It was in this capacity that King Alexander met Madame Draga Maschin at Biarritz in the Pyrenees,
where his mother spent the summer of 1900. The experienced coquette tried the power of her eyes on the young man, who had inherited the sensual temperament of his father. Alexander was by no means a novice in love-affairs, but he had never come in contact with so consummate a mistress of the arts of seduction as Draga Maschin. When he left Biarritz he was passionately in love with her, and those who had observed her game predicted that something serious would come of it. His mother was either too deeply engaged in politics to pay much attention to the flirtation, or she secretly favored it in the hope of securing a new and reliable ally.
Some time afterwards Draga Maschin returned to Belgrade, and the game of love-making was immediately renewed. Their intimacy became a matter of public notoriety. It also reached the ears of ex-King Milan, who was overjoyed at hearing it; he hoped that his former “good friend” Draga would use her influence for his benefit. But Draga Maschin worked neither for the Queen, nor for the King; she worked for herself only, and very successfully too.
Almost maddened by passion the King one day called a cabinet meeting and informed his ministers that he had made up his mind to make Draga Maschin his wife, and that a proclamation to that effect would appear in the official newspaper of the kingdom. The members of the cabinet were struck with amazement, and implored him to desist from his project, which they said would be fatal to the Obrenovitch dynasty. They employed every argument they could think of to change the King’s resolution; but in vain. With his usual stubbornness, he declared: “I am the King, and can wed whomsoever I please.” As a last protest they all tendered their resignations. The King coolly accepted them, and the royal proclamation was published.
When on a July morning of 1900 the people of Belgrade were surprised by the announcement that the widow Draga Maschin was to be Queen of Servia, and when she was held up to their wives and daughters as a model of all womanly virtues, their disappointment and their protests against this “insane” act of the King were so general and so loud that serious apprehensions of an insurrection were entertained. These fears were not realized; but the people of Belgrade remained in a state of sullen discontent. They knew that a speedy and terrible punishment would overtake the guilty youth. It was reported that on reading his son’s proclamation, ex-King Milan, who was then a patient at Carlsbad in Bohemia, left his sick-room and rushed to the depot to take the train for Belgrade. He declared that this outrage should never be committed, and that if the King should persist in accomplishing it, he would kill him with his own hands. But Milan’s wrath had been telegraphed to Belgrade, and he was not permitted to enter Servian territory.
No less great was the shame of Queen Natalia. She implored her son to desist from his pernicious intention, laying stress on the disparity of the ages,—he being twenty-four and Draga thirty-six, and on the scandalous reputation of the woman whose beauty had for the moment infatuated him.
But neither the father’s threats nor the mother’s tears made the least impression on Alexander, who once more realized the often-quoted Latin saying: