Le Roi S'amuse: The Diary of King Ferdinand's Secretary

MAY, 1919

BY FRANCK C. SCHOELL

PARIS, Tuesday, July 5, 1910. — I was terribly alarmed this afternoon. M. Lavisse sent to me, at the École Supérieure, to come to his office. I at once searched my memory for a possible peccadillo. Could it be that my rather mediocre diligence at the Sorbonne had been brought to his attention? Nothing of the sort. M. Lavisse contented himself with asking me point-blank if I had any plans for my vacation, and if I felt like taking a trip through Europe in the suite of Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who needed a private secretary for the summer months. I hesitated a moment, for libraries rather than foreign courts are my natural stamping ground; but M. Lavisse advised me to say yes, assuring me that I would soon be equal to my task. So I accepted without more ado.

Wednesday, July 6. — At the Carlton Hotel, the Comte de Bourboulon, the chamberlain, with whom I first spent three quarters of an hour, received me in an extremely friendly manner. He sketched the character of the Tsar in a few strokes, laying stress, among other things, on his passion for natural history, his linguistic gifts, the capricious distribution of his working-hours, his unreasonable demands on his staff, his cult of the past, his devotion to the memory of his mother, Princess Clementine. He spoke of the seriousness which Ferdinand brought to the daily labors of his high office; also he told me that he expected and was accustomed to have his desires anticipated and his habits, however eccentric they might seem, accepted with docility, as if they were divine commands.

Thereupon, he took me into a small adjoining salon and went in quest of the Tsar, who made his appearance a few minutes later, walking with a heavy step. When one is a king and half a Bourbon, one is entitled to have the gout betimes!
Simply, with a very charming smile, he gave me his hand, which is slender and heavily beringed, asking me abruptly, ‘So you, a Frenchman, and, I presume, a republican, are willing to enter the service of a king who, by definition and profession, can be nothing of the sort. Are you not ashamed to associate with me?’

I replied that I did not feel ashamed; that my conscience would, without apprehension, adapt itself to my temporary employment, and that I was not an anarchist. A few minutes’ conversation, which was chiefly a profession of friendship and high esteem for M. Lavisse, and our interview came to an end with a ‘Till we meet at Brussels’ from Ferdinand. In fact, I am to enter upon my duties at Brussels next Sunday. Between now and then I have plenty of time to pack my trunks.

BRUSSELS, Monday, July 11. — Well, I am actually ‘Monsieur le Secrétaire.’ Bah! how horrid that sounds!

I have seen the Tsar again this morning. The chief part of my work, besides my purely representative role, will be, he told me, to go through the newspapers and pick out what I think will be of interest to him. But there is no time to do that this morning: we are in Brussels to see the Exposition. Very well, then, let us start for it.
I am hurriedly introduced to His Excellency, Monsieur Standoff, Bulgarian minister to Paris and Brussels, and to Madame Standoff, who is a Frenchwoman; after which, away we spin in a motor-car to lunch at the Exposition.
We spent the whole afternoon at the Exposition, patiently following the Tsar and his sons, Princes Boris and Cyril, whom I saw for the first time. Boris is a handsome young man — or, rather, a handsome youth, for he has still the slender figure of a child. He has magnificent eyes, dark skin — a decidedly southern type. Looking at him, one might guess that his mother was an Italian princess.
Our group made a long stop at the Canadian pavilion, a still longer one at the Brazilian pavilion. At the latter, the interest centres in a miniature model of the bay of Rio de Janeiro, done in painted wood and pasteboard, but of considerable size, which pleased the Tsar extremely. You see, he once visited Rio. He is never weary of recalling the peerless location of that ‘jewel of the world ’; he remembers the names of all the quarters of the city, of all the peaks which dominate it; and he amazed the director of the pavilion by the accuracy of his topographical recollections. It gives him obvious pleasure, like Napoleon’s when he surprised his veterans by calling them by their familiar names.

The truth is, Ferdinand seems gifted with an extraordinary memory. He furnished new and striking proofs of this in the pavilion of the jewelers of rue de la Paix. Precious stones seem to have no secrets for him. He knows all the methods of cutting, every variety of pearl, all t he details of the process of setting, as if he were a professional jeweler; and the surprise shown by all the experts, who vied with each other in laying before him their most beautiful pieces, reached its climax when he exclaimed with a sigh, ‘Ah, were I not a king, I should be a jeweler!’
His endurance is extraordinary. Despite the difficulty which walking, or even standing, causes him, he stopped long before each show-case and gave to each exhibitor the impression that, were his time his own, he would stop even longer. How many times a day he flatters somebody’s self-esteem! And how cleverly he puts in practice the maxims of La Rochefoucauld!

Tuesday, July 12. — I accompanied the Tsar to Antwerp. We traveled in the beautiful car which brought Ferdinand from Sofia to Paris. During the journey, His Majesty had me read to him, in the salon, articles from Belgian and German newspapers, interrupting me from time to time to point out, now the cathedral of Malines, rising from the heart of the old city, and again, the first fortresses of the intrenched camp at Antwerp, with which he seems to be very well acquainted.
We had hardly arrived, when we made a spurt for the zoölogical garden— literally a spurt, for Ferdinand recovers the agility of youth when it comes to visiting a zoo. We spent at least two hours with the animals. His Majesty is a terror for exact ethnological knowledge; he knows the Latin names of every species without looking at the signs, and never makes a mistake as to their habitat.

Before lunch we also cast a glance at the aquarium. After lunch (oh, the copious Belgian meals!) the monkeys entertained the Tsar and the princes for a long while; after which we started for the harbor, where we were to visit the Finland, a large ship of the Red Star Line. After the ship’s officers had been presented, we wont down into the hold. The Tsar entered the stoke-hole, and had the whole working mechanism explained, from the boilers to the shaft, along which we followed, bent double. Meanwhile, the boat had been tacking about in the Scheldt, so that Ferdinand might see all the machinery in motion.
Champagne was ready for the royal guests as they emerged from the depths; but they declined, for the afternoon programme was hardly begun. In a downpour of warm rain we stepped quickly into the car. Opposite me was the director of maritime operations — an excellent Belgian, if ever there was one, but rather corpulent, dripping like a gutter in spring. He fumed about the damp heat in the steaming carriage, and asked me under his breath how his collar stood it. I encouraged him: it was wrinkled with a few dark furrows, but nothing much.
We drove along endless docks, then paid a hasty visit to the Hôtel de Ville and the Cathedral, where the beadle unveils for tourists Rubens’s Descent from the Cross. There, too, Ferdinand appeared as a connoisseur, at least to a layman: he actually remembered the date of the famous canvas—1612!

After Ferdinand had given a moment to his devotions, — for he is a very good Catholic, — we turned our steps toward the Bulgarian consulate, where a dozen Bulgarian students awaited their monarch. One of them made a fiery and very long speech in his own language, evidently liking to hear himself talk. The Tsar answered in the same language, with perfect ease, but without too much rhetoric. His voice is unquestionably of very fine quality. Then he raised his glass to the prosperity of Belgium, — as he could hardly help doing, for the consul, M. Strauss, and his wife are Belgians, — expressing the hope that every day more and more Bulgarian grain might be loaded on more and more Belgian ships at Varna, destined for Antwerp, for the greater prosperity of free Belgium and free Bulgaria.
After half-past eight I was told that I was to dine with the two young princes a quarter of an hour later. Here was a chance to observe them at close quarters and at leisure. They both seem diabolically intelligent, especially the elder. He was in great form this evening and poked fun pleasantly at the Belgian notables whom we had met during the day. Their jovial rotundity, their slightly frayed good-humor, and their placid satisfaction with themselves and their works, had annoyed him. He called the poor stout lady who did the honors of the Bulgarian consulate at Antwerp, ‘a stupid shrew.’ I corrected him jokingly: ‘Stupid, perhaps, monseigneur, but is n’t she a bit more motherly than a Megæra ? ’
This bantering is not malicious, but it is too systematic, and ends by becoming rather provoking.
Toward the end of the meal the Tsar appeared. He was ‘dead,’ he said; had had no dinner as yet, for lack of time. He took from his pocket three hypertechnical pamphlets on dynamometer cars, and handed them to me to digest, that I might give their substance to the crown prince, who is as infatuated with mechanics as his father. Returning to my room, I ran through the seventy big pages of machines and figures in half an hour. One would have had to be very dull not to get out of the scrape and remember a few points. At any rate, I believe I caught on to the principle. The Tsar seems ready to admit that the École Normale has given me some light on every subject: he actually took it into his head to ask me, in a moment of hesitation, at the pavilion of mines, ‘When was the Carboniferous Era?’

Taken unawares, I answered innocently, ‘In the Secondary Era.’ And he was polite enough to appear to bow to my learning — the chivalrous king!

Wednesday, July 13. — Ouf! We have been at the Exposition the whole day, spending at least two hours in the section of locomotives and railroads. Does this Ferdinand never tire? His legs look as if they could not carry him any longer; he leans on his walking-stick with both hands, while scrutinizing the connecting-rods and tubes, and yet he shows no sign of giving out; he stood as if nailed to the floor in front of the Mercedes chassis, or the new third-class carriage of the Nord Beige line, which attracted his attention in passing. It was very amusing to watch the French and Belgian manufacturers of locomotive engines, who, although neighbors, were evidently jealous of each other. Each strove to keep the Tsar longest in his aisle. The Belgians, to whom he came first, warned him, in a friendly way, not to visit their French colleagues; because they were exhibiting ‘ nothing of interest.’ Ferdinand was far too diplomatic not to disregard the warning. But what was sure to happen did happen: the Frenchman at once drew him aside, and told him in confidence that the Belgians were very poor engine-builders. Cail alone knows how to build locomotives worthy of the name. The most amusing part of the controversy is that Ferdinand makes no secret among his entourage of his preference for the Munich Maffeis, and that all the Bulgarian railroads have for years been supplied exclusively by Maffei!

When we got back to our hotel, I was done up. Yet after dinner Ferdinand asked me to read some more articles.

Thursday, July 14. — This morning, early, we started out again. To-day’s stunt is a visit to the Cockerill factories at Seraing. We get into a special train, duly furnished with a dynamometer car of the latest model. In this high-powered car the Tsar, his suite, the Belgian Minister of Railroads, and some of the railroad engineers make the whole trip, while Prince Boris travels on the engine itself. Everybody watches the speedometer with the closest attention. The engineer makes it a point of honor to carry his royal host at high speed; for one minute we attain 131 kilometres an hour, and the average is 120.

It was good to see the joy of these worthy Belgian engineers — they fairly bubbled over while explaining to the Tsar their inventions, which, by the way, are very fine. The Tsar, not content to listen religiously to the innumerable technical details which M. Doyen — how he perspires, poor man! — complacently gives him, brings out others, which prove the accuracy and extent of his knowledge of physics and dynamics.
No sooner had we reached Seraing than we were passed into the hands of the administrative council of the Cockerill company. The inspection of the workshops was strangely captivating. All morning long and all the afternoon we watched the manifold operations of casting the steel, manufacturing cannon and armor-plates, the passage of the white-hot metallic blocks to the rollingmill, and their drawing-out into rails, etc. Then we were taken to the neighboring firing-field, — a miniature one, — where a number of cannon-shots were fired in the presence of the Tsar. The pieces used for these experiments were two field-guns — not of ordinary size, but reduced to the proportions of large toys. They were, in fact, toys, for the administrative council offered them to the princes Boris and Cyril, whose names were engraved on the breech. Did Ferdinand come here with the idea of ordering cannon in the back of his mind? Or did the administrative council invite him, in order to suggest such an order?

However this may be, we were the guests at lunch and dinner of Baron and Baroness Greiner. Shortly after dinner we left by special train for Hasselt, where we are to spend the night in our respective sleeping-cars.

Friday, July 15. — We were called very early, and started in motor-cars for the aviation field, where we watched a series of very successful flights by the Chevalier de Lamine, who was piloting a Farman biplane. The two princes and the Tsar went up in his plane, one after the other, and came back delighted with their first flight. Having sent a telegram to King Albert, the rough draft of which I wrote, to inform him of the ‘ never-to-be-forgotten sensation ’ experienced while flying over the woods of one of his fairest provinces, and after a few sly, sarcastic remarks about my illegible writing, Ferdinand got into the car, and we followed him. We alighted at the church of Hasselt and went in. To tell the truth, it was interesting more because of the faithful kneeling there than because of its architecture. The market was being held in the church square, and the good marketwomen were taking advantage of it to pay their brief devotions to the Virgin — with their poultry-baskets.
The Tsar made a tremendous succès de curiosité on leaving the church. The curiosity changed to a child-like sympathy when they saw him buy a kilogramme of cherries from a fat tradeswoman, who thought Ferdinand had made a mistake when he gave her a louis instead of the fifty centimes which she had asked for her wares. Like the perfect tourist, behold him going into the shop of the dealer in illustrated postcards, on the corner, to scribble two cards to his daughters in Bulgaria, princesses Eudoxie and Nadejda.
Distances do not exist in Belgium: at three o’clock we were back at our hotel in Brussels, and at half-past five we were already on our way to dine at the Exposition. We were to meet the Tsar at a German restaurant, the Kaiserhof, a branch of the Berlin homonym. The dinner was exceedingly well appointed, and I must admit that it was appetizing as well. Indeed, a certain soufflé extorted from the Tsar, who is terribly fastidious in culinary matters, such praise that he even sent for the manager, to compliment him. The latter, who was big and stout, — a true type, — concealed his joy beneath servile gestures and much stammering. I am still laughing at him.
The Tsar was in a charming humor and kept up his end of the conversation. He spoke of the history of Flanders, of the future of aviation, and especially of the little old networks of Rhenish railroads. One learns a great deal by listening to Ferdinand, but he is obviously conscious of his knowledge. After all it is a naïve and harmless form of vanity. At all events, it is most agreeable for a listener who is anxious to learn.

Saturday, July 16. — There was a lot of work to be done to-day: reading newspapers, taking down letters and telegrams during the morning. Summoned to the Tsar’s cabinet to draft a Latin telegram to some prelate or other, I seated myself to write, as a matter of course, without having first been invited to do so. The Tsar amiably called me to order, assuring me that M. Fallières,¹ plebeian though he was, would not overlook such a thing. However, His Majesty was apparently not angry with me for my failure in etiquette, as he shortly afterwards presented me with a scarf-pin. Between times I had carried a small souvenir in a jewel-box to the manager of the Kaiserhof, who almost prostrated himself when he thanked me, breaking his back with reverences, and informing me, in the purest Berlinese, of his purpose always to keep up-to-date on the progress of the science to which he had devoted himself.’

Dined to-night with the princes. Their idea of politeness differs from mine: being probably well aware that I know absolutely no Bulgarian, they talked nothing but Bulgarian during the whole meal, to Weich, an Austrian of the suite, when they might easily have spoken French or German. Their father would have acted differently.
I understand there’s going to be a big job this evening, because of the great number of decorations granted by His Majesty. It seems that a much greater number had been applied for, judging from a remark of the Tsar’s, which I overheard from the next room: ‘What the devil do they expect? I’m not a dealer in decorations.’ Even the manager of the Kaiserhof was one of the aspirants, considering, probably, that a good soufflé is well worth a paltry ribbon; but Ferdinand was unyielding: instead of the decoration, he made him a present of the bauble which I had taken to him in the morning. The poor German! What a tragedy it must have been to him!

Sunday, July 17. — I spent a very hectic Sunday morning. At five minutes of ten I happened to knock at the door of Lieutenant-Colonel Stoyanoff, the Tsar’s aide-de-camp, and found him finishing packing a trunk, which was to be taken downstairs at that moment. Now nobody had said a word to me of our actual departure; I had simply been told to be ‘ready’ about ten o’clock. I made a dash for my room, and threw everything into my trunk and suitcases helterskelter. But I was ready in time.
We lunched in the train, and arrived about one at Bruges, where a delegation from the municipality and the consular corps was waiting for the Tsar, silk hats in hand. We inspected the town in a devil of a hurry, half the time on foot and half in motor-cars. We omitted nothing of the classic round, neither the Museum with its marvelous laces, nor the Lac d’Amour, nor the Memlings of the Saint-Jean Hospital, nor the tomb of Charles the Bold. All this did not prevent our being at the station at six o’clock, where the train which was to take us to Lille and Paris that same evening was awaiting us. I was to have a few days’ leave of absence, while Ferdinand and his sons were the guests of M. Schneider at. the Château de la Verrerie.

VIENNA, Wednesday, July 27. — I traveled alone from Paris to Vienna. Ferdinand had excused me from turning aside with him to Coburg, where he went with his sons to celebrate some anniversary or other. M. de Bourboulon had warned me of Ferdinand’s cult for anniversaries. Every day he turns over the records of his own life and of those of his parents and kindred. There is not a day in the year when something sad or merry has not happened — birth, baptism, betrothal, marriage, accession to the throne, a fine shot, extreme unction — to some one of his kin. And he remembers the said event on the said day; he arranges his trips carefully, so as to be in a given place at a given hour. In short, Ferdinand is both superstitious and sentimental, and to such a degree that he doesn’t like to part with flowers which he has picked or which have been given him. He likes to take his bouquets with him on his journeys, until they are reduced to dust; and even then I am not sure that he does n’t preserve their ashes in a priceless urn. All honor to this noble hobby! The people do not suffer by it.

Thursday, July 28. — The Tsar, who arrived this morning, alighted at the Coburg Palace, on the Seilerstätte, only a few steps from our hotel, Zur Ungarischen Krone. Good-bye to liberty! I went through my newspapers conscientiously, in case the ‘master’ should send for me.

Friday, July 29. — Of course! There is an exposition here, too, and we have naturally spent most, of the day there. Ferdinand must have made a wager to live and die in expositions, universal or special! Or can it be that there is politics in it, and that Ferdinand intends this show of interest in the ornithology of the provinces lately annexed to Austria, as a courteous recognition of the fait accompli and as a bid for the good graces of the Ballplatz? I have no idea. At all events, Ferdinand had that same morning paid a visit to the Hofburg. The interview between the two monarchs lasted about a quarter of an hour. We may be sure that it was ’very cordial’!

Saturday, July 30. — I have discovered a new quality in Ferdinand: he is the best of teachers for his sons. He knows how to interest without overtiring them. He instructs them almost without their knowing it. It surely will not be his fault if they grow up dunces, for he takes infinite pains to explain everything he shows them. Moreover, the princes are just as good pupils as their father is a teacher.
We leave this evening for the Château of Alcsuth, not far from Budapest, where the Tsar is to pay a visit to his sister, the Archduchess Clotilde.

Sunday, July 31. — I woke in my sleeping-car, I don’t know where, opposite a pretty railway station. It was surrounded by acacias and flowers, near a road covered with a foot of brown dust, which is raised in soft clouds by the picturesque ox-carts. We had a most agreeable drive to the château of Alcsuth, for it was very early, and the sun was not yet too high to annoy us. I gazed in admiration upon the beautiful heads and magnificent calves (inherited from generations of footmen) of the old Hungarian servants, all bespangled with medals, who took us to our rooms. The suite was introduced to the three archduchesses — Archduchess Clotilde, her daughter, the Duchess of Orléans, and Archduchess Elisabeth. All three have very much the air of ‘ladies of quality,’ especially the first two, who, though rather stout, charm one by their distinguished carriage and their aristocratic manners. Then the whole château went in procession to the chapel, where we occupied the gallery, while the village people and the servants sat in the nave. There was something patriarchal about the simple and touching service.
We were a small party at table: the ‘Coburg’ family (three ladies and three gentlemen), Lieutenant-Colonel Stoyanoff, Privy Councilor Fleischmann, His Majesty’s former governor, and myself. The conversation was unconstrained and constant. Ferdinand expressed his joy at ‘finally having a holiday, far from that horrible Sofia,’ and related some of his impressions of Paris. And then, if they did not take into their heads to talk literature and — Chantecler! The archduchess asked me what I thought of that so-called masterpiece, evidently expecting to receive from me a reply reverentially flattering to Rostand. The qualifications which I ventured timidly to offer, and which she probably regarded as nothing more than a schoolboy’s foolish whim, seemed to displease her, and she passed to another subject.
Ferdinand spent part of the afternoon catching butterflies out in the park and instructing the princes as to the most scientific way of swinging the net and grasping the prisoner between the forefinger and the thumb, without crushing it and without letting it escape from its gauze prison. He seems to be as incorrigible an entomologist as he proved himself to be a wild ornithologist at the hunting exposition, and an indefatigable mechanician at Brussels. Are there many monarchs in Europe who have so many strings to their encyclopædic bow?

PLESZO, Tuesday, August 2. — The Tsar left Monday morning for his estates in Northern Hungary. He is to make the whole trip in a motor-car, Weich at the wheel. Lieutenant-Colonel Stoyanoff and I left very prosaically by train.

Wednesday, August 3. — The Tsar, hearing that Tatra is terra ignota to me, gave me leave of absence for to-day, and advised me strongly to visit TatraFüred and vicinity. He offered to have me taken in a motor-car to Poprad; from there I am to take the electric trams to Tatra-Füred, then the funicular as far as Taraj-Karol. He even told me what path I must take, and advised me to examine carefully the flora of the valleys through which I pass going up the mountain, because of its striking analogy to the flora of the Urals and the Altais.

I did as I was told. I had no reason to repent following the Tsar’s itinerary in every respect, as it was all very beautiful.

Thursday, August 4. — Now comes the rain. Nevertheless we started for mountain-hunting about one o’clock and were not to be back until seven this evening. Once more I admired Ferdinand’s endurance; he has the most mountaineerish pace I ever imagined. He climbs like a young man, tramps for hours, on the alert for game in grass and underbrush, and all in a pouring rain. Two battues had been arranged, the only result of which was the passing from life to death of a single kid, killed by the Forstmeister.
Life here is decidedly charming. The meals for us four (Ferdinand, Stoyanoff, Weich, and I) are, among other things, a genuine pleasure. The Tsar is always simple and fatherly, always talkative, always instructive, even when he criticizes the menu or praises the vegetables served.
Talking of menus, the duty falls to me of writing them in French on white cards ad hoc, which is not always an easy matter, for the cook is a Hungarian, who jabbers only a little German, and my translations are at times inaccurate. Ferdinand never fails to notice it, and lectures me amicably. He must think me an ignoramus!

Friday, August 5. —The Tsar did not return from his morning motor-drive till past three o’clock, and scolded the colonel because we waited lunch for him. As we sat down, he told us that he had watched and followed a certain butterfly more than an hour without catching it. On the other hand, he was particularly pleased with his grass and flower harvest, which he examined more closely after coffee.

Saturday, August 6. — Rain again, after a terrible storm in the night. His Majesty goes nevertheless by automobile to Murany! It is from this estate, which he inherited from his father’s mother, and of which he is very fond, that Ferdinand borrows the name of Comte de Murany, which he assumes when traveling incognito.

SOFIA,Monday, August 8. — This morning I awoke in Serbia. There are different inscriptions on the freight cars standing at the stations. Cornfields seem to be everywhere. The costumes of the peasantwomen whom we see from the windows are no longer the same.
The journey from Nisch to Sofia — particularly the defiles of the Nischawa immediately after leaving Nisch — is continuously interesting. No more trees on the mountains — or, rather, in the guise of trees, stakes of different sizes, surrounded by a thin sheath of leaves; and underneath, the bare and rutted ground. The Tsar gave me the explanation of this phenomenon: for lack of sufficient pasturage, the cattle are fed to a great extent with young green foliage. Does not that remind one of Virgil? The Tsar also showed me through the window some of the black Serbian pigs which are the periodical cause of a tariff-war between Serbia and Hungary.
We arrived on Bulgarian soil and changed the hour. What wretched things these frontier stations are — Serbian and Bulgarian alike!
My first impression of Sofia was of a large village with low buildings, overlooked in the background by the Vitosch, with its one patch of snow. Only the streets around the palace are paved, but they are very well paved, or, rather, tiled, for hard, yellowish tiles have been used, welded together with asbestos. The palace, the old Turkish konak, which has been renovated and enlarged, is surrounded by shady, well-kept gardens. The Tsar and his aide-de-camp soon left to join their respective wives at Tsarsko-Bistritza, a favorite summer resort of the people of Sofia, sheltered behind a spur of the Rhodopes.

Tuesday, August 9. — This morning I had an opportunity to see more of the capital. I was delighted with the old city, particularly with the market quarter, which has decidedly a ‘local color.’ It was not the principal market-day — that does not come till Friday; nevertheless, there was no lack of animation. Little girls with coarse bags in their hands were seriously making their purchases, haggling about the prices, receiving a few onions into the bargain from the gallant vegetable-dealer who sits with great dignity behind a whole mountain of paprikas and other vegetables which to a Frenchman are quite exotic. Bulgarian peasants passed, with queer pipes in their mouths, and simple sandals fastened around the foot with a thong, more frequently with pieces of string which are wound around the calf in spiral twists, encircling the lower part of the unbleached woolen trousers. Boys passed, carrying in each hand dirty sheeps’-heads, boiled or not; in any case covered with flies; butchers’ stalls in keeping with the rest; Jewish names on the shop-fronts, which look very Jewish; a few drinkers of Turkish coffee on the steps of the cafés; small shops where tobacco and stamps are sold; the guttural cry of a little newsboy; on all sides wretched chromos of the royal head; such were the most striking things which caught my attention on my morning walk through the dirtiest streets which I could find. I must say that there are not many of them.
This afternoon I made the acquaintance of the French minister at Sofia, M. Paleologue. The hour I spent with him was instructive from every point of view, for I had no trouble in starting him on the subject of Renan and the Tsar. He is said to be a probable candidate for the Academy.

Friday, August 12. — Even at Sofia I acquire new habits. In the morning, between eight and ten o’clock, there is a walk in the city and suburbs, a walk in which I am always rewarded, either by a stealthy glance at the barrackrooms of the first regiment of the guard; or by the peculiar charm of a well with worm-eaten timbers, mortised together in something the shape of a gallows, worked by an old woman; or by the sight of two buffalos yoked together, dragging a ground-roller of the size of a child’s toy, to smoothe down the convexity, more frequently concave, of the Bulgarian roads; or by passing Macedonian refugees in their picturesque, neatly colored costumes, who have fled from Turkish oppression, and, seated side by side on the edge of the sunny sidewalk, wait, with a fatalism truly oriental, for the authorities to find a shelter for them in a schoolhouse or barracks.

I lunch generally with the aide-decamp on duty, sometimes with Draganoff, the marshal of the court, whom the Tsar calls ‘monsieur le marquis’ when he and I are alone, and the Tsar recalls his plump, undignified legs encased in silk stockings, with his fat calves bursting the seams, and makes fun of his plebeian wrists and hands so prodigally decked with lace.

In the afternoon, I glance through the different papers and periodicals for which His Majesty subscribes — the Figaro and the Temps, the Opinion, the Kölnische Zeitung, the Neue Freie Presse, the Zeit, the Pesther Lloyd, the Bukarester Tageblatt, the Turquie, Stamboul, and still others. Sometimes His Majesty sends for me. Then I read the long pink telegrams addressed to him by his Macedonian agents, which at least give concrete cases of Turkish atrocities and do not stop at vague generalities, as is the habit of the European press. They are genuine gardens of martyrs. Ferdinand listens solemnly, with an almost tragic expression. He makes no comments, but one is conscious of an earnest determination on his part, to put an end to this state of affairs, cost what it may; to redeem his Macedonian ‘brothers’ as soon as he can — or dares. He sits behind his large work-table, surrounded by photographs of all those of whom he has been fond: the Duc d’Alençon, whose earthly remains he recently followed to the crypt in the Chapelle d’Orléans at Dreux, the Due d’Aumale — and first of all, the Princess Clementine, his mother. ‘How near all that seems and yet how far away it is!’ he says in a moment of unconstraint, gazing at his ‘dear departed.’

I mentioned the rumors in the Viennese press, notably in the Neue Freie Presse, in regard to his supposed deafness, and to an operation which he will soon have to undergo. It seems, indeed, that his intimates advise him to consult foreign surgeons, that is to say, of course, some Viennese. Is it not strange that fables should spring up thus, without the slightest basis of truth? For I vouch for it that Ferdinand’s hearing is very acute — sometimes, indeed, too much so.
Now and again I dine with His Majesty. At such times he generally asks me to talk English with him. He seems delighted to reaccustom his ear to the Anglo-Saxon tones which were familiar to him when, as a child, he visited his grandmother, Queen Amélie, on the banks of the Thames. After dinner I read the French papers to him, full of the exploits of our aviators at the Circuit de l’Est. The Tsar overflows with admiration. He would like to hear me read French more frequently, but where find the time for it? He sends me away about, midnight, while he himself sits up still later to sign a lot of documents.

SYTNIAKOWO, Saturday, August 13. — Last evening, about ten o’clock, we left Sofia in a motor-car for the royal estate of Sytniakowo in the Rhodopes, whither the Tsar transports his household gods for a few days. We arrived at half-past twelve, having admired in the obscurity the gorges of the Iskr, and having stopped half an hour on the road because of a break-down. The royal villa is very prettily situated, and still more prettily arranged. There is no view — the Tsar does not insist upon it as indispensable; but there are fir trees all around a central open space, on the shoulder of a mountain. This shoulder slopes gently up behind the villa and its dependencies. In the beginning there was only the tree-trunk on which the Tsar, then a prince, used to sit while hunting the heath-cock; then a modest shelter was built; then a small pavilion; then one wing; then another; then the offices; the chalet, post-office and telegraph station, stables, garages, and an excellent road leading to them. Such are the different stages which have made Sytniakowo a really princely residence.
We take our meals with the Tsar and the two princes, in the charming dining-room of one of the lateral pavilions. It is exquisitely simple; the wainscoting and ceiling sheathed throughout with Macedonian pine, of the rich lightyellow hue which makes it so cheerful and attractive to the eye, and with round dark knots scattered irregularly through it. The clock of hammered copper, set deep in the beautiful panels, has a supremely artistic effect.

Sunday, August 14. — I lunched with the Tsar and his four children (I had not yet seen the princesses, two pretty little girls), and their two governesses. One of them, a stout Bavarian baroness, speaks English well.
On an excursion Ferdinand is a model father. It is he who chooses an appropriate spot for unpacking and eating the ‘provender,’ brought on the back of two mules; it is he, again, who shows the little princesses the most interesting points of view, and the places where they can find the loveliest digitalis.
I had a free evening, for Ferdinand invited his ministers to dine, and fortunately he does not need me when he is in the midst of ‘his’ Bulgarians.

Monday, August 15. — A grand excursion on horseback to the summit of Musalla, the highest peak of the Balkans. All the ministers joined the party. It was very cold, but the weather was fine and the view splendid. The Rilo is not far away, and one divines the presence of its historic monastery behind a peak; farther on, the Perim Dagh ravined with snow; all the Macedonian mountains; the sources of the Maritza, the Iskr, and the Bistritza; the more distant valley of the Vardar; a part of the Bulgarian plateau; the Vitosch, half covered with mist, as always; at our feet, chasms into which the princes amuse themselves by throwing chunks of stone — all this forms a striking panorama, unknown to tourists.
I had the impression — was it only my imagination ? — that Ferdinand and his ministers kept their eyes and attention almost always on Macedonia and the Ægean Sea. Must we conclude that Ferdinand wanted to show his sons and his ministers the regions which were destined some day to fall to the Bulgarian crown?
At four o’clock we returned to the cabin which, on going up, we left in the bottom of the wild valley, near three gloomy black lakes. We did not start again till two hours later, not without having luncheon, and being present at a very curious scene: the ministers had in fact chosen this spot to offer to the Tsar — inclosed in a magnificent case of hammered silver, which was itself contained in a box of beautiful rosewood, and it again in a leather case—the late Tirnovo declaration of independence, beautifully engrossed on parchment, signed by all the ministers, and adorned by all their seals. A short formal address by Premier Malinoff, to which the Tsar replied with equal brevity and simplicity, was followed by hurrahs from the ministers, taken up by the few soldiers of the suite, and repeated most impressively by a grave and powerful echo, in which my wide-awake imagination discerned I know not what mythological, Orphean sonorousness. The scene was really stirring, not because it took place on the border of ancient Hellas, but because it seemed so natural, so spontaneous. Imagine, too, the framework, which helped to magnify it, to imbue it with majesty — a circle of high rocky mountains, immersed in shadow, while one side is still aglow with sunshine; a green carpet of turf studded with strange rocks; at one side, a poor hut; twenty paces farther on, a fire of dead branches where meat is being roasted, and around which Bulgarian mountaineers are crouching; and finally, above us, a greenish sky across which great white ghosts are galloping.
This unexpected episode ended in a no less striking manner: the Tsar chose for himself a large flat rock, amid the pasture-land, called for pen and ink, and on his knees, facing the Musalla, facing Macedonia, in a solemn, quasihieratic attitude, slowly appended his signature to the parchment.
The democratic and simple, yet intensely patriotic character of this ceremony was altogether noteworthy. The ministers seem to be worthy fellows, slightly rustic, whose tact and refinement are surprising. They were very good-humored all the way, and I lost many a good and bad joke because of not knowing Bulgarian. I talked at length with Malinoff, Minister of Public Works, who speaks French very well, and with Madame Petroff Tchomakoff, lady-in-waiting. The latter at once attracted by her amiable, intelligent face. She has a facility of conversation and literary knowledge of which I had no suspicion. Learning that I am Anglophile, she passed in review, one after another, not without a touch of pedantry, George Eliot, Thackeray, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was not afraid to tackle Oscar Wilde.

We were still drinking champagne in the heart of our rock-bound circle, henceforth historic, when the sun set. We made haste to start for home, first on foot, then on horseback, but it was quite dark.
How this long valley of the Bistritza, through which we are passing, has changed since this morning! There are, first, the twilight effects; then the moon rises and casts a silvery light on the bare slopes towering above us. At last, just before we reached the dense forest surrounding the royal châlet, we plunge, still on horseback, into inconceivably black darkness.
It is impossible to imagine a more picturesque and romantic close of a day. It was nine o’clock: we had spent twelve hours in the open air.
After dinner a long session writing telegrams was in store for me. The Tsar, himself tired out, courteously apologized for making me work so hard at such an unseasonable moment. Yesterday was the anniversary of His Majesty’s accession to the throne, which explains the large number of telegrams of thanks which I had to write.

At midnight we learned of the burning of the Brussels Exposition, which seemed to make a great impression on the Tsar.

Tuesday, August 16. — I had very little work to do. But the royal hearing kept me busy again for a few moments. The Temps took upon itself to repeat the information given by the Neue Freie Presse about the Tsar’s operation, and about the surgeons of the good city of Vienna who were to perform it in preference to all others. Naturally I hastened to submit this number of the Temps to Ferdinand, who was much alarmed. He fears that his French friends will believe this news, and at once asked me to contradict it. I immediately wrote and despatched three telegrams, one to the Comte de Bourboulon, the second to Hebrard, and the third to my comrade Comert, the correspondent of the Temps at Vienna. It seems that the lie was started by some chuckle-headed republican of the extreme Bulgarian Left. The Tsar says that this is typical of the performances to which certain low journalists of Sofia resort, in order to bring him into discredit with his people. He assures me that his enemies actually go so far as to hire spies among the servants of the palace, in order to know the color of his shirts!

At four o’clock I am informed that our luggage will start for Sofia at halfpast four, and that we shall soon follow. That means quick packing. As a matter of fact we follow it at some distance, for our departure from Sytniakowo is postponed till eleven o’clock in the evening. We shall hardly arrive at Sofia before half-past one in the morning.