That he may have expected; but the conduct of the smaller kingdoms filled him with surprise and resentment. He might not aspire anywhere, and the fact was conveyed to him in a fashion so unmistakable that he was at the utmost pains to conceal his deep chagrin.
Finally a match was made for him by his mother. The victim was a dear little meek soul, a devout Catholic, and one of the gentlest spirits of her time—Princess Marie Louise of Parma, a niece of the Comte de Chambord. She was remarkably beautiful in a tiny way, with reddish-brown hair, large blue eyes, and a simple dignity that won all hearts.
The wedding took place at Lianore, in Lucca, and old Stambuloff paid the Princess the rare compliment of leaving his close watch on the affairs of Bulgaria long enough to attend the wedding. He was charmed with the sweet, pleasant girl of twenty-three, and in a message to her father declared “Bulgaria will honour and watch over her.” As far as he could, he kept the promise he made on that occasion.
Princess Marie Louise of Bulgaria
Stambuloff was just as anxious to see Ferdinand wedded as was Clementine. “We want a dynasty,” he urged on Ferdinand, “and our enemies want you to remain a bachelor. As long as you are unmarried you are in danger of assassination, and we are in danger of anarchy. When you are once married and possessed of a son and heir, they will not try to kill you. But even if you are assassinated, it won’t matter to us then.” It was frankness of this kind which endeared his Premier to Ferdinand.
The Sultan Abdul had the grace to telegraph congratulations to Ferdinand on the occasion of his marriage. “You have strengthened the Bulgarian Principality,” he declared, with other courteous phrases, all of which Ferdinand read as a reminder of his state of vassalage.
The Duke of Parma made one condition of importance when giving his consent to the wedding. He insisted that the children of the marriage should be baptized into the Catholic Church, and should be brought up in that faith. Ferdinand himself was a Catholic, if he was anything at all, and the condition was therefore the more reasonable. But the official religion of Bulgaria is, of course, the Orthodox Church, and the masses are bigoted in their adherence to that faith.
The real difficulty lay in an article of the Bulgarian Constitution that provided that the heir to the throne must be baptized according to the rites of the Orthodox Church. This difficulty was met by Stambuloff in his own downright fashion. He annulled it, to the horror of the Bulgarian Churchmen, and made the marriage possible.
The Princess won the hearts of her new subjects from the very moment of her arrival in Bulgaria. She had the sympathetic notion to enter the Principality attired in the costume of an ordinary Bulgarian woman, and it became her girlish beauty charmingly. Her frank unaffected interest in all she saw, her gracious acceptance of the little gifts, and the somewhat boorish homage paid her on her journey, gave her a reputation that preceded her to Sofia. She retained the instant popularity she won till the day of her death six years later. She was as much loved in Bulgaria as Ferdinand was detested.