XIV
ROYAL VISITS TO PARIS
Whenever France is shaken by a scandal, convulsed by a crisis, the voice of the undiscerning prophet is to be heard proclaiming the doom of the Republic. The Affair of the Decorations in President Grévy’s time, the Panama Affair, the Dreyfus Affair, the Steinheil Affair, yesterday’s Rochette-Caillaux-Calmette Affair; each of these delirious dramas excited the assertion that the French people, disgusted and indignant at so much political corruption, were ready and eager for the restoration of the old régime. True, these five scandals—and many other smaller ones—shocked, saddened, humiliated the French nation. But at no time have they caused the average Frenchman—most intelligent and reasonable of beings—to lose faith in the Republic. Invariably he has maintained that it is not the Republic that is at fault, but the Republicans behind her; emphatically, he has insisted that the remedy lies, not in the overthrow, but in the reform, of the Republic—in the honest enforcement of the principles and doctrines of the Rights of Man. No Kings, no Emperors for Twentieth-Century France! Imagine, if you can do it, Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the handsomest, the most brilliant, the most irresistible of Pretenders. Suppose Prince Victor Napoleon endowed with some of the military and administrative genius of the Petit Caporal, instead of having married and settled down in comfortable, bourgeois little Belgium. Picture a modern General Boulanger on a new black charger—France would, nevertheless, remain true to the Republican régime. “Ah non, mon vieux, pas de ça,” one can hear the average Frenchman say to the would-be monarch. “We have had you before. We know better than to try you again. Bonsoir.”
Still, in spite of their confirmed Republicanism, the French people love Royalty—the Royalty of other nations. How often, outside national buildings that bear the democratic motto of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, have I heard shouts of: “Vive le Roi” and “Vive la Reine,” and admiring exclamations of: “Il est beau” and “Elle est gentille,” when a foreign monarch and his consort have visited Paris! How brilliantly has the city been adorned and illuminated; what a special shine on the helmets and breast-plates of the Republican Guard, and on the boots of the little, nervous boulevard policemen; what a constant playing of the august visitor’s own national anthem! In all countries a neighbouring sovereign is received cordially, elaborately. But it is in Republican France that a Royal visit is marked with the greatest pomp, circumstance and excitement. For the fact is that France, more than any other country, loves a fête—and the arrival in Paris of a King means flags, fairy lamps, festoons of paper flowers, fireworks. (The mere ascent of a rocket, the smallest shower of “golden rain” will throw the Parisian into ecstasies.) Also it delights the Frenchman to behold the uniforms, and the Stars and Orders of foreign nations—and he will stand about for hours to catch only a glimpse of the monarch.
“Je l’ai vu, moi,” M. le Bourgeois declares proudly. Probably he has discerned no more than the nose, or the ear or the eyebrow of his Majesty. But he “salutes” the ear and the nose, he cheers the eyebrow: and the newspapers are full of the “distinction” and “graciousness” and “wit” of the visiting sovereign. Modern French novels and plays also call attention to the homage paid by Parisians to foreign Royalty. In that brilliant comedy, Le Roi, the mythical King of Cerdagne thus addresses a Parisienne: “Le séjour à Paris, c’est une chose qui nous délecte, nous autres pauvres rois, pauvres rois de province! On est si riant pour nous, ici! Pour aimer les rois, il n’y a vraiment plus que la France.” And the lady replies: “Mais elle est sincère, sire. Elle est amoureuse de vous. Elle flirte, elle fait la coquette—elle aime ça. La France est une Parisienne.” Most indisputably, France “flirts” with Foreign Royalty. Vast quantities of flowers, fresh and artificial, here, there and everywhere. All official buildings blazing and glittering with huge electrical devices. About ten o’clock at night—amidst what murmurs, exclamations, rapture!—fireworks on the ghost-haunted Ile de France. Then Republican and Municipal Guards massed on the Place de l’Opéra; and a dense crowd assembled to witness the arrival of his Majesty, M. le Président, MM. les Ambassadeurs, and hosts of distinguished personages, for the gala performance. All Paris turns out: stout M. le Bourgeois, students from the Latin Quarter, midinettes in their best hats (I prefer them at noon, when Mesdemoiselles Marie and Yvonne are bareheaded), workmen in their Sunday suits, small clerks in pink shirts, obscure, dim-eyed old Government officials, Apaches on their good behaviour, cabmen and chauffeurs (off their boxes), conscripts with permits, concierges hastened from their lodges in slippers, street gamins—Victor Hugo’s Gavroche—with his inimitable sarcasms and repartee—all turn out to behold the Royal guest of Republican France pay his State visit to the Opera. But what with the police and the troops and the closed carriage of the sovereign, all these kinds and conditions of Parisians do not behold even so much as the eyebrow of his Majesty. They remain there until the performance is over, but with no happier success. Away goes the Royal carriage, without affording the crowd the view of an ear-tip, a chin or the nape of the neck. Still, in spite of the crowd having seen nothing, what cheers! I have heard them raised for the Tsar; for the Kings of Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Italy; for the late ruler of Portugal; for the highly popular Alfonso of Spain; for the greatest favourite of all, the idol of the Parisians—King Edward the Seventh. King Edward’s State visit took place eleven years ago. The result of it, twelve months later, was the consummation of the Entente. Thus the present month of April will see Paris celebrating a “double” event: the visit of King George and Queen Mary, and the tenth anniversary of the Cordial Understanding. And it is safe to affirm that when the cheers break out afresh in honour of their Majesties, they will not fail to surpass in spontaneity and enthusiasm all the cheers of the past.
Royal visits to Paris never vary. They last four or five days, and during that brief period the foreign sovereign, the French President, the Cabinet Ministers, the array of high State officials, the troops, the police, the Press and the greater part of Paris public have so much to do and to see that at the end of the whirl they cannot but confess to a condition of exhaustion. Both the Royal visitor and the President hold brilliant State banquets. Most probably there is a third banquet at the Quai d’Orsay. The gala at the Opera (or sometimes at the Français), a Military Review, an expedition to Versailles, a reception at the Hôtel de Ville, a special race-meeting, presentations of Addresses: such are the traditional items in the strenuous “programme.” Then, speeches to make; and since they are eminently “official,” they must be carefully considered, and thoroughly mastered, beforehand. As, on the other score, the “official” toasts and speeches are invariably stereotyped in substance and sentiment, they cannot demand much inventiveness or exertion. They must be mutually polite and complimentary—a repetition of one another.
However, in spite of the polite and amusing banality of the “official” speeches, Royal visits to France can have far-reaching consequences. Eighteen years ago the arrival in Paris of the Tsar resulted in the Franco-Russian Alliance. After that, King Edward and the Entente; and since then the visits of the kings of Spain and Italy have undoubtedly promoted a mutual friendly feeling between those two countries and Republican France. Then there have also taken place, during the last five or six years, odd, amazing Royal visits: that have caused the punctilious French Protocol no end of ennuis and perplexities. Behold black-faced and burly old Sisowath, King of Cambodia, descending most indecorously upon Paris, in a battered top-hat and gorgeous silken robes: and with a party of bejewelled native dancing-girls! Impossible to separate Sisowath from his monstrous top-hat (which came from heaven knows where) and his dancers; impossible, therefore, to entertain his Cambodian Majesty ceremoniously. Nor would he have tolerated State banquets, the Hôtel de Ville, Versailles, the Opera. No pomp for black Sisowath. A great deal of his time he spent in going up and down lifts; and in listening to gay songs from the gramophone. When he drove through the streets he kissed his great ebony hands at the Parisiennes. He was, as a matter of fact, for kissing everybody: even capacious President Fallières, even sallow, petulant M. Clemenceau. As he did his embracing, he hugged his victims in his huge, massive arms. Still, he was a King—and so official France had to overlook his eccentricities. As for the Parisians, they revelled in Bohemian Sisowath. Ecstatic, gay cries of “Vive le roi!” and “Vivent les petites danseuses”:—to which his merry old Majesty responded by standing up in his carriage, and waving the disgraceful top-hat; and blowing forth more and more kisses; and shouting out messages in his own incomprehensible language.... Then, after Sisowath, Mulai Hafid, the ex-Sultan of Morocco, who before coming to Paris passed a few days at Vichy. Nobody, however, had reason to cheer or rejoice over this Royal visitor: for his behaviour was intolerable. Sisowath was expansive, affectionate, rigolo; Mulai Hafid was violent, insolent, offensive.
“Grotesque, horrible machines” was “Mulai’s” comment on the hats of the fashionable Frenchwomen. The military bands, “they drive me mad.” The actresses, “shameless and shocking”—they should be veiled like the ladies of Morocco. “Where is your sun?” demanded the ex-Sultan, looking up at the grey skies. “I am so bored that I am going to bed. What a people, what a country!” All this, and more, the Yellow journalists gleefully repeated in their newspapers. Then, photographs of “Mulai” scowling, of “Mulai” disdainful, of “Mulai” contemptuous. So that when “Mulai” came to Paris, still scowling, the Hippolyte Durands were indignant at his bad manners. In France, you mustn’t speak ill of anything French: especially when you are in receipt of a pension of 350,000 francs a year.
But “Mulai” didn’t care. He was for ever taking the Paris journalists into his confidence, and more and more unflattering became his comments on French life. As it rained every day, his temper was detestable; and he has been seen to shake his fist at the French skies. Then he omitted to salute the French flag: he described the French language as ridiculous; he yawned in the Louvre: and he retired to bed through sheer boredom a dozen times a day.
Also, “Mulai” was said to be furious because the Press had compared him unfavourably with Sisowath, the amazing ebony-black monarch of Cambodia. “Sisowath,” said the papers, was not only rigolo. When he came to Paris seven years ago he wore brilliant robes, a multitude of diamonds—as well as a battered old top-hat. And he laughed and laughed all day long. Not only did he kiss his great black hands at the Parisiennes, but he showered silver amongst the crowd. And he meant it kindly when he hugged bald, portly State officials. In a word, black, enormous Sisowath of Cambodia was an unsophisticated, affectionate, merry old soul. But, in “Mulai’s” estimation, Sisowath is a savage, and furious, as I have said, is the ex-Sultan that he should be mentioned in the same breath with him.