My royal clients

Front matter

oV

4 o

I 1

Chapter I The Empress Elizabeth Of Austria

My reason for first evoking the infinitely fascinating and melancholy image of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria is that she presents a special type among the royal and imperial majesties to whose persons I was attached during their different stays in France; and this both on account of her life, which was one long romance, and of her death, which was a tragedy.

Hers was a strange, sad soul; and she disappeared suddenly, as in a dream of terror. She hovers round my memory crowned with the halo of unhappiness ; and I at once think of her when I take up my pen.

The first time that I saw her was at Geneva ; and I cannot recall this detail without emotion, for it was at Geneva that she was to die under the assassin's dagger. At the end of August 1895, the government received notice from the French Embassy in Vienna that the Empress was about to visit Aix-les-Bains in Savoy; she was to travel from her palace of Miramar through Italy and Switzerland ; and, as usual, I received my formal letter of appointment from the b 1

Ministry of the Interior, instructing me to go and meet the Empress at the international railway-station at Geneva. The letter was couched in the following terms : —

"FRENCH REPUBLIC

'■ Ministry of the Interior

Paris. 29 August, 1895.

" The Chief Commissioner of the Detective-service

"To Monsieur Paoli, special commissary attaclied to the Criminal Investigation Department.

" I have the honour to inform you that H.I.M. the Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary, travelling in the strictest incognito under the name of Countess Hohcncmbs and proceeding to Aix-les-Bains. will arrive at the railway-station at Geneva on the 10th of September 1S95 at S.4j a.m.

" The imperial suite will be composed of the following persons :

" 1. Countess Irma Sztaray, lady-in-waiting.

" 2. His Excellency Major-General von Berzeviczy. OberstaUmcister (master of the horse).

" 3. M. Marinaky, Greek reader.

" 4. Ritter von Feifalick, secretary.

" 5. Fraulein von Meissel, waiting-woman.

" 6. Frau von Feifalick, dresser.

" 7. Five men-servants.

" The bulk of the imperial luggage, consisting of sixty-three trunks, will be in charge of the footman Melehior Marz, who has been furnished with a passport and a special permit by the French Embassy in Vienna, and who will precede Her Imperial Majesty by a few hours. I hereby instruct you to ensure the safety of Her Imperial Majesty during her stay in French territory, to take all the necessary measures for this purpose, and also to see that her incognito is scrupulously respected.

" The Chief Commissioner

of the Detective-service."

I confess that, when I stepped into the train, I experienced a keen sense of curiosity at the thought that I was soon to find myself in the presence of the lady who was already surrounded by an atmosphere of legend, and who was known as " the wandering Empress." I had been told numerous more or less veracious stories of her restless and romantic life; I had heard that she talked little, that she smiled but rarely, and that she always seemed to be pursuing a distant dream.

My first impression, however, when I saw her alight from her carriage on the Geneva platform, was very different from that which I was prepared to receive. The Empress, at that time, was fifty-eight years of age. She looked like a girl; she had the figure of a girl, with a girl's lightness and grace of movement.

Tall and slender, with a touch of stiffness in her bearing, she had a rather fresh-coloured face, deep, dark and extraordinarily lustrous eyes, and

B2 a a wealth of chestnut hair. I realized later that she owed her vivacious colouring to the long walks which she was in the constant habit of taking. She wore a smartly-cut tailor-made dress, all in black, which accentuated the slimness of her wasp-like waist. The beauty of her figure was a matter of which she was frankly vain : she had herself weighed every day.

I was also struck by the smallness of her hands, the musical intonation of her voice, and the purity with which she expressed herself in French, although she pronounced her words with a slightly guttural accent.

One disappointment, however, awaited me : my reception was icy cold. In spite of the experience which I had acquired during the exercise of my special functions, it left me disconcerted. My feeling of discomfort was still further increased when, on reaching Aix-les- Bains, General von Berzeviczy, whom I had asked for an interview in order to arrange for the organization of my department, answered, curtly :

" We sha'n't want anybody."

These four words, beyond a doubt, constituted a formal dismissal, an invitation both clear and concise to take the first train back to Paris. My position became one of singular embarrassment. Invested with a confidential mission, I began by inspiring distrust in the very persons to whom this mission was addressed ; charged to watch and remove " suspects," I myself appeared to be more suspected than any ! 4

THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA.

Nevertheless, I resolved that I would not be denied. I organized my service without the knowledge of our guests. Every morning, I returned to see General von Berzeviczy. Avoiding any allusion to the real object of my visit, I did my best to overcome his coldness. The general was a very kind man at heart, and a charming talker. I told him the gossip of the day, the news from Paris, the tittle-tattle of Aix. I advised excursions, mentioned the curiosities worth seeing, conscientiously fulfilled my part of Baedeker . . . and, when I carelessly questioned the general about the Empress's intentions as to the employment of her day, he forgot himself to the extent of telling me. This was all that I wanted to achieve.

In a week's time, we were the best of friends. The Empress had condescended to appreciate my attention in daily covering her table with newspapers and reviews. She gradually became accustomed to seeing me appear just in time to forestall her wishes. The game was won; and, when, later, curious to know the cause of what appeared to me to have been a misunderstanding, I asked General von Berzeviczy to explain the cause of his disappointing reception, he replied :

" It was simply because, when we go abroad, they generally send us officials who, under the pretence of protecting us, terrorize us. They appear to us like Banquo's ghost, with long faces and rolling eyes ; they see assassins on every side; they poison and embitter our holidays. That is why you struck us at first as suspicious."

" And now ? "

" Now," he answered, with a smile, " the experiment has been made. You have fortunately broken with a bad tradition. In your case, we forget the official and remember only the friend."

In the course of the three visits which the Empress Elizabeth paid to France between 1895 and 1898, I had every opportunity of studying in the intimacy of its daily life that little wandering court swayed by the melancholy and alluring figure of its sovereign. She led an active and solitary existence. Rising, winter and summer, at five o'clock, she began by taking a warm bath in distilled water, followed by electric massage, after which, even though it were still dark, she would go out into the air, without informing her suite.

Clad in a black-serge gown of so simple a character that no well-to-do tradeswoman would have cared to be seen in it, laced boots and, on her head, either a plain black mantilla or a straw hat also trimmed with black, she walked at a smart pace along the paths of the garden, or, if it were raining, perambulated the long passages that run out of the halls or " lounges " of most hotels. Sometimes, she would venture on the roads and look for a fine site — by preference, the 6 top of a rock — from which she loved to watch the sunrise.

She returned at seven o'clock and breakfasted lightly on a cup of tea, with a single biscuit. She then disappeared into her apartments and devoted two hours to her toilet.

Her second meal was taken at eleven and consisted of a cup of clear soup, an egg, and one or two glasses of meat- juice, extracted every morning from several pounds of fillet of beef by means of a special apparatus that accompanied her on her travels. She also tasted a light dish or two, with a preference for sweets. Immediately after lunch, she went out again, accompanied, this time, by her Greek reader.

This Greek reader was a very important person. He formed one of the suite on every journey. Selected from among the young scholars of the University of Athens and often appointed by the Greek government, he was changed year by year. I, for my part, have known three different readers. Their duties consisted in talking with the Empress in the Greek language, ancient and modern, both of which she spoke with equal facility.

This might have seemed a quaint fancy, but it was explained as soon as the Empress's mental condition was better known. Ever haunted by a melancholy past, romantic by temperament and poetic by instinct, she had sought a refuge in literature and the arts. Greece personified in her imagination the land of beauty which her dreams incessantly evoked; she had a passionate love for antiquity, loved its artists and its poets ; she wished to be able, everywhere and at all times, when the obsession of her sad memories became too intense, to escape from the pitiless phantoms that pursued her and, in some way, to isolate her thoughts from the realities of life. The scholarly conversation of the young Greek savant made this effort easier for her; in the varied and picturesque surroundings which her aesthetic tastes demanded, she took Homer and Plato for her companions ; and thus to the delight of the eyes was added the most delicate satisfaction of the mind.

The Greek reader, therefore, was the faithful companion of her afternoon walks, which lasted until dusk; and the Empress often covered a distance of fifteen to twenty miles on end. Dressed as in the morning and always in black, she carried, whatever the weather might be, an en cas and a fan. For twenty years, she had obstinately refused to allow herself to be photographed ; she dreaded the indiscretion of amateur photographers; and no sooner did she perceive a camera aimed in her direction than she quickly unfurled her black feather fan and modestly concealed her features, leaving nothing visible but her great, wide, never-to-be-forgotten eyes, which still retained all the splendour and fire of youth.

The young Greek's duties, however, were not confined to talking to the Empress on her walks. 8

Sometimes the reader would read. Carrying a book which Her Imperial Majesty had selected beforehand, he read a few chapters to her during the rests by the roadside, on the mountain-tops, or at the deserted edge of the sea. Later, he added the daily budget of cuttings from the newspapers and reviews which I prepared for her, knowing the interest which she took in the current events of the day.

He also carried on his arm a dark garment, a skirt, to be exact. The Empress had the habit, in the course of her long walks, of changing the skirt in which she had started for one made of a lighter material. It was a question of health and comfort. This little change of attire was effected in the most primitive fashion. The Empress would disappear behind a rock or a tree, while the reader, accustomed to this rapid and discreet proceeding, waited in the road, taking care to look the other way. The Empress handed him the skirt which she had cast off ; and the walk was resumed.

On returning to the hotel, she made a frugal dinner, consisting sometimes merely of a bowl of iced milk and some raw eggs washed down with a glass of Tokay, the whole forming an almost savage dietary to which she had forced herself, in order to preserve the slimness of figure which she prized so highly.

She took all her meals alone, in a private room, and seldom passed the evening with her suite. Its members hardly ever saw her; sometimes the lady-in-waiting spent day after day without setting eyes on her imperial mistress.

Of the different places in France which Her Imperial Majesty visited, the one which she loved above all others was Cap Martin, the promontory which separates the Bay of Monaco from that of Mentone. She came here for three years in succession, and returned to it each time with renewed pleasure. The softness of the climate, the wild beauty of the views, the splendour of the luxurious vegetation, and the poetic solitude of the pine-forests and orange-groves reminded her of her property of Achilleon in the island of Corfu and of her palace of Miramar on the shores of the Adriatic. She felt more at ease here than anywhere else; and here she created a charming home for herself. She selected as her residence the enormous hotel that stands at the end of the point, among the tall pines, the fields of rosemary, the clusters of myrtle and arbutus. The building, intended for the sojourn of princes and millionaires, combined something of the palace with something of the monastery. One could imagine, in fact, that a sovereign would love to have a retreat all to himself in that blue setting; and a community of monks also would have been extraordinarily happy in that solitude made for meditation and hope.

The hotel, which had been open to visitors for only about a year, was hardly known at the time when the Empress first went there in search of retirement and repose. It was recommended 10 to her by the Empress Eugenie, who had stayed there while the Villa Cyrnos was being built; the poor Tsarevitch George, who was already attacked by the illness of which he was to die, had also lived in it for a short time.

The Empress Elizabeth occupied the ground-floor of the right wing, where she had a suite of six rooms on a corridor separated by a heavy red-velvet hanging from the public lounge. The windows opened on a terrace from which the eye took in the wonderful view extending from the picturesque houses rising in stages on the peninsula of Monaco to the verdant point of Bordighera, strewn with bright-coloured villas. Beyond the sunny coast-line and its rocky rampart, the immensity of the sea stretched its blue expanse, bathed in radiant light and covered with fleeting white sails, which the Empress loved to follow with her gaze until they disappeared below the horizon.

The furniture of the imperial apartments was marked by extreme simplicity combined with perfect taste, most of the pieces being of English workmanship. Her bedroom was just the ordinary hotel bedroom, with a brass bedstead surmounted by a mosquito-net, a mahogany dressing-table, and a few etchings hanging on the walls. On the other hand, the management had placed beside the bed, at her request, a set of electric bell-pushes distinguished by their colours — white, yellow, green and blue — which enabled her to summon that person of her suite whose presence she required, without having to disturb the others. She made it a rule to give as little trouble as possible; and, when, by chance, she had a request to make of one of the strange servants, she never addressed them but in terms of the most exquisite politeness. This happened but rarely, for her service was performed exclusively by her own two women, Frau von Feifalick and Fraulein von Meissel.

She was not at all difficult to please, although she certainly drove her love of cleanliness to an extreme pitch. In particular, she could not bear to have water, even for the purpose of her toilet, brought to her in any other vessel than glass-stoppered bottles. Her homeliness, it is true, proceeded less from an innate taste than from the severe discipline which she exercised over her habits. Thus she never slept on any but a hard mattress, a fact which one would have scarcely suspected from the aristocratic daintiness of her person.

In addition to the ground-floor, one other room was reserved for her on every Sunday during her visits. This was the billiard-room, which, on that day, was transformed into a chapel. When the Empress came to the Cap Martin Hotel for the first time, she enquired after a church, for she was very religious. There was none in the immediate neighbourhood : to hear mass, one had to go to the village of Roquebrune, the parish to which Cap Martin belongs. The Empress then decided to improvise a chapel in the hotel itself, and, for this purpose, selected the 12 billiard-room, to which she could repair without attracting attention. But the rites of the Church require that every room in which mass is said should first be consecrated; and none save the bishop of the diocese is qualified to perform the consecration. A ceremony of this kind in an hotel billiard-room would have been rather embarrassing. The difficulty was overcome in a curious and unexpected manner. There is an old rule by virtue of which the great dignitaries of the religious Order of Malta enjoy the privilege of consecrating any room in which they drop their cloak. It was remembered that General von Berzeviczy, the Empress's chamberlain,occupied one of the highest ranks in the knighthood of Malta. He was, therefore, asked to drop his cloak in the billiard-room. Thenceforward, every Sunday morning, the Empress's footman put up a portable altar in front of the tall oak chimney-piece; he arranged a number of gilt chairs before it; and the old rector of Roquebrune came and said mass, served by a little acolyte, to whom the lady-in-waiting handed a gold coin when he went away.

The Empress, in fact, was extremely generous ; and her generosity adopted the most delicate forms. Herself so sad, she wished to see none but happy faces about her. And so she always distributed lavish gratuities to all who served her; and she succoured all the poor of the country-side. Whenever, in the course of her walks, she saw some humble cottage hidden in the mountain among the olive-trees, she entered it, talked to the peasants, took the little children on her knees, and, as she feared lest the sudden offer of a sum of money might offend those whom she was anxious to assist, she employed the most charming subterfuges. She would ask leave to taste their fruit, paying for it royally ... or else buying several quarts of milk, or dozens of eggs, which she would tell them to bring to the hotel next day. The good people were not aware of their customer's station : they took her for a rich foreigner who had had troubles of her own and who felt for the poverty of others ; and often, at break of day, some of them would come down from the mountain with bunches of wild flowers, which they handed to the porter of the hotel for " the lady in black."

She ended, of course, by knowing all the walks at Cap Martin and the neighbourhood. She set out each morning with her faithful trampingcompanion, the Greek reader. Sometimes she would go along the rocks on the shore, sometimes wend her way through the woods, sometimes she would climb the steep hills, scrambling "up to the goats," as the herds say. She never mentioned the destination or the direction of her excursions, a thing which troubled me greatly, notwithstanding that I had had the whole district searched and explored beforehand. How was I to look after her ?

" Set your mind at rest, my dear M. Paoli," she used to say, laughing. " Nothing will happen 14 to me : what would you have them do to a poor woman ? Besides, not one of us is more than the petal of a poppy, or a ripple on the water ! "

Nevertheless, I was far from easy, the more so as she obstinately refused to let one of my men follow her, even at a distance. One evening, however, having heard that some Italian navvies, who were at work on the Mentone Road, had spoken in threatening terms of the crowned heads who are in the habit of visiting that part of the country, I begged the Empress to be pleased not to go in that direction and was promptly snubbed for my pains :

44 More of your fears ! " she replied. " I repeat, I am not afraid of them . . . and I make no promise."

I was determined. I redoubled my supervision and resolved to send one of my Corsican detectives, fully armed, disguised and got up as a navvy, with instructions to mix with the Italians who were breaking stones on the road. He rigged himself out in a canvas jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers, and made up his face to perfection. Speaking Italian fluently, he diverted all suspicion on the part of his mates, who took him for a newly-arrived fellow-countryman of their own.

He was there, lynx-eyed, with ears pricked up, doing his best to break a few stones, when suddenly a figure which he at once recognized appeared at a turn in the road. The night was beginning to fall : the Empress, accompanied by her reader, was on her way back to Cap Martin. Bending over his heap of stones, the sham navvy waited rather anxiously. When the Empress reached the group of road-menders, she stopped, hesitated a moment and then, noticing my man, doubtless because he looked the oldest, she went up to him and said, kindly :

" Is that hard work you're doing, my good man ? "

Not daring to raise his head, he stammered a few words in Italian.

" Don't you speak French ? "

" No, signora."

" Have you any children ? "

" Si, signora."

" Then take this for them," slipping a louis into his hand. " Tell them that it comes from a lady who is very fond of children."

And the Empress walked away.

That same evening, seeing me at the hotel, she came up to me with laughing eyes :

" Well, M. Paoli, you may scold me, if you like. I have been disobedient. I went along the Mentone Road to-day and I talked to a navvy."

It was my faithful Corsican.

Sometimes, she ventured beyond the radius of her usual walks. For instance, one afternoon, she sent for me on returning from a morning excursion :

" M. Paoli, you must be my escort to-day.

You shall take me to the Casino at Monte Carlo :

I have never been there. I must really, for 16 once in my life, see what a gambling-room is like."

Off we went : the Empress, Countess Sztaray and I. It was decided that we should go by train. We climbed into a first-class carriage in which two English ladies were already seated. The Empress, thoroughly enjoying her incognito, sat down beside them. At Monte Carlo, we made straight for the Casino and walked into the roulette-room. The august visitor, who had slipped through the crowd of punters leaning over the tables, followed each roll of the ball with her eyes, looking as pleased and astonished as a child with a new toy. Suddenly she took a five-franc piece from her hand-bag :

" Let me see if I have any luck," she said to us. " I believe in number 33."

She put the big coin on number 33 en plein. At the first spin of the wheel, it lost. She put on another and lost again. The third time, number 33 turned up. The croupier pushed 175 francs across to her with his rake. She gathered it up and then, turning gaily to us, said :

" Let us go away quickly. I have never made so much money in my life."

And she dragged us from the Casino.

Whenever she went to Monte Carlo, she always took tea at Rumpelmayer's, the famous Viennese confectioner's, for, as I have already hinted, she adored pastry and sweets. The Rumpelmayer establishments at Mentone, Nice and Monte Carlo were well aware of the identity c 17 of this regular customer ; but she had asked them not to betray her incognito. When there were many people in the shop, she would sit down at a little table near the counter; and nobody would have suspected that the simple, comely lady in black, who talked so familiarly with the girls in the pay-box and at the counter, was none other than Elizabeth Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary.

At other times, she would walk out on the pretty Beaulieu Road, edged with villas whose flower-gardens were a subject of perpetual delight to her. Here she was constantly followed by those little curly-haired Italian boys who go about selling plaster statuettes. The sight of them moved her compassionate heart to pity :

" They are unhappy before their time," she would explain, as though in self -excuse. " Why not give them a trifling pleasure, when it costs so little ? "

And she always bought their wares. The small Italians, of course, were overjoyed at this windfall, all the more as they were allowed to keep their statuettes, which they hastened to dispose of anew.

She also often went to Nice. Nevertheless, she preferred to the frequented roads those steep and secluded paths which clamber up the heights. Just at the back of Monte Carlo stands a very precipitous mountain of rocks : it is crowned by a fort of the first importance, known as the Fort de Mont-Angel and overlooking the long chain 18 of the Alps. It is reached by a road seven miles long, built by the corps of engineers, and affords a glorious view of the mountains and the sea.

One day, the Empress said to me :

" May we visit the fort ? I should like to see it. If you will do what is necessary, we will go there the day after to-morrow."

Admission to the fort was prohibited to the public. I therefore informed General Gebhardt, at that time Governor of Nice, of Her Majesty's wishes. The general, anxious to be polite, not only hastened to give the desired authorization, but sent orders to Captain Giacobbi, commanding the fort, to look out for the Empress's arrival, so that he might show her round.

Unfortunately, the Empress forgot her intention. The poor captain dared not leave his fort, as he expected to see her arrive at any moment. Days passed, days and weeks. His wife and children, who lived at Nice, were heart-broken at never seeing him. At the end of two months, unable to bear the separation any longer, he wrote and told me of his unhappy position. I decided to mention the matter to the Empress. Deeply distressed, she told the Emperor, who had just arrived. He at once asked General Gebhardt to countermand the captain's orders, and sent him the Cross of Francis Joseph by way of compensation.

02 19

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 added great animation to 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. A telegraphic apparatus was installed at the hotel, to enable the sovereign to communicate direct with Vienna; and a gang of upholsterers busied themselves with decorating the apartments destined for his use and situated above those of the Empress.

Francis Joseph generally spent a fortnight with his consort. I thus had the opportunity of observing the touching affection which they displayed towards each other, notwithstanding 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 her whole suite, in addition to 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, 20 framed in white whiskers, lit up with a kindly smile. He tucked the Empress's arm under his own and, with exquisite politeness, 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 Cote d'Azur or passing through, notably Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, the Archduke Regnier, the then 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 Eugenie, their next 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 course of a single morning. From ten to twelve, the Emperor strolled in the gardens with the Empress. Seen from a distance, they might have been taken for a honeymoon couple, so young did they both appear : she willowy, dainty and fragile; he thin, brisk and elegant, having retained the youthful figure of a cavalry subaltern, which was accentuated by the cut of his blueserge suit and his knack of perching his black-felt hat a little on one ear.