful plot. But there remained the danger of an individual attempt, the murderous act of a single person: and I knew by experience that, to protect one's self against that, one must rely exclusively upon "the police of Heaven," to use the picturesque expression of SeÑor Maura, the Spanish premier.

Haunted by a baneful presentiment, I nevertheless decided on leaving the Opera, to remain near the King's carriage (as a mere passer-by, of course) until he had stepped into it with M. Loubet and driven off, surrounded by his squadron of cavalry. The attempt on his life took place at the corner of the Rue de Rohan and the Rue de Rivoli; and both the King and M. Loubet enjoyed a miraculous escape from death. My presentiment, therefore, had not been at fault.

I need not here recall the coolness which the young monarch displayed in these circumstances, for it is still present in every memory, nor the magnificent indifference with which he looked upon the tragic incident:

"I have received my baptism of fire," he said to me, a couple of days later, "and, upon my word, it was much less exciting than I expected!"

Alfonso XIII, in fact, has a fine contempt for danger. Like the late King Humbert, he considers that assassination is one of the little drawbacks attendant on the trade of king. He gave a splendid proof of this courage at the time of the Madrid bomb, of which I shall speak later; and I was able to see it for myself two days after the attempted assassination in the Rue de Rohan.

On leaving Paris, our royal visitor went to Cherbourg, where I accompanied him, to embark on board the British royal yacht, which was to take him to England. As we approached the town in the early morning, the presidential train was shunted on to the special line that leads direct to the dockyard. Suddenly, while we were running pretty fast, a short stop took place, producing a violent shock in all the carriages. The reader can imagine the excitement. The railway-officials, officers and chamberlains of the court sprang out on the permanent way and rushed to the royal saloon.

"Another attempt?" asked the King, calmly smiling, as he put his head out of the window.

We all thought so at the first moment. Fortunately, it was only a slight accident: the rear luggage-van had left the rails through a mistake in the shunting. I hastened to explain the matter to the King.

"You'll see," he at once replied, "they will say, all the same, that it was an attempt on my life: I must let my mother know quickly, or she will be frightened."

The King was right. Someone, we never discovered who, had already found means to telegraph to Queen Maria Christina that a fresh attack had been made on her son. There are always plenty of bearers of ill-news, even where sovereigns are concerned and especially when the news is false!

I took leave of the King at Cherbourg and joined him, the week after, at Calais, whence I was to accompany him to the Spanish frontier, for he was returning direct to his own country. This time, the official journey was over; and I once more found the pleasant, simple young man, in the pale-grey suit and the soft hat. The warm welcome which he had received in England had not wiped out his enthusiastic recollection of France.

"By George," he declared, "how glad I am to see this beautiful country again, even through the windows of the railway-carriage!"

A violent shower set in as we left Calais. The train went along a line in process of repair and had to travel very slowly. At that moment, seeing some gangs of navvies working under the diluvial downpour and soaked to the skin, the King leant out of the window and, addressing them:

"Wait a bit!" he said. "I'm going to give you something to smoke. This will warm you."

And the King, after emptying the contents of his cigarette-case into their horny hands, took the boxes of cigars and cigarettes that lay on the tables, one after the other and passed them through the window, first to the delighted labourers and then to the soldiers drawn up on either side of the line. They had never known such a windfall: it rained Upmanns, Henry Clays and Turkish cigarettes. When none were left, the King appealed to the members of his suite, whom he laughingly plundered for the benefit of these decent fellows. They, not knowing his quality, shouted gaily:

"Thank you, sir, thank you! Come back soon!"

We had but one regret, that of remaining without anything to smoke until we were able, at the next stop, to replenish our provisions of tobacco which had been exhausted in so diverting a fashion.

When, on the following morning, we reached Hendaye, which is the frontier station between France and Spain, a very comical incident occurred that amused the young traveller greatly. By a purely fortuitous coincidence, they were waiting, as we pulled up, for the train of King Carlos of Portugal, who was also about to pay an official visit to France; and the authorities and troops had collected on the platform in order to show the usual honours to their new guest. Our sudden arrival, for which nobody was prepared, as Alfonso XIII was not now travelling officially, utterly disconcerted the resplendent crowd. Would the King of Spain think that they were there on his account and would he not be offended when he discovered his mistake? It was a difficult position, but the prefect rose to the occasion. As the King of Portugal's train was not yet signalled, he gave orders to pay the honours to King Alfonso XIII.

The moment, therefore, that our train stopped, the authorities and general officers hurried in our direction and the band of the regiment, which had been practising the Portuguese royal anthem, briskly struck up the Spanish anthem instead. But the King, who knew what he was about, leant from the window and chaffingly cried:

"Please, gentlemen, please! I know that you are not here for me, but for my next-door neighbour!"

At Irun, the first Spanish station, where I was to take leave of our guest, a fresh surprise awaited us. There was not a trace of police-protection, not a soldier, not a gendarme. An immense crowd had freely invaded both platforms. And what a crowd! Thousands of men, women and children shouted, sang, waved their hands, hustled one another and fired guns into the air for joy, while the King, calm and smiling elbowed his way from the presidential to the royal train, patting the children's heads as he passed, paying a compliment to their mothers, distributing friendly nods to the men who were noisily cheering him. And I thought of our democratic country, in which we imprison the rulers of States in an impenetrable circle of police-supervision, whereas here, in a monarchical country, labouring under a so-called reign of terror, the sovereign walks about in the midst of strangers, unprotected by any precautionary measures. It was a striking contrast.

But my mission was at an end. Still laughing, the King, as he gave me his hand, said:

"Well, M. Paoli, you can no longer say that you haven't got me in your collection!"

"I beg your pardon, Sir," I replied. "It's not complete yet."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, Sir, I haven't your portrait."

"Oh, that will be all right!" And, turning to the grand master of his court, "Santo Mauro, make a note: photo for M. Paoli."

A few days after, I received a photograph, signed and dated by the royal hand.

Five months later, Alfonso XIII, returning from Germany, where he had been to pay his accession-visit to the Berlin Court, stopped to spend a day incognito in Paris. I found him as I had left him; gay, enthusiastic, full of good-nature, glad to be alive.

"Here I am again, my dear M. Paoli," he said, when he perceived me at the frontier, where, according to custom, I had gone to meet him. "But this time I shall not cause you any great worry. I must go home and I sha'n't stop for more than twenty-four hours—worse luck!—in Paris."

On the other hand, he wasted none of his time while there. Jumping into a motor-car the moment he was out of the train, he first drove to the HÔtel Bristol, where he remained just long enough to change his clothes, after which he managed, during his brief stay, to hear mass in the church of St. Roch, for it was Sunday, to pay a visit to M. Loubet, to make some purchases in the principal shops, to lunch with his aunt, the Infanta Eulalie, to take a motor-drive, in the pouring rain, as far as Saint-Germain and back, to dine at the Spanish Embassy and to wind up the evening at the ThÉÂtre des VariÉtÉs.

"And it's like that every day, when he's travelling," said one of his suite to me.

The King, I may say, makes up for this daily expenditure of activity with a tremendous appetite. I have observed, for that matter, that the majority of sovereigns are valiant trenchermen. Every morning of his life, Alfonso XIII has a good rumpsteak and potatoes for his first breakfast, often preceded by eggs and sometimes followed by salad and fruit. The King, on the other hand, never drinks wine and generally confines himself to a tumbler of water and zucharillos, the national beverage, composed of white of egg beaten up with sugar.

In spite of his continual need of movement, his passionate love of sport in all its forms and especially of motoring, his expansive, rather mad, but very attractive youthfulness, Alfonso XIII, even in his flying trips, never, as we have seen, loses the occasion of improving his mind. He is very quick at seizing a point, possesses a remarkable power of assimilation and, although he does not read much, for he has no patience, he is remarkably well-informed as regards the smallest details that interest him. One day, for instance, he asked me, point-blank:

"Do you know how many gendarmes there are in France?"

I confess that I was greatly puzzled what to reply, for I have never cared much about statistics. I, therefore, ventured, on the off-chance, to say:

"Ten thousand."

"Ten thousand! Come, M. Paoli, what are you thinking of? That's the number we have in Spain. It's more like twenty thousand."

This figure, as I afterwards learnt, was strictly accurate.

As for business of State, I also noticed that the King devoted more time to it than his restless life would lead one to believe. Rising winter and summer at six o'clock, he stays indoors and works regularly during the early portion of the morning and often again at night. In this connexion, one of his ministers said to me:

"He never shows a sign of either weariness or boredom. The King's 'frivolity' is a popular fallacy. On the contrary, he is terribly painstaking. Just like the Queen Mother, he insists upon clear and detailed explanations, before signing the least document; and he knows quite well how to make his will felt. Besides, he is fond of work and he can work no matter where: in a motor-car, in a boat, in the train, as well as in his study."

But it was especially on the occasion of the event which was to mark an indelible date in his life, a fair and happy date, that I had time to observe him and to come to know him better. The reader will have guessed that I am referring to his engagement. The duties which I fulfilled during a quarter of a century have sometimes involved difficult moments, delicate responsibilities, thankless tasks, but they have also procured me many charming compensations; and I have no more delightful recollection than that of witnessing, at first hand, the fresh and touching royal idyll, the simple, cloudless romance, which began one fine evening in London, was subsequently continued under the sunny sky of the Basque coast and ended by leading to one of those rare unions which satisfy the exigencies both of public policy and of the heart.

Like his father before him, Alfonso XIII, when his ministers began to hint discreetly about possible "alliances," contented himself with replying:

"I shall marry a princess who takes my fancy and nobody else. I want to love my wife."

Nevertheless, diplomatic intrigues fashioned themselves around the young sovereign. The Emperor William would have liked to see a German princess sharing the throne of Spain; a marriage with an Austrian archduchess would have continued a time-honoured tradition; the question of a French princess was also mooted, I believe. But the political rapprochement between Spain and England had just been accomplished under French auspices; an Anglo-Spanish marriage seemed to correspond with the interests of Spain; and it so happened that the Princess Patricia of Connaught had lately been seen in Andalusia. Her name was on all men's lips; already, in the silence of the palace, official circles were preparing for this union. Only one detail had been omitted, but it was a detail of the first importance: that of consulting the two persons directly interested, who did not even know each other.

When the King went to England, no one thought for a moment but that he would return engaged—and engaged to Patricia of Connaught. The diplomatists, however, had reckoned without a factor, which, doubtless, was foreign to them, but which was all-powerful in the eyes of Alfonso XIII: the little factor known as love.

As a matter of fact, when the two young people met, they did not attract each other. On the other hand, at the ball given in the King's honour at Buckingham Palace, Alfonso never took his eyes off a young, fair-haired princess, whose radiant beauty shed all the glory of spring around her.

"Who is that?" asked the King.

"Princess Ena of Battenberg," was the reply.

The two were presented, danced and talked together, met again on the next day and on the following days.

And, when the King returned to Spain, he left his heart in England.

But he did not breathe a word about it. His little idyll, which took the form of an interchange of letters and postcards as well as of secret negotiations with a view to marriage—negotiations conducted with the English royal family by the King in person—was pursued in the greatest mystery. People knew, of course, that the princess and the King liked and admired each other; but they knew nothing of the young monarch's private plans. Moreover, he took a pleasure in mystifying his entourage. He who had once been so expansive now became suddenly contemplative and reserved.

Soon after his return, he ordered a yacht; and, when the time came to christen her, he made the builders paint on the prow in gold letters:

PRINCESS ...

The comment aroused by these three little dots may be easily imagined.

The moment, however, was at hand when the name of the royal yacht's godmother and, therefore, of the future Queen of Spain was to be revealed. One morning in January, 1906, I received a letter from Miss Minnie Cochrane, Princess Henry of Battenberg's faithful lady-in-waiting, telling me that the princess and her daughter, Princess Ena, were leaving shortly for Biarritz, to stay with their cousin, the Princess Frederica of Hanover, and inviting me to accompany them. This kind thought is explained by the fact that I had known the princess and her daughter for many years: I had often had occasions to see Princess Beatrice with the late Queen Victoria, to whom she showed the most tender filial affection; I had also known Princess Ena as a little girl, when she still wore short frocks and long fair curls and used to play with her doll under the fond, smiling gaze of her august grandmother. She was then a grave and reflective child; she had great, deep, expressive blue eyes; and she was a little shy, like her mother.

When at Calais, I beheld a fresh and beautiful young girl, unreserved and gay, a real fairy princess, whose face, radiant with gladness, so evidently reflected a very sweet, secret happiness; when, on the day after her arrival at Biarritz, I unexpectedly saw King Alfonso arrive in a great state of excitement and surprised the first glance which they exchanged at the door of the villa, then I understood. I was, therefore, not in the least astonished when Miss Cochrane, whom I had ventured to ask if it was true that there was a matrimonial project on foot between the King and the princess, answered, with a significant smile:

"I think so; it is not officially settled yet; it will be decided here."

3.

The Villa Mouriscot, where the princesses were staying, was a picturesque Basque chalet, elegantly and comfortably furnished. Standing on a height, at two miles from Biarritz, whence the eye commanded the magnificent circle of hills, and buried in the midst of luxuriant and fragrant gardens, intersected by shady and silent walks, it formed an appropriately poetic setting for the romance of the royal betrothal.

The King came every day. Wrapped in a huge cloak, with a motoring-cap and goggles, he would arrive at ten o'clock in the morning from San Sebastian in his double Panhard, which he drove himself, except on the rare occasions when he entrusted the steering-wheel to his excellent French chauffeur, Antonin, who accompanied him on all his excursions. His friends, the Marquis de Viana, the young Conde de Villalobar, counsellor to the Spanish Embassy in London, SeÑor QuiÑones de Leon, the charming attachÉ to the Paris Embassy, the Conde del Grove, his faithful aide-de-camp, or the Marquis de Pacheco, commanding the palace halberdiers, formed his usual suite. As soon as the motor had passed through the gates and stopped before the door, where Baron von Pawel-Rammingen, the Princess Frederica's husband, and Colonel Lord William Cecil, Princess Henry of Battenberg's comptroller, awaited him, the King hurried to the drawing-room, where the pretty princess sat looking out for his arrival, as impatient for the meeting as the King himself.

After the King had greeted his hosts at the villa, he and the princess walked into the gardens and exchanged much lively talk as they strolled about the paths in which, as Gounod's song says, "lovers lose their way." They returned in time for the family lunch, a very simple repast to which the King's tremendous appetite did full honour. He used often to send for FraÜlein Zinska, the Princess Frederica's old Hanoverian cook, and congratulate her on her culinary capacities, a proceeding which threw the good woman into an ecstasy of delight. After lunch, the young people, accompanied by Miss Cochrane as chaperone, went out in the motor, not returning until nearly dark. On rainy days, of course, there was no drive; but in the drawing-room of the villa the Princess Frederica had thoughtfully contrived a sort of recess, furnished with a sofa, in which the engaged couple could pursue their discreet flirtation at their ease. When they took refuge there, the young Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who had joined his family at Biarritz, used to tease them:

"Look out!" he would cry to anyone entering the room. "Be careful! Don't disturb the lovers!"

In the evening, at dinner, the suite were present. The King changed into evening-clothes, with the collar of the Golden Fleece. At half-past ten, he left for the station and returned to San Sebastian by the Sud-Express.

After a few days, although they were not officially engaged, no one doubted that the event was near at hand.

"She's nice, isn't she?" the King asked me, point-blank.

A significant detail served to show me how far things had gone. One day, the two young people, accompanied by the Princesses Frederica and Beatrice and the whole little court, walked to the end of the grounds, to a spot near the lake, where two holes had been newly dug. A gardener stood waiting for them, carrying two miniature fir-plants in his arms.

"This is mine," said the King.

"And this is mine," said the princess, in French, for they constantly spoke French together.

"We must plant the trees side by side," declared the King, "so that they may always remind us of these never-to-be-forgotten days."

No sooner said than done. In accordance with the old English tradition, the two of them, each laying hold of a spade, dug up the earth and heaped it around the shrubs with shouts of laughter that rang clear through the silent wood. Then, when the King, who, in spite of his strength of arm, is a poor gardener, perceived that the princess had finished her task first:

"There is no doubt about it," he said, "I am very awkward! I must put in a month or two with the Engineers!"

On returning to the villa, he gave the princess her first present: a heart set in brilliants. It was certainly a day of symbols.

On the following day, things took a more definite turn. The King came to fetch the princesses in the morning to take them to San Sebastian, where they met Queen Maria Christina. Nobody knew what happened in the course of the interview and the subsequent private luncheon at the Miramar Palace. But it was, beyond a doubt, a decisive day. At Fuentarabia, the first Spanish town through which they passed on their way to San Sebastian in the morning, the King said to the princess:

"You are now on Spanish soil."

"Oh," she said, "I am so glad!"

"It will soon be for good."

And they smiled to each other.

The frantic cheering that greeted her entry at San Sebastian, the hail of flowers that fell at her feet when she passed through the streets, the motherly kiss with which she was received at the door of Queen Maria Christina's drawing-room must have given Princess Ena to understand that all Spain had confirmed its sovereign's choice and applauded his good taste.

Twenty-four hours after this visit, the Queen Mother, in her turn, went to Biarritz and took tea at the Villa Mouriscot. The King had gone on before her. Intense happiness was reflected on every face. When the Queen, who had very graciously sent for me to thank me for the care which I was taking of her son, stepped into her carriage, she said to the princess, with a smile:

"We shall soon see you in Madrid."

Then, taking a white rose from the bouquet with which the Mayor of Biarritz had presented her, she gave it to the princess, who pressed it to her lips before pinning it to her bodice.

That same evening, the King, beaming all over his face, cried to me from a distance, the moment he saw me:

"It's all right, Paoli; the official demand has been granted. You see before you the happiest of men!"

He was indeed happy, so much so that his gaiety infected everybody around him. Each of us felt that he had some small part in this frank happiness, in this touching romance; and we felt all its charm as though our hearts were but twenty years old again. The English themselves, forgetting that their princess was about to marry a Catholic sovereign and that she would have to forswear the Protestant faith—an essential condition of the marriage—the English, usually so strict in these matters, greeted this love-match with enthusiasm. One of the British ministers gave vent to a very pretty phrase. Someone expressing surprise, in his presence, at the acquiescence shown in this connexion by King Edward's government:

"Mankind loves a lover," he replied. "Especially in England."

The days that followed upon the betrothal were days of enchantment for the young couple, now freed from all preoccupation and constraint. One met them daily, motoring along the picturesque roads of the Basque country or walking through the streets of Biarritz, stopping before the shopwindows, at the photographer's or at the pastrycook's.

"Do you know, Paoli," said the King to me, one day, "I've changed the princess's name. Instead of calling her Ena, which I don't like, I call her Nini. That's very Parisian, isn't it?"

The royal lover, as I have already said, prided himself with justice on his Parisianism, as witness the following scrap of dialogue, which took place one morning in the street at Biarritz:

"M. Paoli."

"Sir?"

"Do you know the tune of the Maschich?"

"Upon my word, I can't say I do, Sir!"

"Or of Viens, Poupoule?"

"No, Sir."

"Why, then you know nothing. Paoli ... you're a disgrace!"

Thereupon, half-opening the door of the confectioner's shop where Princess Ena was making a leisurely selection of cakes, he began to hum the famous air of Viens, Poupoule!

It will readily be imagined that the protection of the King was not always an easy matter. True, it was understood that I should invariably be told beforehand of the programme of the day; but the plans would be changed an hour later; and, when the young couple had once set out at random, nothing was more difficult than to catch them up.

I remember one morning when the King informed me that he did not intend to go out that day. I thereupon determined to give myself a few hours' rest. I had returned to my hotel and was beginning to enjoy the unaccustomed sense of repose when the telephone bell rang:

"The King and the Princess have gone out," said the voice of one of my detectives. "It's impossible to find them."

Greatly alarmed, I was hurrying to the Villa Mouriscot, when, at a bend in the road, I saw the fugitives themselves before me, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice.

"I say!" cried the King, in great glee. "We gave your inspector the slip!"

And, as I was venturing to utter a discreet reproach:

"Don't be angry with us, M. Paoli," the princess broke in, very prettily. "The King isn't frightened; no more am I. Who would think of hurting us?"

The great delight of Alfonso, who is very playfully inclined, was to hoax people that did not know who he was. One day, motoring into Cambo, the delicious village near which M. Edmond Rostand's property lies, he entered the post-office to send off some postcards. Seeing the woman in charge of the office taking the air outside the door:

"I beg your pardon, madame," he said, very politely. "Could you tell me if the King of Spain is expected here to-day?"

"I don't know anything about it," said the little post-mistress in an off-hand way.

"Don't you know him by sight?"

"No."

"Oh, really! They say he's very nice: not exactly handsome, but quite charming, for all that."

The good lady, of course, suspected nothing; but when the King handed her his postcards, it goes without saying that she at once read the superscriptions and saw that they were addressed to the Queen Mother at San Sebastian, to the Infanta DoÑa Paz, to the Infanta Maria Theresa, to the prime minister.

"Why, it's the King himself!" she exclaimed, quite overcome.

Alfonso XIII was already far on his road.

The most amusing adventure, however, was that which he had at Dax. One morning, he took it into his head to motor away to the parched and desolate country of the Landes, which stretch from Bayonne to Bordeaux. After a long and wearing drive, he decided to take the train back from Dax. Accompanied by his friend SeÑor QuiÑones de Leon, he made for the station, where the two young men, tired out and soaked in perspiration, sat down in the refreshment-room.

"Give us some lunch, please," said the King, who was ravenously hungry, to the woman at the bar.

The refreshment-room, unfortunately, was very meagerly supplied. When the two travelling-companions had eaten up the sorry fare represented by a few eggs and sandwiches, which had probably been waiting more than a month for a traveller to arrive and take a fancy to them, the King, whose appetite was far from being satisfied, called the barmaid, a fat and matronly BÉarnaise, with an upper lip adorned with a pair of thick moustachios.

"Have you nothing else to give us?" he asked.

"I have a pÂtÉ de foie gras, but it's very expensive," said the decent creature, whose perspicacity did not go to the length of seeing a serious customer in this famished and dusty young man.

"Never mind, let's have it," said the King.

The woman brought her pÂtÉ, which was none too fresh; but how great was her amazement when she saw the two travellers devour not only the liver, but the fat as well! The pot was emptied and scraped clean in the twinkling of an eye.

Pleased with her successful morning's trade and encouraged by the King's ebullient good-humour, the barmaid sat down at the royal table, and began to tell the King her family affairs and questioned him with maternal solicitude. When, at last, the hour of departure struck, they shook hands with each other warmly.

Some time afterwards, the King was passing through Dax by rail and, as the train steamed into the station, said to me:

"I have an acquaintance at Dax. I'll show her to you: she is charming."

The plump BÉarnaise was there, more moustachioed than ever. I will not attempt to describe her comic bewilderment at recognising her former customer in the person of the King. He was delighted and, giving her his hand:

"You won't refuse to say How-do-you-do to me, I hope?" he asked, laughing.

The thing turned her head; what was bound to happen happened: she became indiscreet. From that time onwards, she looked into every train that stopped at Dax, to see if "her friend" the King was among the passengers; and, when, instead of stepping out on the platform, he satisfied himself with giving her a friendly nod from behind the pane, she felt immensely disappointed: in fact, she was even a little offended.

The Cambo post-mistress and the Dax barmaid are not the only people who boast of having been taken in by Alfonso XIII. His turn for waggery was sometimes vented upon grave and serious men. Dr. Moure, of Bordeaux, who attended the young monarch when his nose was operated upon, has a story to tell. He was sent for, one day, to San Sebastian and was waiting for his illustrious patient in a room at the Miramar Palace, when the door opened quickly and there entered a most respectable lady, dressed in silk flounces and wearing a wig and spectacles. Not having the honour of her acquaintance, he made a deep bow, to which she replied with a stately courtesy.

"It must be the camerera-major," he thought to himself. "She looks tremendously eighteenth-century."

But suddenly a great burst of laughter shook the venerable dowager's frame from head to foot, her spectacles fell from her nose, her wig dropped likewise and a clarion voice cried:

"Good-morning, doctor! It's I!"

It was the King.

The chapter of anecdotes is inexhaustible. And it is not difficult to picture how this playful simplicity, combined with a delicacy of feeling and a knightly grace to which, in our age of brutal realism, we are no longer accustomed, made an utter conquest of the pretty English princess. When, after several days of familiar and daily intimacy, it became necessary to say good-bye—the princess was returning to England to busy herself with preparations for her marriage, Alfonso to Madrid for the same reason—when the moment of separation had come, there was a pang at the heart on both sides. And, as I was leaving with the princess for Paris:

"You're a lucky man, M. Paoli, to be going with the princess," said the King, sadly, as I was stepping into the railway-carriage. "I'd give anything to be in your place!"

While the Court of Spain was employed in settling, down to the smallest particular, the ceremonial for the King's approaching wedding, Princess Ena was absorbed, at one and the same time, in the charming details of her trousseau and in the more austere preparations for her conversion to Catholicism. This conversion, as I have already said, was a sine qu non to the consent of Spain to her marriage.

The princess and her mother, accompanied by Miss Cochrane and Lord William Cecil, went and stayed in an hotel at Versailles for the period of religious instruction which precedes the admission of a neophyte within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church; and it was at Versailles, on a cold February morning, that she abjured her Protestantism in a sequestered chapel of the cathedral. Why did she select the town of Louis XIV in which to accomplish this important and solemn act of her life? Doubtless, because of the peaceful silence that surrounded it and of the past, filled with melancholy grandeur, which it conjured up; perhaps, also, because of the association of ideas suggested to her mind by the city of the Great King and the origins of the family of the Spanish Bourbons of which it was the cradle. The heart of woman sometimes provides instances of this delicacy of thought.

The last months of the winter of 1906 were spent by the engaged pair in eager expectation of the great event that was to unite them for good and all and in the manifold occupations which it involved. The date of the wedding was fixed for the 31st of May. A few days before that I went to Calais to meet the princess. It was as though nature, in her charming vernal awakening, was smiling upon the royal bride and had hastily decked herself in her best to greet the young princess, as she passed, with all her youthful gladness. But the princess saw nothing: she had bidden a last farewell to her country, her family and her home; and, despite the happiness that called her, the fond memory of all that she was quitting oppressed her heart.

"It is nothing, M. Paoli," she said, when I asked the cause of her sadness, "it is nothing: I cannot help feeling touched when I think that I am leaving the country where I have spent so many happy days to go towards the unknown."

She did not sleep that night. At three o'clock in the morning, she was up and dressed, ready to appear before her future husband, before the nation that was waiting to welcome her, while the King, at the same hour, was striding up and down the platform at Irun, in a fever of excitement, peering into the night so as to be the first to see the yellow gleams of the train and nervously lighting cigarette upon cigarette to calm his impatience.

Then came the whirlwind of festivals at which the King invited me to be present, the sumptuous magnificence of the marriage-ceremony in the ancient church of Los Geronimos. It was as though the old Court of Spain had regained its pomp of the days of long ago. Once more, the streets, all dressed with flags, were filled with antiquated chariots, with heraldic costumes, with glittering uniforms; from the balconies draped with precious stuffs, flowers fell in torrents; cheers rose from the serried ranks of the crowd; an intense, noisy, mad gaiety reigned in all men's eyes, on all men's lips, while, from behind the windows of the state-coach that carried her to the church, the surprised and delighted princess, forgetting her fleeting melancholy, now smiled her acknowledgments of this mighty welcome.

A tragic incident was fated brutally to interrupt her fair young dream. Finding no seat in the church of Los Geronimos, the dimensions of which are quite small, I took refuge in one of the Court stands erected along the route taken by the sovereigns; and I was watching the procession pass on its return to the palace, when my ears were suddenly deafened by a tremendous explosion. At first, no one realised where it came from. We thought that it was the report of a cannon-shot fired to announce the end of the ceremony. But suddenly loud yells arose, people hustled one another and rushed away madly, shouting:

"It's a murder! The King and Queen are killed!"

Terrified, I tried to hasten to the street from which the cries came. A file of soldiers, drawn up across the roadway stopped me. I then ran to the palace, where I arrived at exactly the same moment as the royal coach, from which the King and the young Queen alighted. They were pale, but calm. The King held his wife's hand tenderly in his own and stared in dismay at the long white train of her bridal dress, stained with great blotches of blood. Filled with horror, I went up to Alfonso XIII:

"Oh, Sir!" I cried, "at least both of you are safe and sound!"

"Yes," he replied. Then, lowering his voice, he added, "But there are some killed. Poor people! What an infamous thing!"

Under her great white veil, the Queen, standing between Queen Maria Christina and Princess Henry of Battenberg, still both trembling, wept silent tears. Then the King, profoundly moved, drew nearer to her and kissed her slowly on the cheek, whispering these charming words:

"I do hope that you are not angry with me for the emotion which I have involuntarily caused you?"

What she replied I did not hear: I only saw a kiss.

Notwithstanding the warm manifestations of loyalty which the people of Spain lavished upon their sovereigns on the following day, Queen Victoria is said to have been long haunted by the horrible spectacle which she had beheld and to have retained an intense feeling of terror and sadness from that tragic hour. But, God be praised, everything passes. When, later, I had the honour of again finding myself in attendance upon the King and Queen at Biarritz and in Paris, I recognised once more the happy and loving young couple whom I had known at the time of their engagement. Alfonso XIII had the same gaiety, the same high spirits as before; and the Queen's mind seemed to show no trace of painful memories or gloomy apprehensions.

In the course of the first journey which I took with them a year after the murderous attempt in Madrid, the King himself acquainted me with the real cause of this happy quietude so promptly recovered. Walking into the compartment where I was sitting, he lifted high into the air a pink and chubby child and, holding it up for me to look at, said, with more than a touch of pride in his voice:

"There! What do you think of him? Isn't he splendid?"

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