5.
The Queens' stay at the Corbières was drawing to a close. We had exhausted all the walks and excursions; the cold was becoming daily more intense; the icy wind whistled louder than ever under the ill-fitting doors. At the royal chalet, the little Queen was growing tired of sketching young herds with their flocks or old peasant-women combing wool. One morning, General Du Monceau said to me:
"Their Majesties have decided to go to Italy They will start for Milan the day after to-morrow."
Two days later, I left them at the frontier; and, as I was taking my leave of them:
"We shall meet again," said Queen Wilhelmina. "I am longing to see Paris."
She did not realise her wish until two years later. It was in the spring of 1898—a year made memorable in her life because it marked her political majority and the commencement of her real reign—that, accompanied by her mother, she paid a first visit to Paris on her way to Cannes for the wedding of Prince Christian cf Denmark (the present Crown-prince) and the Grand-duchess Mary of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
"Do you remember the day when we went to the Grande Chartreuse?" were her first words on seeing me.
She still had her bright, childish glance, but she now wore her pretty hair done up high, as befitted her age, and her figure had filled out in a way that seemed to accentuate her radiant air of youth.
Anecdotes were told of her playfulness that contrasted strangely with her sedate appearance. Chief among them was the well-known story according to which she loved to tease her English governess, Miss Saxton Winter: all Holland had heard how, one day, when drawing a map of Europe, she amused herself by enlarging the frontiers of the Netherlands out of all proportion and considerably reducing those of great Britain. Another story was that, having regretfully failed to induce the postal authorities to alter her portrait on the Dutch stamps, which still represented her as a little girl, with her hair down, she never omitted with her own pen to correct the postage-stamps which she used for her private correspondence!
These childish ways did not prevent her from manifesting a keen interest in poetry and art. Her favourite reading was represented by Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas the Elder; but she also read books on history and painting with the greatest pleasure. She had acquired a remarkable erudition on these subjects in the course of her studies, as I had occasion to learn during our visits to the museums, especially the Louvre. She was familiar with the Italian and French schools of painting as with the Dutch and Flemish, although she maintained a preference for Rembrandt:
"I should like him to have a statue in every town in Holland!" she used to say.
Nevertheless, the artistic beauties of Paris did not, of course, absorb her attention to the extent of causing her to disregard the attractions and temptations which our capital offers to the curiosity of a young and elegant woman who does not scorn the fascination of dress. Queen Wilhelmina used to go into ecstasies over the beauty and luxury of our shops; and Queen Emma would have the greatest difficulty in dragging her from the windows of the tradesmen in the Rue Royale and the Rue de la Paix. It nearly always ended with a visit to the shop and the making of numerous purchases.
The little Queen won the affection of all with whom she came into contact by her simplicity, her frankness and the charming innocence with which she indulged in the sheer delight of living. Although possessed of an easy and ready admiration, she remained Dutch at heart and professed a proud and exclusive patriotism.
"I can understand," said President Félix Faure to me, on the day after the visit which he paid to the two Queens, "that the Dutch nation shows an exemplary loyalty to Queen Wilhelmina. It recognises itself in her."
Indeed, nowhere is the sovereign more securely installed than in Holland, nor does the work of government proceed anywhere more smoothly. In Holland, constitutional rule performs its functions automatically, while the budget balances regularly, year by year, thanks to the colonies and trade. Happy country. What other state can say as much to-day?
A week after their arrival in Paris, the two Queens left for Cannes. I had been called south by my service in waiting on Queen Victoria, who had just gone to Cannes herself, and I was obliged to leave a few days before Their Majesties. But I met them again at the Danish wedding, which was so picturesque and poetic in its Mediterranean setting.
I saw Queen Wilhelmina for the last time shortly before her departure for Holland. It was in the late afternoon, at the moment when the sun was on the point of disappearing behind the palm-trees in the garden of the hotel where the Queen of England had taken up her residence. Queen Wilhelmina had come to say good-bye; she was standing in an attitude of timid deference before the old sovereign seated in her bath-chair. Both Queens were smiling and talking merrily. Then Wilhelmina, stooped, kissed Queen Victoria on the forehead and tripped away lightly in the golden rays of the setting sun.
She has not returned to France since then.