Читать книгу Their Majesties as I Knew Them - Xavier Paoli - Страница 9

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The Emperor joined the Empress on three occasions during her visits to Cap Martin. The event naturally created a diversion in the monotony of our sojourn. Though travelling incognito as Count Hohenembs, he was accompanied by a fairly numerous suite, whose presence brought a great animation into our little colony. I had, of course, to redouble my measures of protection and to send to Paris for an additional force of detective-inspectors.

Francis Joseph generally spent a fortnight with his consort. I thus had the opportunity of observing the touching affection which they displayed to each other, in spite of the gossip of which certain sections of the press have made themselves the complacent echo. Nothing could be simpler or more charming than their meetings. As soon as the train stopped at Mentone station, where the Empress went to wait its arrival, accompanied by the members of her suite, the Austrian Consul, the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, the Mayor of Mentone and myself, the Emperor sprang lightly to the platform and hastened, bare-headed, to the Empress, whom he kissed on both cheeks. His expressive face, framed in white whiskers, lit up with a kindly smile. He tucked the Empress's arm under his own, and, with an exquisite courtesy, addressed a few gracious words to each of us individually.

During the Emperor's stay, the Empress emerged for a little while from her state of timid isolation. They walked or drove together and received visits from the princes staying on the Côte d'Azur or passing through, notably the Prince of Wales, the Archduke Regnier, the Tsarevitch, the Prince of Monaco, the King and Queen of Saxony and the Grand-duke Michael. Sometimes, they would call on the late Queen of England, at that time installed at Cimiez, or on the Empress Eugénie, their near neighbour. It was like a miniature copy of the Court of Vienna, transferred to Cap Martin.

Francis Joseph, faithful to his habits, rose at five o'clock in the morning and worked with his secretaries. At half-past six, he stopped to take a cup of coffee and then closeted himself once more in his study until ten. The wires were kept working almost incessantly between Cap Martin and Vienna; as many as eighty telegrams have been known to be dispatched and received in the space of a single morning. From ten to twelve, the Emperor strolled in the gardens with the Empress.

Francis Joseph often had General Gebhardt, the Governor of Nice, to dinner and generally took a keen interest in military affairs. When he went to Mentone to return the visit which President Faure had paid him at Cap Martin, the French Government sent a regiment of cuirassiers from Lyons to salute him. The Emperor, struck by the men's fine bearing, reviewed them and watched them march past.

It also occurred to me, during his stay in the south in the spring of 1896, to obtain an opportunity for His Imperial Majesty to witness a sham fight planned by the 87th battalion of Alpine Chasseurs on the height of Roquebrune. The manœuvres opened one morning at dawn in the marvellous circle of hills covered with olive-trees and topped by the snowy summits of the Alps. For two hours, the Emperor followed the incidents of the fight with close attention, not forgetting to congratulate the officers warmly at the finish.

On the next day, he invited the officer in command of the battalion, now General Baugillot, to luncheon. The major was a gallant soldier, who was more accustomed to the language of the camp than to that of courts, and he persisted in addressing the Emperor as "Sire" and "Monsieur" by turns. Francis Joseph smiled, with great amusement. At last, not knowing what to do, the major cried:

"I beg everybody's pardon! I am more used to mess-rooms than drawing-rooms!"

The Emperor at once replied:

"Call me whatever you please. I much prefer a soldier to a courtier."

Cap Martin and Aix were not the only places visited by the Empress of Austria. In the autumn of 1896 she was anxious to see Biarritz; she returned there in the following year and I again had the honour of accompanying her. The inclemency of the weather shortened the stay which she had at first intended to make; and yet the rough and picturesque poetry of the Basque coast had an undoubted attraction for her. She spent her days, sometimes, on the steepest points of the rocks, from which she would watch the tide for hours, often returning soaked through with spray; at other times, she would roam about the wild country that stretches to the foot of the Pyrenees, talking to the Basque peasants and interesting herself in their work.

She had a mania for buying a cow in every district which she visited for the first time. She chose it herself in the course of her walks and had it sent to one of her farms in Hungary. As soon as she saw a cow the colour of whose coat pleased her, she would accost the peasant, ask the animal's price and tell him to take it to her hotel.

One day, near Biarritz, she saw a magnificent black cow, bought it then and there, gave her name of Countess Hohenembs to its owner and sent him to the hotel with her purchase. When he arrived, however, and asked for Countess Hohenembs, the porter, who had not been prepared, took him for a madman and tried to send him away. The peasant insisted, explained what had happened and ended by learning that Countess Hohenembs was no other than the Empress of Austria. An empress? But then he had been cheated! And he began to lament and shout and protest and lose his temper:

"If I had known it was a queen," he yelled, "I'd have asked more money! I must have a bigger price!"

The discussion lasted for two hours and I had to be called to put a stop to it.

This was not the only amusing adventure that occurred during the Empress's stay at Biarritz. One day, returning from an excursion to Fuentarabia, she stood waiting for a train on the platform of the little frontier station at Hendaye. The reader, who was with her, had gone to ask a question of the station-master. The conversation seemed never-ending and the train arrived. The Empress, losing patience, called a porter:

"You see that gentleman in black?" she said. "Go and tell him to hurry, or the train will leave without us."

The porter ran up to the reader and exclaimed:

"Hurry up, or your wife will go without you!"

The Empress, who rarely laughed, was greatly amused at this incident.

The strange form of neurasthenia from which she suffered, instead of decreasing with time, seemed to become more persistent and more painful as the years went on; and it ended by gradually impairing her health. Not that the Empress had a definite illness—she simply felt an infinite lassitude, a perpetual weariness, against which she tried to struggle, with an uncommon display of energy, by pursuing her active life in spite of it, her wandering life and her long daily walks.

She hated medicine and believed that a sound and simple plan of hygiene was far preferable to any number of doctors' prescriptions. One day, however, seeing her more tired than usual, I begged her permission to present her with a few bottles of Vin Mariani, of the restorative virtues of which I had had personal experience.

"If it gives you any satisfaction," she replied, with a smile, "I accept. But you must let me, in return, send you some of our famous Tokay, which is also a restorative and, moreover, very pleasant to take."

A little while after, Count von Wolkenstein-Trosburg handed me, on behalf of the Empress, a beautiful liqueur-case containing six little bottles of Tokay; and I was talking of drinking it after my meals, like an ordinary dessert-wine, when the count said:

"Do you know that this is a very costly gift? The wine comes direct from the Emperor's estates. To give you an idea of what it is worth, I may tell you that, recently, at a sale in Frankfort, six little bottles fetched eleven thousand francs.... It stands quite alone."

I at once ceased to treat it as a common Madeira. The proprietor of the hotel, hearing of the present which I had received, offered me five thousand francs for the six bottles. I need hardly say that I refused.... I have four bottles left and am keeping them.

Towards the end of the same year, 1897, when she was staying for the second time at Biarritz, the Empress, feeling more restless and melancholy than ever, resolved to make a cruise in the Mediterranean on board her yacht Miramar. But she wished first to spend a few days in Paris.

She had engaged a suite of rooms at an hotel in the Rue Castiglione and naturally wanted to preserve the strictest incognito. Still, it was known that she was in Paris; and the protection with which I surrounded her was even more rigorous than before. She was out of doors from morning till evening, went through the streets on foot to visit the churches, monuments and museums and at four o'clock called regularly at a dairy in the Rue de Surène, where she was served with a glass of ass's milk, her favourite beverage, after which she returned to the hotel.

One day, however, we had a great alarm; at seven o'clock she was not yet back. I anxiously sent to her sisters, the Queen of Naples and the Countess of Trani, to whom she occasionally paid surprise visits. She was not there. To crown all, she had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the inspector who was charged to follow her at a certain distance. We had lost the Empress in the midst of Paris! Picture our mortal anxiety!

I was about to set out myself in search of her, when suddenly we saw her very calmly appearing.

"I have been gazing at Notre Dame by moonlight," she said. "It was lovely. And I came back on foot along the quays. I went among the crowd and nobody took the least notice of me."

I remember that her Greek reader, at that time Mr. Barker, and her secretary, Dr. Kromar, expressed a wish to see something of the picturesque and characteristic side of Paris; and I took them one evening to the central markets. When we had finished our visit, I invited them, in accordance with the traditional habit, to come and have a plate of soupe à l'oignon in one of the little common eating-houses in the neighbourhood. Delighted with this modest banquet, they described their outing to the Empress next day and sang the praises of our famous national broth, which she had never tasted.

"M. Paoli," she said enthusiastically, "I must know what soupe à l'oignon is like. Mr. Barker has given me a most tantalising description."

"Nothing is easier. I will tell the people of the hotel to make you some."

"Never! They will send me up a carefully-prepared soup which won't taste in the least like yours. And I must have it served in the identical crockery. I want all the local colour."

Here I must make a confession: as I had it at heart (it was a question of patriotism, nothing less) that the Empress should not be disappointed, I thought it more prudent to apply to the manager of the hotel, who, kindly lending himself to my innocent fraud, prepared the onion soup and sent to the nearest bazaar for a plate and soup-tureen of the "local colour" in which the imperial traveller took so great an interest. The illusion was perfect. The Empress thought the soup excellent and the crockery delightfully picturesque; true, we had chipped it about a little!

The Empress's only visit to Paris was a short one. As I have said, she had decided that year to air her melancholy on the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The projected cruise embraced a number of calls at different harbours along the Côte d'Azur; and she asked me to accompany her.

We left Paris on the 30th of December for Marseilles, where the imperial yacht lay waiting for us, commanded by a very distinguished officer, Captain Moritz Sacks von Bellenau; and we were at sea, opposite the tragic Château d'If, on the 1st of January of the year 1898, which was to prove so tragic to Elizabeth of Austria. I offered her my wishes for happiness and a long life. The Empress seemed to me sadder and more thoughtful that morning than usual:

"I wish you also," she said, "health and happiness for you and yours." And she added, with an expression of infinite bitterness, "As for myself, I have no confidence left in the future."

Had she already received a presentiment of what the year held in store for her? Who can tell?

She gave us but little of her society during this voyage. She spent her days on deck, and interested herself in the silent activity, in the humble, poetic life of the crew. The sailors entertained a sort of veneration for her. They were constantly feeling the effects of her discreet and delicate kindness. Like ourselves, they respected her melancholy and her love of solitude. And, in the evenings, while the little court collected in the saloon and amused themselves with different games, or else improvised a charming concert; while, at the other end of the ship, the sailors, seated under the poop, sang their Tyrolean or Hungarian songs to an accordion accompaniment, the Empress, all alone on deck, with her eyes staring into the distance, would dream of the stars.

After leaving Marseilles, we went to Villafranca, near Nice, skirting the coast. The Empress also wished to stop at Cannes and to see once more, from the sea, Monaco, Cap Martin and Mentone. She next proposed to revisit Sicily, Greece, and Corfu: it was as though she felt a secret desire to make a sort of pilgrimage to all the ephemeral landmarks which her sad soul had visited in the course of her wandering life.

However enjoyable this cruise might be to me, I had to think of abandoning it. My service with the Empress ended automatically as soon as she had left French waters.

"Stay on, nevertheless," she said kindly. "You shall be my guest; and I will show you my beautiful palace in Corfu."

But my duties, unfortunately, summoned me elsewhere. I had to return to Nice, to receive the King and Queen of Saxony, who were expected there. It was decided, therefore, that I should leave the Miramar at San Remo. When the yacht dropped her anchor outside the little Italian town, I said good-bye to the Empress and my charming travelling-companions.

"It will not be for long, for I shall come back to France," said Elizabeth.

She leant over the bulwarks, as the yacht's launch took me on shore, and I watched her delicate and careworn features, first outlined against the disc of the setting sun and then merging, little by little, in the distance and the darkness.