Court Life From Within

by Infanta of Spain Eulalia

After circling the circle, we went to the dais and sat for a few moments in gilt armchairs, facing the general company, before descending to dance the quadrille d’honneur. When that ceremony was ended, one’s partner, a prince or an ambassador, handed one back to the dais, made a low bow and retired. At Courts etiquette does not allow a princess to choose a partner because he happens to waltz well or to be amusing. At Berlin chamberlains had lists of partners for princesses, and one of them would bring me the card on which their names were inscribed, just as a waiter brings one a bill-of-fare in a restaurant, and I gave my orders. Each partner came to the dais, made a very low bow, and, when the dance was over, consigned me to my golden arm-chair with another low bow. The Kaiser has caused the minuet to be revived at his Court, and, when I watched that stately dance from the dais, I used to feel certain that I was at the Court of the Roi Soleil. But the Bals de l’Infanta were far more charming, for then I could dance with whom I liked and waltz to my heart’s content.

These informal dances are just an instance of the personal consideration which the Kaiser has always shown me. “Madame, vos desirs sont les ordres pour Guillaume,” he telegraphed to me once, and that was in answer to a letter I had sent, begging him to ask the Sultan Abdul Hamid not to chop off the head of Izzet Pasha, who was lying in prison under sentence of death. A Turkish lady, whom I knew in Paris, had been to see me and had begged me to ask the Kaiser, who was about to visit Constantinople, to intercede with the Sultan for the unfortunate man. I knew nothing about Izzet Pasha, but my friend was so distressed and so confident that I would help her, that I was very much touched, and immediately wrote to the Kaiser. The lady was overjoyed when I showed her the courtly reply I had received, and the Sultan, of course, granted the Kaiser’s request.

The matter did not end there. Two years later, when I had entirely forgotten it, I arrived one day in Madrid, and the instant I had got out of the train, the Queen Mother and my sister, the Infanta Isabella, who were waiting on the platform to receive me, began to question me about some mysterious Turk in whom they evidently supposed I was deeply interested.

“Who is this Turk you have sent us, Eulalia?” asked the Queen.

“But I do not know a single Turk,” I said.

“But this Turk who has arrived in Madrid, because you want to have him near you,” said my sister.

“What crazy nonsense!” I cried. “Are you both out of your minds?”

“Certainly not,” said the Queen, “seeing that I have a letter from the Sultan, saying that he has sent the man here as Turkish Minister entirely to please you.”

Then the truth dawned on me. Abdul Hamid must have asked the German Emperor why he desired the prisoner he had pleaded for to be pardoned, and the Kaiser must have told him that it was the wish of the Infanta Eulalia. Mohammedan ideas of feminine psychology made the Sultan see a tale of the Arabian Nights, and, determining to humour me to the top of my bent, he sent the hero of the imaginary romance to Madrid where, as he expressly stated in the letter the Queen Mother showed me at the palace, he hoped he would remain as permanent Minister, to be for long years an ornament of the Court of the Infanta Eulalia.

French people, who think of the Kaiser as a Teuton to the backbone caring only for German ideals and achievements, would be surprised at the genuine taste he has for French literature, which he has cultivated by an exhaustive reading of French classics. Realising that I am au fond of French in spite of my Spanish name and title, the Emperor often showed me that side of his character which makes him an admirer of French literature, French art and French drama. One day he took me to the old palace of Sans-Souci at Potsdam to show me the apartments of Frederick the Great and the relics of the King’s friend, Voltaire, which are preserved there. We went into Frederick’s library, and when the door was closed, I found myself in a circle of book-shelves from which there seemed no exit. All the books were French.