When I first came to Vescova, some years ago, the Prime Minister and virtual dictator of the country was still M. Tsargradev, the terrible M. Tsargradev,—or Sargradeff, as most English newspapers write his name,—and it was during my visit here that his downfall occurred, his downfall and irretrievable disgrace.
The character and career of M. Tsargradev would furnish the subject for an extremely interesting study. The illegitimate son of a Monterossan nobleman, by a peasant mother, he inherited the unprepossessing physical peculiarities of his mother’s stock: the sallow skin, the broad face, the flat features, the prominent cheek-bones, the narrow, oblique-set, truculent black eyes, the squat, heavy figure. But to these he united a cleverness, an energy, an ambition, which are as foreign to simple as to gentle Monterossan blood, and which he doubtless owed to the fusion of the two; and an unscrupulousness, a perfidy, a cruelty, and yet a superficial urbanity, that are perhaps not surprising in an ambitious politician, half an Oriental, who has got to carry the double handicap of a repulsive personal appearance and a bastard birth. Now, the Government of Monterosso, as the King has sometimes been heard to stigmatise it, is deplorably constitutional. By the Constitution of 1869, practically the whole legislative power is vested in the Soviete, a parliament elected by the votes of all male subjects who have completed three years of military service. And, in the early days of the reign of Theodore IV., M. Tsargradev was leader of the Soviete, with a majority of three to one at his back.
This redoubtable personage stood foremost in the ranks of those whom our fiery little Queen Anéli “could not endure.”
“His horrible soapy smile! His servile, insinuating manner! It makes you feel as if he were plotting your assassination,” she declared. “His voice—ugh! It’s exactly like lukewarm oil. He makes my flesh creep, like some frightful, bloated reptile.”
“There was a Queen in Thule,” hummed Florimond, “who had a marvellous command of invective. ’Eaving help your reputation, if you fell under her illustrious displeasure.”
“I don’t see why you make fun of me. I’m sure you think as I do—that he’s a monster of low cunning, and cynicism, and craft, and treachery, and everything that’s vile and revolting. Don’t you?” the Queen demanded.
“To be sure I do, ma’am. I think he’s a bold, bad, dreadful person. I lie awake half the night, counting up his iniquities in my mind. And if just now I laughed, it was only to keep from crying.”
“This sort of talk is all very well,” put in the King; “but the fact remains that Tsargradev is the master of Monterosso. He could do any one of us an evil turn at any moment. He could cut down our Civil List to-morrow, or even send us packing, and establish republic. We’re dependent for everything upon his pleasure. I think, really, my dear, you ought to try to be decent to him—if only for prudence’ sake.”
“Decent to him!” echoed her Majesty. “I like that! As if I didn’t treat him a hundred million times better than he deserves! I hope he can’t complain that I’m not decent to him.”
“You’re not exactly effusive, do you think? I don’t mean that you stick your tongue out at him, or throw things at his head. But trust him for understanding. It’s what you leave unsaid and undone, rather than what you say or do. He’s fully conscious of the sort of place he occupies in your esteem, and he resents it. He thinks you distrust him, suspect him, look down upon him....”