QUEEN WILHELMINA OF THE NETHERLANDS

1.

I had the honour of presenting myself in person to Queen Wilhelmina on the first of November, 1895, at Geneva, the city where, a year earlier, I had gone to meet the tragic and charming Empress Elizabeth of Austria and where, three years later, I was fated to see her lying on a bed in an hotel, stabbed to death. The official instructions with which I was furnished stated that I was to accompany their Majesties the Queen and Queen Regent of the Netherlands from Geneva to Aix-les-Bains and to ensure their safety during their stay on French soil.

I have preserved a pleasant recollection of this presentation, which took place on the station-platform on a dull, wintry morning. I remember how, while I was introducing myself to General Du Monceau, the Queen's principal aide-de-camp, there suddenly appeared on the foot-board of the royal carriage a young girl with laughing eyes, her face agleam and pink under her flaxen tresses, very simply dressed in a blue tailor-made skirt and coat, with a big black boa round her neck. And I remember a fresh, almost childish voice that made the general give a brisk half-turn and a courtly bow.

"General," she said, "don't forget to buy me some post cards!"

This pink, fair-haired girl, with the clear voice, was Queen Wilhelmina, who at that time was the very personification of the title of "the little Queen" which Europe, with one accord, had bestowed upon her, a title suggestive of fragile grace, touching familiarity and affectionate deference. She was just sixteen years of age. It was true that, as a poet had written:

A pair of woman's eyes already gazed
Above her childish smile;

and that her apprenticeship in the performance of a queen's duties had already endowed her mind with a precocious maturity. Nevertheless, her ready astonishment, her spontaneity, her frank gaiety, her reckless courage showed that she was still a real girl, in the full sense of the word. She hastened, happy and trusting, to the encounter of life; she blossomed like the tulips of her own far fields; she was of the age that gives imperious orders to destiny, that lives in a palace of glass! I doubt whether she really understood—although she never made a remark to me on the subject—that the French government had thought itself obliged to appoint a solemn functionary—even though it were only M. Paoli!—whose one and only mission was to protect her against the dagger of a possible assassin. The sweet little Queen could not imagine herself to possess an enemy; and the people who had approached her hitherto had learnt nothing from her but her gentle kindness.

As for Queen Emma, she was as simple and as easy of access as her daughter, although more reserved. She fulfilled her double task as regent and mother, as counsellor and educator with great dignity, bringing to it the virile authority, the spirit of decision and the equability of character which we so often find in women summoned by a too-early widowhood to assume the responsibilities of the head of a family. And nothing more edifying was ever seen than the close union that prevailed between those two illustrious ladies, who never left each other's side, taking all their meals alone, although they were accompanied by a numerous suite, and living in a constant communion of thought and in the still enjoyment of a mutual and most touching affection.

Their suite, as I have said, was a numerous one. In fact, it consisted, in addition to Lieutenant-General Count Du Monceau, of two chamberlains: Colonel (now Major-general) Jonkheer Willem van de Poll and Jonkheer Rudolph van Pabst van Bingerden (now Baron van Pabst van Bingerden); a business secretary: Jonkheer P. J. Vegelin van Claerbergen; two ladies-in-waiting: "Mesdemoiselles les baronnes" (as they were styled in the Dutch protocol) Elizabeth van Ittersum and Anna Juckema van Burmania Rengers; a reader: Miss Kreusler; five waiting-women; and five footmen. Compared with the tiny courts that usually accompanied other sovereigns when travelling, this made a somewhat imposing display! Nevertheless and notwithstanding the fact that this sixteen-year-old Queen appeared to me decked with the glory of a fairy princess, I am bound to admit that the royal circle presented none of the venerable austerity and superannuated grace so quaintly conjured up in Perrault's Tales. The Jonkheers[4] were not old lords equipped with shirt frills and snuff-boxes; Mesdemoiselles les baronnes were not severe duennas encased in stiff silk gowns: the court was young and gay, with that serene and healthy gaiety which characterises the Dutch temperament.

Why was it going to Aix? The choice of this stay puzzled me. Aix-les-Bains is hardly ever visited in November. The principal hotels are closed, for, in that mountainous region, winter sets in with full severity immediately after the end of autumn.

I put the question to General Du Monceau, who explained to me that the doctors had recommended Queen Wilhelmina to take a three-week's cure of pure, keen air; and that was why they had selected Aix, or rather the CorbiÈres, a spot situated at 2,000 feet above Aix, on the slope of the Grand Revard.

It goes without saying that there was no hotel there; and the only villa in the neighbourhood had to be hired for the Queens' use. This was a large wooden chalet, standing at the skirt of a pine-forest, close to the hamlet. The wintry wind whistled under the doors and howled down the chimneys; there was no central heating-apparatus and huge fires were lit in every room. From the windows of this rustic dwelling, the eye took in the amphitheatre of the mountains of Savoy and their deep and beautiful valleys; and, above the thatched roofs ensconced among the trees, one saw little columns of blue smoke rise trembling to the sky.

Snow began to fall on the day after our arrival. It soon covered the mountains all around with a cloak of dazzling white, spread a soft carpet over the meadows before the house and powdered the long tresses of the pines with hoar-frost. A great silence ensued; I seemed to be living more and more in the midst of a fairy-tale.

The court settled down as best it could. The two Queens occupied three unpretending rooms on the first floor; the royal suite divided the other apartments among them; some of the servants were lodged in a neighbouring farm-house. As for myself, I was bound to keep in daily telegraphic touch with Paris and with the prefect of the department; and I found it more convenient to sleep at Aix. I went up to the CorbiÈres every morning by the funicular railway, which had been reopened for the use of our royal guests, and went down again, every evening, by the same route.

The two Queens, who appeared to revel in this stern solitude, had planned out for themselves a regular and methodical mode of life. They were up by eight o'clock in the morning and walked to the hamlet, chatted with the peasants and cowherds and, after a short stroll, returned to the villa, where Queen Emma, who, at that period, was still exercising the functions of regent, dispatched her affairs of State, while little Queen Wilhelmina employed her time in studying or drawing, for she was a charming and gifted draughtswoman. She loved nothing more than to jot down from life, so to speak, such rustic scenes as offered: peasant-lads leading their cows to the fields, or girls knitting or sewing on the threshold of their doors. The people round about came to know of this; they also knew that Her Majesty was in the habit of generously rewarding her willing models. And so, as soon as she had installed herself by the roadside, or in her garden, with her sketch-book and pencils, cows or little pigs accompanied by their owners, would spring up as though by magic!

I have said that the Queens were in the habit of taking their meals alone. Nevertheless, outside meals, they mingled very readily with the members of their suite, whom they honoured with an affectionate familiarity.

The afternoons—whatever the weather might be—were devoted to long walks, on which Queen Wilhelmina used to set out accompanied generally by one or two ladies-in-waiting and a chamberlain; sometimes I would go with her myself. Queen Emma, knowing her daughter's indefatigable venturesomeness, had given up accompanying her on her expeditions. We often returned covered with snow, our faces blue with the cold, our boots soaked through; but it made no difference; the little Queen was delighted. She dusted her gaiters, shook her skirt and her pale golden hair that hung over her shoulders and said:

"I wish it were to-morrow and that we were starting out again!"

2.

Queen Wilhelmina was very expansive in her manner and yet very thoughtful. Brought up in the strictest principles by a watchful and inflexible mother, she had learnt from childhood to shirk neither work nor fatigue, to brave the inclemencies of the weather, to distinguish herself alike in bodily and in mental exercises, in short, to prepare herself in the most serious fashion for her duties as Queen and to realise all the hopes that were centred on her young head.

I often had occasion, during my stay at the CorbiÈres, to notice the thoroughness of her education. She already spoke four languages, in addition to her mother-tongue, fluently: French, Russian, English and German. She interested herself in agricultural matters and was not unacquainted with social questions: for instance, she often made me talk to her about the condition of the workmen in France and the organisation of our administrative systems; nay, more, she was beginning to study both judicial and constitutional law. I would not, however, go so far as to say that this study aroused her enthusiasm: she preferred I believe, to read historical books; she took a great interest in the Napoleonic idyll and, knowing me to be a fellow-countryman of Bonaparte:

"You must feel very sorry," she said to me, one day, "that you came too late to have seen him!"

She also liked to talk to me about her ponies:

"I have four," she told me, "and I drive them four-in-hand."

I was often invited to share the meals of the miniature court and to take my seat at the table of the chamberlains and ladies-in-waiting, which was presided over, with charming courtesy and geniality, by my excellent friend Count Du Monceau, who, although a Dutch general, was of French origin, as his name shows.[5]

At one of these dinners, I met with a little mishap which gave a great shock to both my patriotism and to my natural greediness. The cook of the villa, M. Perreard, was a native of Marseilles and owned an hotel at Cannes, where I had made his acquaintance. In his twofold capacity as a Marseillese and a cook, he was a great hand at making bouillabaisse, the national dish of the people of the south. Now, as he knew that I was very fond of this dainty, he said to me one day, with a great air of mystery:

"M. Paoli, I have a pleasant surprise in store for you at lunch this morning. I have sent to Marseilles for fish and shell-fish so as to give you a bouillabaisse cooked in the way you know of. Not another word! But they'll have a good time up there, I can tell you, those people from the north who have never tasted it!"

As soon as we had sat down, I saw with delight the great soup-tureen, whence escaped a delicious fragrance of bouillabaisse. The members of the royal suite cast inquisitive glances at this dish unknown to them and prepared to do honour to it with a good grace. Before tasting it myself, I watched the expression of their faces. Alas, a grievous disappointment awaited me! Hardly had they touched their spoons with their lips, when they gave vent to their disgust in different ways. Baroness van Ittersum made a significant grimace, while Jonkheer van Pabst pushed away his plate and Baroness Rengers suppressed a gesture of repugnance.

However, out of consideration for my feelings, they were silent: so was I. They waited in all kindness for me to enjoy my treat; but one act of politeness deserves another; there was nothing for me to do, in my turn, but to forego my share, all the more so as I did not feel inclined to present the ridiculous spectacle of a man eating by himself a thing which all his neighbours loathe and detest.

The bouillabaisse, therefore, disappeared straightway, untouched and still steaming, beating, as it were, a silent retreat. But I will not attempt to describe the rage which M. Perreard subsequently poured into my ear....

3.

When the Queen had explored all the woods and ravines close at hand, she naturally wished to extend the radius of her excursions. She was a fearless walker and was not to be thwarted by the steepest paths, even when these were filled with snow in which one's feet sank up to the ankles. I urgently begged the young sovereign never to venture far afield without first informing me of her intentions. As a matter of fact, I knew how easy it was to lose one's self in the maze of mountains, where one loses the trace of any road; and I was also afraid of unpleasant meetings, for Savoy is often infested with strangers from beyond the Piedmontese frontier who come to France in search of work.

Lastly there was "the black man." The legend of this black man was current throughout the district, where it spread a secret terror. Stories were told in the hamlet of a man dressed in black from head to foot, who roamed at nightfall through the neighbouring forests. He had eyes of fire and was frightfully lean.

The peasants were convinced that it was a ghost, for he never answered when spoken to and disappeared as soon as anyone drew near. I did not, of course, share the superstitious terrors of the inhabitants of the CorbiÈres; but I thought that the ghost might be just some tramp or marauder and I did not care for the Queens to come across him. Imagine my alarm, therefore, when, one afternoon, after I had gone down to Aix-les-Bains, I was handed the following laconic telegram:

"Queen gone walk without giving notice late in returning."

To jump into the funicular railway and go back to the CorbiÈres was for me the work of a few minutes. There I heard that Queen Wilhelmina had gone out with her two ladies-in-waiting, saying that she meant to take a little exercise, as she had not been out all day, and that she would be back in an hour. Two hours had since elapsed, the Queen had not returned and Queen Emma was beginning to feel seriously alarmed.

I at once rushed out in search of Her Majesty, questioning the people whom I met on my way. No one had seen her. I ran into the forest, where I knew that she was fond of going; I called out; no reply. More and more anxious, I was about to hunt in another direction, when my eyes fell upon traces of feet that had left their imprint on the snow. I examined them: the foot-prints were too small to belong to a man; they had evidently been made by women's shoes. I therefore followed the trail as carefully as an Indian hunter. Nor was I mistaken: after half-an-hour's walk, I heard clear voices calling out and soon I saw the little Queen arrive, happy and careless, followed by her two companions:

"Well, M. Paoli, you were running after us, I will bet. Just think, we got lost, without knowing, and were looking for our way. It was great fun!"

I did not venture to admit that I was far from sharing this opinion and I confined myself to warning the Queen that her mother was anxious.

"Then let us hurry back as fast as we can," she said, her face suddenly becoming overcast.

And I have no doubt that Her Majesty, on returning, was soundly scolded.

Strangely enough, I was able to lay my hand on "the black man" on the evening of the very same day. It was a very clear night, with the moon shining on the snow-clad mountains, and I resolved to go down to Aix on foot, instead of using the funicular railway. I therefore took the path that led through the wood; and, on reaching a glade at a few yards from the royal villa, I perceived a shadow that appeared to be hiding behind the trees.

"There's the famous black man," I thought.

But, as the shadow had all the air of an animal of the human species, I also contemplated the possible presence of an anarchist charged to watch the approaches to the royal residence. I took out my revolver and shouted:

"Who goes there?"

"I, monsieur le commissaire!" replied a familiar voice, while the shadow took shape, emerged from the trees, stepped forward and gave the military salute.

I then recognised one of my own inspectors, whom I had instructed to go the rounds of the precincts of the Queens' chalet nightly. He was the individual who had been taken for "the black man." However, he seemed none the worse for it.

4.

When the Queen had visited all the places in the immediate neighbourhood of the CorbiÈres and tasted sufficiently of the pleasure of looking upon herself as a new Little Red Riding-hood in her wild solitudes, or a new Sleeping Beauty (whose Prince Charming was not to come until many years later), she expressed the wish to go on the longer excursions which the country-side afforded. We therefore set out, one fine morning, for the Abbey of Hautecombe, situated on the banks of the poetic Lac du Bourget, which inspired Lamartine with one of his most beautiful meditations.

Although standing on French territory, the old Abbey occupied by the Cistercian monks continues to belong to Italy, or, at least, remains the property of the royal house by virtue of an agreement made between the two governments at the time of the French annexation of Savoy in 1860. It contains forty-three tombs of Princes and Princesses of the House of Savoy. All the ancestors of King Victor-Emanuel, from Amadeus V to Humbert III lie under the charge of the White Fathers in this ancient monastery full of silence and majesty. Their mausoleums are carved, for the most part, by the chisels of illustrious sculptors; they stand side by side in the great nave of the chapel, which is in the form of a Latin cross, with vaults painted sky-blue and transepts peopled with upwards of three-hundred statues in Carrara marble. These, crowded together within that narrow fabric, form as it were a motionless and reflective crowd watching over the dead.

The visitor bends over the tombs and reads the names inscribed upon them; and all the adventurous, chivalrous, heroic and gallant history of the House of Savoy comes to life again. Here lies Amadeus, surnamed the Red Count, and Philibert I the Hunter; further on, we come to Maria Christina of Bourbon-Savoy, Joan of Montfort, and Boniface of Savoy, the prince who became Archbishop of Canterbury;[6] further still is the tomb of the young and charming Yolande of Montferrat, who sleeps beside her father, Aymon the Peaceful. Lastly, at the entrance of the church, in the chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, stands the sarcophagus of Charles FÉlix, King of Sardinia, who restored Hautecombe in 1842. The old standard of the Bodyguards of the Savoy Company shelters him beneath its folds, which have ceased to flutter many a long century ago.

This fine historical lesson within a monastic sanctuary interested the two Dutch Queens greatly. It made Queen Wilhelmina very thoughtful, especially at a given moment when the monk who acted as her guide said, with a touch of pride in his voice:

"The House of Savoy is a glorious house!"

After a second's pause, the little Queen replied:

"So is the House of Orange!..."

A few days after our excursion to Hautecombe, we went to visit the Cascade de GrÉsy, a sort of furious torrent in which Marshal Ney's sister, the Baronne de Broc, was drowned in 1818 before the eyes of Queen Hortense, the mother of Napoleon III. We also drove to the Gorges du Fier, in which no human being had dared to venture before 1869. Queen Wilhelmina, ever eager for emotional impressions, insisted on penetrating at all costs through the narrow passage that leads into the gorges. The Queen Mother lived through minutes of agony that day, although I did my best to persuade Her Majesty that her daughter was not really incurring any danger. But there is no convincing an anxious mother!

Stimulated by these various excursions, the little Queen said to me, one morning:

"M. Paoli, I have formed a great plan. My mother approves. I want to go and see the Grande Chartreuse."

"That is easily done," I replied, "but it will take a whole day, for the monastery is a good distance from here."

"Well, M. Paoli, arrange the excursion as you think best: with the snow on the ground, it will be magnificent!"

I wrote to the Father Superior to tell him of the Queen's wish. He answered by return that, to his great regret, he was unable to open the doors of the monastery to women, even though they were Queens, without the express authorisation of the Pope. And indeed I remembered that the same objection had arisen some years earlier, when I wanted to take Queen Victoria to the Grande Chartreuse: I had to apply to Rome on that occasion also.

I therefore hastened to communicate the answer to General Du Monceau, who at once telegraphed to Cardinal Rampolla, at that time Secretary of State to the Holy See. Cardinal Rampolla telegraphed the same evening that the Pope granted the necessary authority.

These diplomatic preliminaries gave an additional zest to our expedition. For it was a genuine expedition. We left Aix-les-Bains at eight o'clock in the morning, by special train, for Saint-BÉron, which was then the terminus of the railway, before entering the great mountain. Here, two landaus with horses and postilions awaited us. The two Queens and their ladies stepped into one of the carriages; General Du Monceau, the officers of the suite and I occupied the other; and we started. It was eleven o'clock in the morning and we had a three hours' drive before us. Notwithstanding the intense cold, a flood of sunshine fell upon the immense frozen and deserted mountain-mass and lit up with a blinding flame the long sheets of snow that lay stretching to the horizon, where they seemed to be merged in the deep blue of the sky. No sign of life appeared in that sea of mountains, amid the throng of dissimilar summits, some blunt, some pointed, but all girt at their base with huge pine-forests. Only the rhythmical tinkling of our harness-bells disturbed the deep silence.

We began to feel the pangs of hunger after an hour's driving. I had foreseen that we should find no inn on the road and had taken care to have baskets of provisions stored in the boot of each carriage at Saint-BÉron.

"That's a capital idea," said Queen Wilhelmina. "You shall lunch with us. I will lay the cloth!"

The carriages had stopped in the middle of the road, in the vast solitude, opposite the prodigious panorama of white mountains and gloomy valleys. The little Queen spread a large table-napkin over our knees. From the depths of a hamper, she produced a cold chicken, rolls and butter and solemnly announced:

"Luncheon is served."

Served by a Queen, in a carriage, on a mountain-top: that was an incident lacking to my collection, as King Alfonso would have said! I need hardly add that this picturesque luncheon was extremely lively and that not a vestige of it remained when, at two o'clock, we approached the Grande Chartreuse.

We caught sight first of the square tower, then of the great slate roofs, then of the countless steeples, until, at last, in the fold of a valley, the impressive block of buildings came into view, all grey amidst its white setting and backed by the snow-covered forests scrambling to the summit of the Col de la RuchÈre. Perched amidst this immaculate steppe, among those spurs bristling with contorted and threatening rocks, as though in some apocalyptic landscape, the cold, stern, proud convent froze us with a nameless terror: it seemed to us as though we had reached the mysterious regions of a Wagnerian Walhalla; the fairy-tale had turned into a legend, through which the flaxen-haired figure of the little Queen passed like a light and airy shadow.

All the inhabitants of the monastery stood awaiting the Queens at the threshold of the gateway. The monks were grouped around their superior; their white frocks mingled with the depths of the immense corridor, the endless straight line of which showed through the open door.

The Father Superior stepped forward to greet the two Queens. Tall in stature, with the face of an ascetic, a pair of piercing eyes, an harmonious voice and a cold dignity combined with an exquisite courtesy, lie had the grand manner of the well-bred man of the world:

"Welcome to Your Majesties," he said, slowly, with a bow.

The Queens, a little awestruck, made excuses for their curiosity; and the inspection began. The monks led their royal visitors successively through the cloister, the refectories, the fine library, which at that time contained over twenty-thousand volumes, the rooms devoted to work and meditation, each of which bore the name of a country or province, because formerly they served as meeting-places for the priors of the charter-houses of each of those countries or provinces. They showed their kitchen, with its table formed of a block of marble nine yards long and its chimney of colossal proportions. They threw open the great chapter-house decorated with twenty-two portraits of the generals of the order from its foundation and furnished with lofty stalls in which the monks used to come and sit when, twice a year, they held their secret assembly. They showed their exiguous cells, with their tiled floors and whitewashed walls, each containing a truckle-bed, a praying-chair, a table, a crucifix and a window opening upon the vast and splendid horizon of the fierce mountains beyond. Lastly, they showed their church, with its Gothic carvings surmounted by a statue of death, and their desolate and monotonous cemetery, in which only the graves of the priors are distinguished by a wooden cross. But they did not show their relics and their precious sacred books. I expressed my astonishment at this; and one of the fathers replied, coldly:

"That is because the Queens are heretics. We only show them to Catholics."

Queen Wilhelmina, who had gradually recovered her assurance, plied the superior with questions, to which he replied with a perfect good grace. When, at last, the walk through the maze of passages and cloisters was finished, the Queen hesitated and then asked:

"And the chartreuse? Don't you make that here?"

"Certainly, Ma'am," said the prior, "but we did not think that our distillery could interest Your Majesty."

"Oh, but it does!" answered the Queen, with a smile. "I want to see everything."

We were then taken to the "Mill," situated at an hour's distance from the monastery, where the Carthusians, with their sleeves turned back, prepared the delicious liqueur the secret of which they have now taken with them in their exile. The Queens put their lips to a glass of yellow elixir offered to them by the superior and accepted a few bottles as a present. The visit had interested them prodigiously.

Half an hour later, we had left the convent far behind us in its stately solitude and were driving down the other slope of the mountain to Grenoble, where we were to find a special train to take us back to Aix-les-Bains. When we approached the old DauphinÉ capital, the day had turned into a night of black and icy darkness; in front of us, in the depths of the valley, all the lamps of the great city displayed their thousands of twinkling lights; and Queen Wilhelmina kept on exclaiming:

"How beautiful! How delighted I am!"

She was not so well pleased—nor was I—when, at the gate of the town, we saw cyclists who appeared to be on the lookout for our carriages and who darted off as scouts before our landaus as soon as they perceived us. These mysterious proceedings were all the more insoluble to me as I had taken care not to inform the authorities of Grenoble that the Queens intended to pass through their city, knowing as I did, on the one hand, that the municipal council was composed of socialists and, on the other, that Their Majesties wished to preserve the strictest incognito. But I had reckoned without the involuntary indiscretion of the railway staff, who had allowed the fact to leak out that a special train had been ordered for the sovereigns; and, as no one is more anxious to receive a smile from royalty than the stern, uncompromising adherents of Messrs. JaurÈs & Co., the first arm that was respectfully put out to assist Queen Wilhelmina to alight from the carriage was that of the socialist senator who, that year, was serving as Mayor of Grenoble. He was all honey; he had prepared a speech; he had provided a band. Willy-nilly, we had to submit to an official reception. True, we were amply compensated, as the train steamed out of the station, by hearing cries of "Long live the Queen!" issuing from the throats of men who spent the rest of the year in shouting, "Down with tyrants!"

Such is the eternal comedy of politics and mankind.

5.

The Queens' stay at the CorbiÈres was drawing to a close. We had exhausted all the walks and excursions; the cold was becoming daily more intense; the icy wind whistled louder than ever under the ill-fitting doors. At the royal chalet, the little Queen was growing tired of sketching young herds with their flocks or old peasant-women combing wool. One morning, General Du Monceau said to me:

"Their Majesties have decided to go to Italy They will start for Milan the day after to-morrow."

Two days later, I left them at the frontier; and, as I was taking my leave of them:

"We shall meet again," said Queen Wilhelmina. "I am longing to see Paris."

She did not realise her wish until two years later. It was in the spring of 1898—a year made memorable in her life because it marked her political majority and the commencement of her real reign—that, accompanied by her mother, she paid a first visit to Paris on her way to Cannes for the wedding of Prince Christian cf Denmark (the present Crown-prince) and the Grand-duchess Mary of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

"Do you remember the day when we went to the Grande Chartreuse?" were her first words on seeing me.

She still had her bright, childish glance, but she now wore her pretty hair done up high, as befitted her age, and her figure had filled out in a way that seemed to accentuate her radiant air of youth.

Anecdotes were told of her playfulness that contrasted strangely with her sedate appearance. Chief among them was the well-known story according to which she loved to tease her English governess, Miss Saxton Winter: all Holland had heard how, one day, when drawing a map of Europe, she amused herself by enlarging the frontiers of the Netherlands out of all proportion and considerably reducing those of great Britain. Another story was that, having regretfully failed to induce the postal authorities to alter her portrait on the Dutch stamps, which still represented her as a little girl, with her hair down, she never omitted with her own pen to correct the postage-stamps which she used for her private correspondence!

These childish ways did not prevent her from manifesting a keen interest in poetry and art. Her favourite reading was represented by Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas the Elder; but she also read books on history and painting with the greatest pleasure. She had acquired a remarkable erudition on these subjects in the course of her studies, as I had occasion to learn during our visits to the museums, especially the Louvre. She was familiar with the Italian and French schools of painting as with the Dutch and Flemish, although she maintained a preference for Rembrandt:

"I should like him to have a statue in every town in Holland!" she used to say.

Nevertheless, the artistic beauties of Paris did not, of course, absorb her attention to the extent of causing her to disregard the attractions and temptations which our capital offers to the curiosity of a young and elegant woman who does not scorn the fascination of dress. Queen Wilhelmina used to go into ecstasies over the beauty and luxury of our shops; and Queen Emma would have the greatest difficulty in dragging her from the windows of the tradesmen in the Rue Royale and the Rue de la Paix. It nearly always ended with a visit to the shop and the making of numerous purchases.

The little Queen won the affection of all with whom she came into contact by her simplicity, her frankness and the charming innocence with which she indulged in the sheer delight of living. Although possessed of an easy and ready admiration, she remained Dutch at heart and professed a proud and exclusive patriotism.

"I can understand," said President FÉlix Faure to me, on the day after the visit which he paid to the two Queens, "that the Dutch nation shows an exemplary loyalty to Queen Wilhelmina. It recognises itself in her."

Indeed, nowhere is the sovereign more securely installed than in Holland, nor does the work of government proceed anywhere more smoothly. In Holland, constitutional rule performs its functions automatically, while the budget balances regularly, year by year, thanks to the colonies and trade. Happy country. What other state can say as much to-day?

A week after their arrival in Paris, the two Queens left for Cannes. I had been called south by my service in waiting on Queen Victoria, who had just gone to Cannes herself, and I was obliged to leave a few days before Their Majesties. But I met them again at the Danish wedding, which was so picturesque and poetic in its Mediterranean setting.

I saw Queen Wilhelmina for the last time shortly before her departure for Holland. It was in the late afternoon, at the moment when the sun was on the point of disappearing behind the palm-trees in the garden of the hotel where the Queen of England had taken up her residence. Queen Wilhelmina had come to say good-bye; she was standing in an attitude of timid deference before the old sovereign seated in her bath-chair. Both Queens were smiling and talking merrily. Then Wilhelmina, stooped, kissed Queen Victoria on the forehead and tripped away lightly in the golden rays of the setting sun.

She has not returned to France since then.

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