3.

I intended, in this chapter, to speak of those members of the royal family with whom my long and frequent service about the person of Queen Victoria gave me the occasion to come into contact; and I must not omit to mention a princess now no more, a woman of lofty intelligence and great heart, whom life did not spare the most cruel sorrows after granting her the proudest destinies. I refer to the Empress Frederick of Germany, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and mother of William II.

I made her acquaintance in rather curious circumstances. It was at the naval review held by Queen Victoria in 1897, on the occasion of her diamond jubilee. As a special favour I was invited to see this magnificent sight on board the Alberta and I was gazing with wondering eyes at the majestic fleet of iron-clads through which the royal yacht had just begun to steam, when I heard a voice behind me say, in the purest Tuscan:

"Bongiorno, Signor Paoli ..."

I turned round. A woman, still young in bearing, though her face was crowned with grey hair under a widow's bonnet, stood before me with outstretched hand:

"I see," she said, smiling at my surprise, "that you do not know me. I am the Empress Frederick. I have often heard of you and I wanted to know you and to thank you for your attentions to my mother."

I bowed low, thinking what an uncommon occurrence it must be for a Frenchman to meet a German empress, talking Italian, on an English boat; and she continued:

"I know that you are a Corsican; and that is why I am speaking to you in your native language, which I learnt at Florence and which I love as much as I do my own."

The Empress Frederick, in fact, was remarkably well-educated, as are all the English princesses. She knew French as fluently as Italian and hardly ever spoke German, except to the chamberlain, Count Wedel. I was able to see, during our conversation, that she took a lively interest in my country; she asked me a thousand questions about France and particularly about French artists:

"I am a great admirer of M. Detaille's works," she said and added, after a pause, "He is very like the Emperor, my son. Don't you think so?"

I thought it the moment for prudence:

"I have never had the honour of seeing the Emperor William," I replied, "and therefore I cannot tell Your Imperial Majesty if the resemblance has struck me."

She then changed the conversation and spoke of the celebrations which were being prepared in her mother's honour.

The only other occasion on which I saw her was two years later, when she crossed French soil to go from England to Italy. This time, she was nervous and ill at ease:

"Do you assure me," she asked, as she landed at Calais, "that I shall meet with no unpleasantness between this and the Italian frontier?"

"Why, what are you afraid of, Ma'am?" I asked.

"You forget, M. Paoli, that I am the widow of the German Emperor and that, as such, I am no favourite in this country. Suppose I were recognised! There are memories, as you know, which French patriotism refuses to dismiss."

She was alluding not only to the events of 1870, but to the bad impression made in Paris by the visit which she had paid, a few years earlier—without any ulterior motive—to the ruined palace of Saint-Cloud, forgetting that it was destroyed and sacked by the Prussians. I reassured her, nevertheless, and said that I was prepared to vouch for the respect that would be shown her.

The journey, I need hardly say, passed off without a hitch. The Empress, with her suite, entered the private saloon-carriage of her brother, the Prince of Wales, which was coupled to the Paris mail-train and afterwards transferred to the Nice express, for the Empress was travelling to Bordighera, on the Italian Riviera.

She dared not leave her carriage during the short stop which was made in Paris; but, when we arrived at Marseilles the next morning, she said:

"I should awfully like to take a little exercise. I have been eighteen hours in this carriage!"

"But please do, Ma'am," I at once replied. "I promise you that nothing disagreeable will happen to you."

She thereupon decided to take my advice. She stepped down on the platform and walked about among the passengers. She was received on every side with marks of deferential respect—for, of course, her incognito had been betrayed, as every incognito should be—and suddenly felt encouraged to such an extent that, from that moment, she alighted at every stop. Gradually, indeed, as her confidence increased, she took longer and longer in returning to her carriage, so much so that she very nearly lost the train at Nice; and, when I took leave of her at Bordighera, she said, as she gave me her hand to kiss:

"Forgive me, my fears were absurd. Now, I have but one wish, to make a fresh stay in France. Who knows? Perhaps next year."

I do not know what circumstances prevented her from fulfilling her hopes; and the next time I heard of her was at Queen Victoria's funeral. I was astonished not to see her there and asked the reason of her chamberlain, Count Wedel, who sat beside me in St. George's Chapel at Windsor.

"Alas," he said, "our poor Empress is confined to her bed by a terrible illness! Think how she must suffer: her body is nothing but a living sore!"

A few months later, she was dead.