Their Majesties as I Knew Them / Personal Reminiscences of the Kings and Queens of Europe

sojourn. Though travelling incognito as Count Hohenembs, he was accompanied by a fairly numerous suite, whose presence brought a great animation i

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

r 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 cal

e 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 te

When he went to Mentone to return the visit which President Faure had paid him at Cap Martin, the French Government sent a regiment

alion of Alpine Chasseurs on the height of Roquebrune. The man?uvres opened one morning at dawn in the marvellous circle of hills covered with olive-trees and topped by the s

soldier, who was more accustomed to the language of the camp than to that of courts, and he persisted in addressing the Emperor

! I am more used to mess-

or at onc

lease. I much prefer a

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

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

ed, 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

he yelled, "I'd have asked more m

two hours and I had to be

abia, 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

he said. "Go and tell him to hurry,

up to the reade

our wife will g

laughed, was greatly a

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, a

doctors' prescriptions. One day, however, seeing her more tired than usual, I begged her permission to prese

ept. But you must let me, in return, send you some of our famous Toka

ess, a beautiful liqueur-case containing six little bottles of Tokay; and I was talki

tates. To give you an idea of what it is worth, I may tell you that, recently, at a sale

of the present which I had received, offered me five thousand francs for the six bott

the Empress, feeling more restless and melancholy than ever, resolved to make a cruise in th

n 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 mu

untess of Trani, to whom she occasionally paid surprise visits. She was not there. To crown all, she had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of

n search of her, when suddenly

"It was lovely. And I came back on foot along the quays. I

vening 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 eati

know what soupe à l'oignon is like. Mr. Barke

ll tell the people of th

won't taste in the least like yours. And I must have it ser

ager 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 imp

o air her melancholy on the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The projected cruise embraced a

ritz Sacks von Bellenau; and we were at sea, opposite the tragic Chateau d'If, on the 1st of January of the year 1898, which was to prove so tragic to E

yours." And she added, with an expression of infinite bittern

entiment of what the year held

he 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 c

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 s

think of abandoning it. My service with the Empress end

ly. "You shall be my guest; and I will

, who were expected there. It was decided, therefore, that I should leave the Miramar at San Remo. When the yacht dro

for I shall come back to

hed her delicate and careworn features, first outlined against the disc of the