From an Eastern embassy; memories of London, Berlin & the East

Contents

CHAP1I* PAGE

I. HOME LIFE IN A TURKISH EMBASSY . . i

II. COURT AND SOCIAL LIFE .... 25

Chapter I Home Life In A Turkish Embassy

A the big round table in the centre of the dining-room at the Turkish Embassy in Bryanston Square, the Ambassador, Rustem Pacha, his fez a little on one side, presided at the luncheon prepared by Aristide, his cook, who preferred to be spoken of as the " artiste." The imperturbable butler and the three footmen seemed oblivious of the curious family party which they waited upon there daily.

I was the only woman present, and my place was on the right of the Pacha. On his left sat my tiny son, his godchild, whom he insisted on having next to him every day at luncheon, except when guests were present.

The little face, framed in soft yellow curls, would frequently be turned towards the old man, and the dark eyes watched him as he peeled his peaches at dessert, and dipped them into a glass of port before eating them.

On my right sat the first secretary, a dreamy, taciturn man, with mournful Oriental countenance, not unlike that of his namesake the Sultan Abdul Hamid. His thoughts were probably upon a translation of Shakespeare into Turkish upon which he was engaged, or perhaps busy with some of those charming and graceful poems which, later, became Turkish classics, to be recited in the schools at Stamboul.

Next to him sat Chekib Be}/, the second secretary. He had a round, cherubic face and anxious eyes full of psychic dyspepsia. He seemed to have been born middle-aged, and worried a great deal about possible ailments, whilst consuming his food with solemn deliberation.

Beside him sat the Naval attache, a bluff, rubicund man, fond of discussing his various missions to different Consulates in England, and to different ports, in order to purchase ships for the Ottoman Navy. The Imam in his priestly turban, sat between the Naval attache and the newly-arrived third secretary, who wore a monocle in his left eye, and whose languid glance would wander with a puzzled expression from one face to another, resting finally upon my husband, the Councillor, sitting between him and the child.

My husband's French nationality was apparent at a glance, in spite of the red fez he always wore in common with all Turkish officials. He was a member of the old French nobility, of the family of the Comtes de Sauville and of Baron Rey, one of Napoleon's generals who figures in one of the battle pictures at Versailles. Born in Paris, where he was educated, he later on went to America. At the time of which I write he had

MY HUSBAND AND SON collaborated with the Ambassador for over thirty years, and had become his right hand.

He first joined him at Florence as private secretary when quite a young man. He often talked of the delightful days he spent in the then capital of Italy, of the interesting daily life, of the picnics made with various English friends, among whom were the famous Colonel Burnaby and his sister, Mrs. Manners-Sutton.

Later, he was officially attached to the Legation, and accompanied his chief in all his subsequent missions, promotion following in the usual routine.

When the post of Ambassador to London was offered to Rustem Pacha, my husband was on the point of accompanying the famous Ghazi Moukthar Pacha in an official capacity to Egypt. But as Rustem Pacha would not accept the portfolio to London unless joined by my husband as Councillor, he refused the advantageous and lucrative Egyptian post in order to remain with his lifelong friend and chief.

Most of the higher diplomatic functionaries of Turkey were foreigners. The Ambassador, the Italian Count de Marini, adopted the name of Rustem (the Glorious) when he entered the Turkish service as a young man under the famous Fuad Pacha. During his long lifetime he represented his Imperial Master with distinction in various great capitals of Europe, and before being appointed to the Court of St. James's, he was for ten years Governor-General of the Lebanon, a post subject to the election and approval of the six Great Powers of Europe.

Although in my native land, I often imagined myself to be in some Far Eastern city. Racial instincts and prejudices, dating from the nursery, although unvoiced, seemed ever-present when all the members of that cosmopolitan Embassy were gathered together.

Conversation at meals was practically nil, for the Pacha, who in some respects was plus turc que les Turcs, preferred the younger officials not to talk unless he first addressed them. In Turkey age is venerated more than anywhere else, and youth defers to it as a matter of course.

He would tap his wine glass with his forefinger, whereupon the servant standing behind his chair promptly refilled it. He glanced approvingly at his little godson as he placed a quarter of an unbaptized peach upon the child's plate.

" His manners are so good he could eat at the Queen's table ! ''' he would sometimes say.

When we rose from table a little soft hand would be slipped into mine, after the Pacha had solemnly offered me his arm, and we three passed the secretaries grouped near the door. The Ambassador's slight bow they would acknowledge with the graceful temena, bending the hand towards the ground before touching lips and forehead (I kiss the ground on which you walk).

My husband would accompany us up the broad staircase while the others turned down the passage to the right of the dining-room leading to the Chancery.

On the landing a large stuffed bear, standing erect on a wooden pedestal, mounted guard over the entrance to the spacious drawing-rooms facing the Square. The Pacha was fond of telling the story of that bear, which in 1870 clawed him, and ate two of his fingers, when, as

Ambassador to Russia under Alexander II, he took part in the Court hunting expeditions.

Crossing the rooms we would pass over to that portion which was arranged as the Pacha's sitting-room. Here he had collected his personal belongings, a number of books, a large proportion of which were French and Italian novels, trophies of arms, and ancient accoutrements displayed upon red shields, quantities of ladies' photographs in silver and platinum frames, and a curious, large, transparent glass clock, hung before a square of black velvet. This horloge mysterieuse, the works of which are hidden in the hands, was invariably noticed by visitors, who wondered how it worked, and were always told that it was wound up by Phcebus Apollo.

The window niche contained a large aviary of little green parrots and other exotic birds, which the Pacha amused himself by feeding with mealworms, things I particularly disliked.

The rooms, furnished by the Turkish Government, were all panelled in white stucco, the big white folding doors being always open. Tall mirrors and big fires at each end added to the spaciousness of the apartments. There was in their manner of decoration little suggestive of the East. Flowered Wilton-pile carpets, divans and sofas in loose flowered cretonne covers, tables covered with photographs, and silver and china ornaments. Large old-fashioned glass chandeliers were suspended from the ceilings ; the only touch of colour upon the walls was given by life-sized portraits in oils of all the Sultans of recent years. That of Abdul Hamid was painted from memory by a famous French artist, who for several weeks watched him when he went to and fro to the Selamlik for his Friday devotions. The picture was a curiosity in its way, as the Turks have a prejudice against portraits from life. There is a saying amongst them that part of their soul passes into each picture.

After luncheon we would stand chatting for a few minutes, when my husband would go down to his office to superintend work that must be ready for signature for the afternoon mail.

After feeding the birds, the Pacha would go to his large, square writing-table facing the window, and with a sigh seat himself in his round-backed, leather arm-chair. Taking up a dispatch left there for perusal, he would soon fall fast asleep. He was long past the age when British diplomatists retire. He was seventy-six when he received his portfolio to London. In spite of his advanced years his mind was singularly clear. His intimate knowledge of European politics and Eastern methods caused him to play a considerable role in diplomacy until the day of his death.

While he was in dreamland, the child and I would curl up in the corner of a sofa in the centre room, where I watched the expression in the dark eyes grow rapt and mysterious as I led him down the realms of fancy to the " Land beyond the Blue Mountains."

Then a door from the end-room would open, a footman would enter to replenish the fires, and I would sign to him not to go into the Pacha's room until he awakened. He, in turn, would tell the Turkish valet, who must always be within earshot of the Pacha's summoning hand-clap, and whose life seemed chiefly to be passed waiting on landings.

About three o'clock I would take the child

RUSTEM PACHA (COUNT HE MARINl), TURKISH AMBASSADOR IN LONDON FROM 1886 — 1895 upstairs to his governess for the customary walk in the Park, while I would go down to my husband's office to help him for a few hours, either by writing dispatches at his dictation, or by translating into French Gladstone's speeches, which were sent to the Porte in the Comptes rendus. It was not an easy task to give an accurate foreign rendering of the famous documents, as a point dwelt upon in one paragraph was so often modified or even contradicted in the next.

Correspondence with the Porte was mostly in French. On every Embassy staff there are always one or two of the personnel who work, and several who do not ; the latter rely upon making a career by being purely ornamental. The Turkish secretaries at our Embassy were certainly not overburdened with work, and had little or nothing to do with the French dispatches, which were left entirely to my husband. When Turkish ones were sent or received, the first secretary was summoned to the Ambassador's room, where they were read and discussed, and afterwards copied in the Chancery.

Hamid Bey would sit to the right of the Pacha's desk, and read aloud from the foolscap covered with Turkish script running from left to right, while the Pacha sat back in his chair, elbows on the side, and finger-tips lightly pressed together. His eyes were usually fixed on the window while he listened attentively to the phrases, which, to one not knowing the language, sounded singularly soft and musical.

Then discussion of various points followed— the Pacha conversing in Turkish ; a word or two would be written with the wooden Turkish quill on the manuscript resting on the reader's knee ;

ceremonious bows would be exchanged, and Hamid Bey would then rise and retire to recoup from these strenuous exertions.

For half a century the representative of the Sultan of Turkey at the Court of St. James's had been a foreigner and a Christian. The post seemed indeed almost a monopoly of the Greek family of Musurus, who preceded Rustem Pacha. Madame Musurus died while returning from a Court Ball, and after her death the honours of the Embassy were done by her three daughters, who were very English in their ideas and sympathies.

A son of Musurus Pacha came to London after the death of Costaki Anthopoulos Pacha, who succeeded Rustem. He also was of Greek extraction.

It was part of Abdul Hamid's diplomacy to choose most carefully his representatives to European capitals, especially his Ambassadors to England, and to keep them at their posts as long as possible. It was the most difficult thing for a Turkish Ambassador to obtain leave of absence. Many of them died in harness, acting under orders of little varying policy, which left but scanty scope for personal initiative.

Viewed from the peephole of an Eastern Embassy, Society life in London was interesting and varied, and sometimes the less prominent officials obtained a more complete bird's-eye view of it than the principals.

In the Victorian days we attended all the Drawing-rooms, State balls, concerts, and Garden parties of the season, which began about the end of February, and ended about the middle of July. The first Drawing-room was usually held in bitterly cold weather at three o'clock in the afternoon. The gala coach with the coachman in knee-breeches and cocked-hat, adorned with the Turkish red and green cockade, and the two tall powdered footmen, also in knee-breeches, straphanging behind, drew up at the Embassy shortly after two o'clock.

In this chariot, swinging to and fro in a manner suggestive of a ship at sea, the Ambassador, my husband and I were driven down Great Cumberland Place, through the Marble Arch and the Parks to the private entrance at Buckingham Palace.

Leaving our cloaks in the long corridor of the entree, we mounted the wide staircase, beautifully decorated with flowers and plants, to the room next the Presence Chamber, where the corps diplomatique assembled previous to the opening of the Drawing-room. Here the map of the world seemed indicated in the various uniforms and national dresses. The Austro-Hungarian and Russian Ambassadors often looked very picturesque in bright velvet trains heavily embroidered with gold or trimmed with fur. The wife and daughter of the Chinese Minister appeared in Court robes of their country, and were accommodated with seats on account of their tiny feet.

Conversation was very animated until the doors opened and the Foreign Secretary and his wife passed into the Throne Room, when the Ambassadresses, with the ladies of their Embassies, were named in order of precedence.

We all remained in the Throne Room, standing in the embrasure of a window to the right of the Royal dais and facing the door of entrance. The io FROM AN EASTERN EMBASSY

Ambassadors and their secretaries then passed the Queen and took up their positions, standing behind a row of officials facing the Royal party. The Queen, who nearly always wore black, received standing in front of an armchair placed in the centre of the dais, and usually left at the end of an hour, when her place was taken by the Princess of Wales. Her benevolent, motherly smile at the nervousness of debutantes, who were privileged to kiss her hand, has lived in the hearts of many who have now reached distant milestones of life.

Although it was very amusing to watch the people enter and file past, it was also very fatiguing to stand through a long Drawing-room which sometimes lasted for over three hours.

At one of these functions, while snow was falling in the Quadrangle outside, and many of the ladies in the window niche had drawn their trains over their shoulders for protection from the draught, Lady Salisbury whispered with a smile : "It will be a long Drawing-room, and I am glad that I put on two pairs of stockings, and elastic-side boots."

I glanced down to try and see the effect, but her black satin heavily beaded skirt touched the ground and effectually hid her feet.

When Miss Cornwallis West married Prince Pless, her appearance at one of the Drawing-rooms evoked great admiration. Her slender blonde beauty was the cynosure of all eyes — and many people at the time deplored the fact that she had married a German.

The twilight fell early, and the lights from the big glass chandeliers gleamed softly in those pre-electric days, lending a subdued brilliancy to

IN A TURKISH EMBASSY u

the scene. When the last guest had passed, we were free to join our men folk and return home to tea. No refreshments were ever offered at the Palace in those days of austere dignity and stately repose, a detail which implied that presentation was considered chiefly as an act of homage, and did not necessarily imply admission to Court entertainments.

The Pacha was always very tired after these functions, and his heavily embroidered uniform, covered with decorations, seemed too weighty for his frail body. He usually tried to avoid evening engagements for these dates. The Turkish secretaries were most interested in the splendour of the Court functions, for to the Eastern mind ceremony is the language of power. They talked of the whole picture of uniforms and decorations, of womens' jewels and their beauty, and wished it could be wafted to the Bosphorus for the delectation of their Imperial Master.

At the State balls and concerts we had reserved seats to the left of the Royal dais, and it was most interesting to watch the various foreign potentates assembled there on different occasions. The ball programme contained about twenty dances, "twelve of which were waltzes, the others being quadrilles, polkas and lancers. Much of the dance music was by German composers : Millocker, Strauss, Waldteufel, etc. Beginning at eleven these balls lasted until about one o'clock, there being an interval for supper. In the supper-room, where the famous gold plate hung upon red cloth on the walls, hot soup and a cold buffet were served at three long tables placed T-fashion. At intervals down the centre of these tables stood dishes containing charming little souvenir boxes in hand-painted silk, filled with bon-bons. These were taken away by the guests.

At the first ball I attended, General Bourtouline, of the Russian Embassy, and Captain Seymour, a Queen's messenger, showed me the different State apartments and pointed out objects of interest. I danced several of the dances with my brother, a British officer, a fact which caused my husband to be questioned by a friend as to the identity of my assiduous cavalier ! Even State balls are not above the breath of scandal.

Then there were the State concerts. Here all the guests were seated on scarlet and gold benches placed in rows down each side of the ballroom, which was 139 feet long. The artists' platform was erected at one end of the room below the musicians' gallery, and faced the Royal dais at the other end.

One had to be at the concerts in good time, to take one's allotted place before the arrival of the Royalties, upon whose entrance into the ballroom everybody rose to respond to their greetings.

The first gracious bow was accorded to the diplomatic body, whose places were to the left of the Royal dais. This was acknowledged by deep curtseys on the part of the ladies, and deep bows from the Ambassadors and their personnel. The second was for the duchesses and members of the highest nobility, whose seats were placed to the right of the platform — and so forth.

One evening when these formalities were over, and the Royal party seated on the platform prior to the commencement of the programme, the Duchess of Leinster arrived, and halted at the door with a deprecating glance in their direction.

The Princess of Wales made 'a gracious little movement, and the charming and beautiful duchess, then at the height of her ethereal beauty, crossed the room — made a deep curtsey before the platform, and took her seat in her allotted place. It was an ordeal which only a woman of her consummate grace could have transformed into an incident unforgettable by all who watched her. Not long afterwards she died, a victim of the malady which even then had painted " churchyard roses " on her cheeks.

At these delightful functions, now obsolete, I have heard at different times, Albani, Lloyd, Eames, Ben Davies, Edouard de Reszke, Calve, Guilia Ravogli, Santley, Clara Butt, Mademoiselle Landi, Alvarez, Plangon, and other great artists.

Court etiquette did not permit applause. The nearest approach to it which I heard was at the State concert of July I5th, 1887, when a young Swedish singer, Sigrid Arnoldson, sang. Her birdlike trills, rising in pure soprano ever higher and higher, were followed by a rustling of programmes, general movement, and mild clapping of hands.

Madame Albani was always a great favourite, and when the Princess of Wales stopped the supper procession to thank the artistes, she was always singled out, when present, for especial notice. The diplomatists waiting en queue behind, were in full view of the guests on either side, and freely discussed during the interim.

Among the Embassies of the Great Powers la diplomatic sauvage et des pays chauds was spoken of with a certain amount of condescension. Our Ambassador, ever anxious to uphold the prestige of the monarch he represented, would never admit that he could be included, even remotely, in that category. His dinner parties and balls held their own with any of the most brilliant social functions of the time.

For the first large dinner party he gave in London, he decided to get the whole of the menu from Chevet's in Paris. After it was ordered we all wondered whether bad weather in the channel would cause any hitch in the arrangements. Chevet had sent dinners to most of the great capitals of Europe, but this venture across the channel was regarded as a little risky. However, Neptune was propitious, and by an early boat an army of cooks, supervised by a major-domo, arrived at the Embassy, bringing large trunks containing their own batterie de cuisine, and delicate dishes in various stages of preparation. The kitchens were given up to them, and the menu evolved from their culinary efforts was much talked of in London at the time.

The round table in the dining-room was lengthened to an oblong, capable of seating twenty-six people. Florists arrived about six o'clock to decorate it in the Turkish national colours — red and green — with quantities of deep red roses, trails of smilax, and delicate ferns. These were woven in and out the tall silver candelabra and epergnes which are the ofhcial Embassy table decorations. The Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury and various diplomatic colleagues were the chief guests.

At these .ofhcial dinner parties politics were rarely touched upon, but I have often been amused at the skilful sleight of tongue exercised by foreign representatives, when any of the secrets which they carried in petto happened to be touched upon. The French- Ambassador was fond of chatting with my husband on their mutual hobby — Numismatics. M. Waddington's coin collection is, of course, world famous. My husband's more modest one of all the Seleucide kings of Syria was unusual and interesting. He had collected it during his ten years' sojourn in the Lebanon, when he was there with Rust em Pacha during his Governorship. He found great recreation in classifying these coins in the pierced trays in the drawers of his coin chest, and had necklaces and bracelets made for his friends from duplicates.

The Embassy dinner parties were sometimes followed by a reception, but these were never very large. The spacious ballroom overlooking Upper George Street was thrown open only once or twice, when the Ambassador was prevailed upon to give a ball to his numerous women friends. He always received at the head of the Grand staircase, and many people will remember him as he stood there in fez and stambouline, all smiles and amiability, for he loved nothing more than entertaining his friends. After the departure of the guests he talked everything over with us, and not a detail of dress, or facial expression seemed to have escaped him.

On the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee in 1887 a special Turkish mission was sent to London to represent the Sultan.

At its head was the aged Ali Nizami Pacha, who was so ill and feeble, that, during the greater part of his stay, he rarely left his hotel or even his bed. He told us that he did his best to evade being sent to London on account of ill-health, which would prevent him from doing himself full justice as Special Envoy. In answer to his plea, he was informed that his Imperial Master admitted no excuse of illness. So he rose from a bed of sickness to come to England, and was accompanied by his son, Osman Bey, who later on, as Osman Nizami Pacha, occupied the post of Turkish Ambassador in Berlin.

He was a kindly, courteous Oriental of the old school, and belonged to the Turkey that is passing away. On the few occasions when he came to the Embassy, he spoke with affection of his Austrian wife, who had remained at home, and of the pleasure it gave him to watch his children and grandchildren grow up in the peaceful seclusion of the old seraglio on the Bosphorus.

Other members of the mission were deeply interested in the wonderful Jubilee ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Nubar Pacha had arrived from Egypt, and I drove with him in an open carriage in the procession to the Abbey. He was loud in his praises of England and everything English, and when leaving the historic pile after the ceremony, he stood watching the Queen, who was accompanied by the Princess Imperial of Germany, and the Princess of Wales, enter her carriage drawn by eight horses. He thought that the Scotch livery of the two servants seated at the back of the carriage was rather like the Greek Albanian dress.

We had been given places in the gallery reserved for the corps diplomatique, and the wonderful ceremony so fully described in the chronicles of the day, was one never to be forgotten by any of those who were privileged to assist at it. Among all the representatives of foreign Powers who knelt in the church below, the, beautiful pale face of the Russian Grand Duchess Serge has always remained in my memory. The tragedy of her life was clearly written there.

The Grand Duchess Serge, Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, was the sister of the ex-Czarina, and resembled her very much in the clear cut of features and expression of countenance. She suffered during the whole of her married life from the rough treatment of her husband, and it was an open secret that physical violence and want of consideration in every form on his part did much to embitter her existence.

When the Czar named his uncle and brother-in-law to the post of Governor-General in Moscow, it was a difficult one to fill, as his predecessor, the venerable Prince Dolgorouky, who had been in office for so many years, had endeared himself to the Muscovites by his fatherly kindness and interest in their welfare. Therefore, the Grand Duke Serge's want of tact, harshness, and arrogance, coupled with his haughty treatment of the people, offended all those whose favour he should have tried to win.

The Grand Duchess, however, charmed them by her gentleness and sympathy, and she gained the affection of the Russians to the extent of being known as the " Queen of Moscow." When her husband was killed, many people thought it was a matter for congratulation, as far as she was concerned. Her popularity, however, did not last, as her German origin, and marked German sympathies later on, turned the tide of public feeling to detestation.

The Holy Synod protested against her introducing the German custom of establishing Homes for Deaconesses in Russia, when she herself became a deaconess. It was not in accordance i8 FROM AN EASTERN EMBASSY

with the religious customs of the country, and this act, coupled with others equally tactless, at last made her position in Russia a most unenviable one.

She brought the proverbial Hessian ill-luck to the House of Romanoff, and when one remembers the fate of her husband and her brother-in-law the Czar, and compares it with the violent end of Paul I and Alexander II, both of whom had Hessian Princesses for consorts, one cannot wonder that the entire Russian people look upon that German House as a bird of ill-omen.

After her husband was killed in Moscow in 1905 by a bomb thrown by the anarchist Kadaeff, she tried to interest the Czar and Czarina in occultism, which she herself studied with much enthusiasm. The two sisters, both of rather morbid tendencies, were an easy prey to the peasant priests who practised hypnotism and even occupied themselves with black magic.

The effect of this was seen in the undue influence of Rasputin, whose story and violent end are so well known.

My husband, who as a young man had been for some years attached to the Turkish Embassy in St. Petersburg, often told me of the stances held in Court circles there by Hume, and the influence he had over the Czar's predecessor.

My husband was always very sceptical about occult phenomena, but confessed that Hume's performances filled him with astonishment. He believed they were chiefly based on prestidigitation and the possession of extraordinary personal magnetism. He has seen people with head and feet just barely resting on chairs stiffen and become impervious to pin pricks and blows, and the body lifted in this cataleptic condition into mid-air, following the magnetism of Hume's outstretched fingers. He also saw an arm-chair in which a woman friend of his was seated, transported bodily from the ground-floor to an upper story of the house. Knocks, ringing of bells, violent noises attributed to Polter-geiste, were of common occurrence, and chords struck in a closed and locked piano were heard at the command of the medium. Hume's followers were legion. A wave of mysticism swept the Court, and only diminished when he finally fell into disgrace and was banished from the capital.

The members of the Turkish mission all agreed that the " business of pleasure " of the social life of London was no trivial matter, but a question of hard work. They never ceased to wonder at the endurance of delicately nurtured high-born ladies who drove at night from one crowded party to another, either to be half killed in trying to penetrate the masses of humanity on the staircases, or to remain in solitary glory in their carriages, realising the impossibility of attempting to reach their hostess.