This time all addressed me with the question, “And where is the Baron?” I had to tell them about his illness, which elicited general regret. I really believe there was no one in the whole world who had ever known him, even superficially, without being drawn into sympathy with him.
The prince stood not far from me in a group, and was talking with General Türr. I was able to get a good look at him. Of rather more than medium height, of slender and supple figure, he was then at the beginning of the fifties, but not yet turning gray. He wore a closely trimmed, dark beard, and his expression was unusually melancholy. He came up to me and offered me his hand. He was delighted, he said, to see me, for he had long known of my devotion to the cause for the furtherance of which he now desired to work as energetically as he could. He remained some time in conversation with me.
“One thing occurs to me to say to you,” he remarked in the course of the conversation; “you see this work going on here,” pointing toward the Museum; “this shows the tendency of my aims and endeavors; it is intended as a corrective,”—and now he indicated the crags of Monte Carlo visible in the distance and crowned with the Casino,—“a corrective to that inheritance which is so hateful to me.”
I especially recollect among the transactions the indignant and pathetic protest of the Frenchman, Pierre Quillard, against the atrocious massacres being perpetrated on the Armenians at that time, and unfortunately still going on. Thus our Congresses definitely assumed the burden of furnishing a forum for the complaints and for the defense of all the persecuted,—a service which the governments, relying on the principle of nonintervention, still refuse to undertake.
In the course of the day we members of the Congress inspected the castle which is the home of the Prince of Monaco, and which rises high above the crags. It is an antiquated edifice with battlements, outside stairways, and porticoes. In the cloistered private garden there is an endless profusion of flowers. Palms as high as a house stand there on rocky ground, to which every atom of soil had to be carried. The state rooms we saw for the first time in the evening, when they were all ablaze with light, at a gala reception given in honor of the Congress; the officials of Nice were also invited. Especially imposing is the throne room, although the throne of such a tiny kingdom is not imposing. My attention was attracted in this room to a kind of tower of flowers reaching to the ceiling. I was told that this was the throne, with its seat, its steps, and its baldachin, all masked by this gigantic screen of flowers.
A second festivity was arranged by the city for our benefit. It was a kind of “Venetian Night.” All the ships and boats in the harbor and all the houses along the bay were illuminated, Bengal fires were blazing on the mountains, there were torchlight processions and bands of music. The entire population, strangers visiting the resort, the citizens of Monaco, laboring men, and peasants from the regions round about took part in the gayeties. Tents were pitched on the heights for the Congressists and the prince, and from here there was a fine prospect of the whole region bathed in light. I sat in the prince’s tent, between him and his cousin, the Duke of Urach. The latter, an officer in the German army, talked with me on the subject of the Congress. He granted that war would sometime be overcome by civilization, but before that day, he thought, many economic and perhaps also social battles would be fought out with weapons.
“What was discussed in the session this afternoon?” Prince Albert asked me.
“Propaganda,” I replied.
“Look at this picture and listen to this babel of voices; all the people have learned to-day that there is an active peace movement; that is a propaganda,” said the prince.
He presided at the final banquet. He sat between Madame Séverine and me. On this occasion he told me much about his labors and his plans. His book, La carrière d’un navigateur, had recently been published; he proposed to send it to me, and told me that I should find in it the whole story of his studies and his—soul!