CHAPTER II
THE TRAINING OF A TRAITOR
Ferdinand owed his principality to his mother, Princess Clementine of Orleans, the youngest and cleverest daughter of the French King Louis Philippe. He owed also his capacity for filling the position to the training bestowed upon him by that truly remarkable woman. It was a peculiar training, for he was trained to fill a hypothetical throne. Make a king of him, was his mother’s motto, and the kingdom is sure to turn up some day.
Clementine of Orleans was one of the stormy petrels of European inner politics. “The Czar’s nightmare, the Austrian Emperor’s bogey, and Bismarck’s sleeping draught” had been the epigrammatic description of the rôle she played, thrown off after deep consideration by an English diplomatist who worked out his impromptus very thoroughly.
She had married Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg Kohary, and by the Kohary hangs a tale. It was supposed by the vulgar to be an additional title, but it really was an excrescence on the Saxe-Coburg appellation, tacked on in return for some millions in hard cash. The original Kohary was a swindling army contractor whose name in England would be Cohen. He had made untold wealth by a system of army contracting which has its feeble imitators at the present day, and he cherished high ambitions for his pretty daughter Tony.
She, and her wealth, attracted the notice of that poverty-stricken prince, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, grandfather of Bulgaria’s elect. The wedding and the dowry were arranged, and the condition exacted by the man of millions was that the Kohary should appear in the princely title. So it was; though Prince Augustus, at the instigation of his spouse Clementine, dropped the Cohen as soon as he conscientiously could. But there it was, and when, many years afterwards, Ferdinand of Bulgaria was able to address a deputation of Jewish merchants in their native Yiddish, gossips recalled a circumstance which explained why he was the only European ruler who could claim such an accomplishment.
Ferdinand’s Mother, Princess Clementine, at the age of 82.
But the Princess Clementine moved in a circle that had the discernment to see that the brand of Kohary was not upon her. She bore rather the stamp of the Bourbons, and to the very last of her extreme old age preserved the aristocratic air that became a daughter of Louis Philippe. She inherited immense wealth, and knew how to take care of it. Two passions possessed her in her life. The first was to restore the monarchical line in France, and to that end she plotted skilfully and unsuccessfully. The other was to realize in the person of her youngest son a prophecy that affected her most profoundly when it was delivered, and obtained a greater hold upon her with each succeeding year of her life.
The prophecy was delivered by a very old and unsightly gipsy woman who cajoled the Princess into permitting an inspection of her hand. The sybil declared that one of the sons of Clementine would one day reign a crowned king. The forecast was in accordance with the ambition and training of this remarkable woman, who at once decided that Ferdinand, the youngest and brightest of her boys, must be the instrument of its fulfilment.