3.
When the whole party were landed, they had to be put up; and this was no easy matter. The Marseilles Prefecture was hardly large enough to house the King's fabulous and cumbrous retinue. We distributed its members over some of the neighbouring houses; but they spent their days at the Prefecture, which was then and there transformed into the camp of an Asiatic caravan. The ante-rooms and passages were blocked with pieces of luggage each quainter than the other. Heaped up promiscuously were jewel-cases, dress-trunks, cases of opium, bales of rice and sacks of coal, for the Cambodians, fearing lest they should fail to find in Europe the coal which they use to cook their rice, had insisted, at all costs, on bringing with them two-hundred sacks, which now lay trailing about upon the Smyrna rugs!
When, on the evening of his arrival, I pushed my way through this medley of incongruous baggage, to present myself to the King, of whom I had caught but a passing glimpse on the Marseilles quays, M. Gautret, the colonial administrator who had travelled with our guests, said to me:
"His Majesty is at dinner, but wishes to see you. Come this way."
Shall I ever forget that audience? Sisowath sat at a large table, surrounded by his family, his ministers, his favourites and his dancing-girls, while, squatting in a corner on the floor, were half-a-dozen musicians—His Majesty's private band—scraping away like mad on frail-sounding instruments. The King was eating salt-fish which had been prepared for him by his own cooks. He was the only one to use a knife and fork. The others did not care for such luxuries; at intervals, a waiter handed round a large gold bowl filled with rice, into which ministers, favourites, and dancing-girls dipped their hands, subsequently transferring the contents to their mouths.
When M. Gautret had mentioned my name and explained the nature of my functions, the King, who was gloating over his loathsome fish, looked up, gave me his hand and, with his everlasting noisy laugh, flung me a few vapid monosyllables:
"Glad ... Friend ... Long live France!"
Our conversation went on no further on that day. The next morning, we visited together the sights of Marseilles and its Colonial Exhibition. Sisowath, though very loquacious, was astonished at nothing, or at least pretended not to be. His dancers and favourites, on the other hand, were astonished at everything. They pawed the red-silk chairs for ever so long before venturing to sit upon the extreme edge, so great was their fear of spoiling them: most often, after a preliminary hesitation, they would end by settling down upon the floor, where they felt more at home. And yet they were not devoid of tact, as they showed when I took them, at the King's wish, to see the fine church of Notre Dame de la Garde, which, from the top of its rock, commands a view of the city, the surrounding country and the sea. They wanted to go up to the sanctuary and entered it with the same respectful demeanour which they would have displayed in the most sacred of their own pagodas. When we explained to them that the thousands of ex-votos which adorn the walls of the chapel represent so many tokens of pious gratitude, their eyes, like the King of Thule's, filled with tears and they suddenly prostrated themselves just as they might have done before the images of their own Buddhas.
During this time, the King, who had fished out a pair of white gloves and a white tie and adorned his sampot with an emerald belt, stood smiling at the Marseillaise, which was being performed in his honour, and, as I afterwards heard, smiling at the fair Marseillese as well.
Until then, I had enjoyed but a foretaste of the life and manners of the Cambodian Court. The stay which Sisowath and his suite were about to make in Paris was to enlighten me on this subject for good and all.
After three days' driving through the streets of Marseilles, the royal caravan set out for the capital, where the French government had resolved to give it an official reception and to entertain it at the expense of the nation. With this object in view, the government had hired a private house in the Avenue Malakoff and prudently furnished it from the national depository with chairs and tables "that need fear no damage."
Meanwhile, the Colonial Office had appointed me superintendent-in-chief of this novel "palace" and I had to take up my abode there during the whole of our royal guest's stay. The result was that, during the three weeks which I spent amid these picturesque surroundings, I enjoyed all the attractions of the most curiously exotic life that could possibly be imagined.
The bed-room allotted to me opened upon the passage containing the King's apartments; so that I may be said to have occupied a front seat at the permanent and delicious entertainment provided by the Cambodian court for the benefit of those admitted to its privacy.
What struck me first of all was the indiscreet familiarity of His Majesty's family and favourites. Princes, ministers and favourites, spent their lives in the passages and walked in and out of my room with an astonishing absence of constraint and in the airiest of costumes. If I happened to be at home, they paid no attention to my presence: they explored the room, poked about in the corners, tried the springs of my bed, asked me for cigarettes, examined my brushes and combs, smiled and went away. When I was out, they entered just the same, emptied my cigar and cigarette-boxes, sat down on my carpet and exchanged remarks that may have been jocular for all I know: I never found out.
Anxious to avoid any sort of friction, I made no complaint. I contented myself with locking up my personal belongings and replacing my boxes of Havanas with boxes of penny cigars; but my plunderers held different views; the ladies, especially, who had learnt to distinguish between good cigars and common "Sénateurs" expressed their rage and vexation with violent gestures and resolved thenceforth to give me the cold shoulder—which was more than I had hoped for.
There remained another drawback to which I had, willy-nilly to submit until the end. It consisted of Sisowath's unpleasant habit of walking up and down the passages at night, talking and laughing with his suite, while his orchestra tinkled out the "national" airs to an accompaniment of tambourines and cymbals and while the brats kept crying and squalling, notwithstanding the efforts of their mothers, who put lighted cigarettes between the children's lips to make them stop. It was simply maddening; and, when I tried to make a discreet protest, I was told that, as His Majesty took a siesta during the day, he had no need for sleep at night. The argument admitted of no reply and I had to accept the inevitable.
On the other hand, I enjoyed a few compensations. I was invited, from time to time, to assist at the King's toilet when he donned his gala clothes to go to an official dinner or a ceremony of one kind or another. After he had finished his ablutions—for he was always very particular about his person—his wives proceeded to dress him. They helped him into a gorgeous green and gold sampot and a brocaded tunic and put round his throat a sort of necklace resembling the gorget of a coat of mail and made of dull gold set with precious stones, ending at the shoulders in two sheets of gold that stuck out on either side like wings. They next girt his waist, arms and ankles with a belt and bracelets encrusted with exquisite gems. Lastly, they took away his rusty and antiquated old "topper" and gave him in exchange a wide Cambodian felt hat, surmounted by a kind of three-storied tower running into a point, adorned with gold chasings and literally paved with diamonds and emeralds. Thus attired, Sisowath looked very grand: he resembled the statue of a Hindoo god removed from its pagoda.
Nevertheless, western civilisation began stealthily to exert its formidable influence over his tastes, if not his habits. We had not been a week in Paris before our guest thought it better, on his afternoon excursions, to replace the sampot with the conventional European trousers and his out-of-date cutaway with a faultless frock-coat. But for his yellow complexion, his slanting eyes and his woolly hair, he would have looked a regular dandy!
Ever eager to appear good-natured and polite, he kissed the daughters of the hall-porter at the Colonial Office, each time he went to the Pavillion de Flore, and shook hands with the messengers at the Foreign Office and with all the salesmen at the Bon Marché, which he made a point of visiting. Again, when passing through the Place Victor-Hugo, he never failed to take off his hat with a great flourish to our national poet. Lastly, I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him from sending sacred offerings to the tomb of Napoleon I, "whom we hold in veneration in Cambodia," he explained to me through the interpreter. Hearing, on the other hand, that European sovereigns are accustomed to leave their cards on certain official personages, he asked me to order him a hundred worded as follows:
PREAS BAT SOMDACH PREAS SISOWATH
CHOM CHAKREPONGS.