Princess Charles of Denmark is reported to have said many years ago, “I sometimes get tired of being a royal, especially when I am looked at and wondered at as though I were one of Madame Tussaud’s wax models. I even think how glorious it must be to be able to jump on the top of a ’bus, pay my fare like any ordinary person, and have a day out. I have never tried to do so yet, but I think I shall some day.”
Mention of this brings to my mind one of several visits paid to the Exhibition by the Princes of our own Royal House.
I was notified by telephone that the present Prince of Wales and his brother, Prince Albert, were visiting the Exhibition. They were received by me, and I conducted them over the place.
The royal boys needed very little “conducting,” as they were soon engrossed in all they saw around them, and seldom found it necessary to address any questions to me.
I was amused to find that they preferred to dispense with the Catalogue, taking a boyish delight in recognising the figures for themselves and displaying what knowledge they possessed, which was considerable. Nor did they seem in the least concerned to know whether members of the general public recognised them, as I could see many did from the way they contrived to keep near to them.
Among the Napoleonic relics the Princes lingered an unusually long time, as if reluctant to leave them; and the Prince of Wales betrayed so much interest in the carriage in which Napoleon was all but captured after the Battle of Waterloo that he was invited to sit in it, if he cared. Without a moment’s hesitation he embraced the opportunity, and his brother joined him.
It happened that we were just then about to have the carriage glazed in, as it has been since, to protect it from ruthless souvenir hunters, whose mutilations necessitated our keeping in stock rolls of cloth of the same pattern to renew the lining from time to time.
I wonder how many people in different parts of the world now show their friends strips of cloth purporting to be taken from the original lining of the Napoleon carriage, whereas the “souvenirs” are really “relics” of the looms of Yorkshire.
The last to sit in Napoleon’s carriage were the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert.