"It seems a pity she did not marry," I suggested, "as far as one can judge."
"Well, it is highly probable," he answered, "that she would not have lost her throne if she had had a husband to stand up for her. She was no match for Razzaro."
"Who was Razzaro?" I asked.
"Well, he was the sort of adventurer," the old diplomat answered, "that South America seems especially to breed. He was a man of great talents and abandoned to unscrupulousness. I believe he would have sold his own mother, if he could have got a good bid, and would have haggled with the purchaser whether the price was to include the clothes she stood in."
"A thoroughly honourable, straightforward gentleman," I suggested ironically. "I can imagine a lady such as you describe Queen Inez to have been being peculiarly unfitted to deal with such a man!"
"Yes," agreed Sir Rupert; "and her Prime Minister, or Chancellor as they called him, Don Juan d'Alta, was not much better. He had the misfortune to possess the nature of a modern Bayard, and believed in everybody, until he found out too late that he had been deceived. That is how Queen Inez lost her throne. Razzaro was slowly but surely sapping the Royal power for years, right under d'Alta's nose, and he never really found it out until the whole country burst into revolution."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"Nothing happened," replied Sir Rupert. "When the Queen discovered that the voice of the people was in favour of a Republic she simply abdicated. She would not allow a drop of blood to be shed in her behalf. An Istrian warship which had been waiting for her at the coast took her to Europe with her devoted lady-in-waiting, the Baroness d'Altenberg."
"D'Altenberg," I muttered; "where have heard that name?"
"It was a bloodless revolution."