The Tsaritsa is still, by virtue of her position, one of the most powerful women in the western world, but whose life has been given to the natural development of the love of her school-girl days, at the expense of a career which might have rivalled that of the greatest heroines of history.
This is the story of the little German Princess, who was left motherless at six, and came unto her own through her heart’s romance, and has remained faithful to this romance despite the tempting circumstances of Opportunity. The simple loving child who was called “Sunny” is to-day more than anything else the simple, loving wife of Nicholas II, the devoted mother of his children. Judging from her life, if she had the dearest will and wish of her heart it would be that she might be remembered as Wife and Mother, rather than as Empress. Thus the life of Princess Alix of Hesse—“Sunny”-passed into the Romance of an Empress—with its burdens and its sufferings and its tragedies, and thus the end of the road looks dark, uncertain and ominously fearful.
PART III
QUEEN ELENA OF ITALY
CHAPTER I
A MOUNTAIN PRINCESS
On the eastern shores of the Adriatic, nestling between the unfamiliar Provinces of Herzegovina and Albania, lies the Kingdom of Montenegro. It is a tiny spot on the map and until very recently was rated as a Principality. The entire population of Montenegro would make only a small American city, yet the Montenegrans are a proud nation, with an engrossing and noble history, and perhaps no country in Europe has had a more romantic past. They are an aggressive people, these Montenegrans, always armed, ever ready to fight for the cause of freedom, a liberty-loving people, a staunch folk. The denizens of Montenegro have always been daring and bold; withal a poetic people. Nicholas, their Prince, is the first warrior in the kingdom and also the first poet. He is a picturesque figure, familiar to Europe and more or less known to America, for much has been written about him. Some years ago, some one had the temerity to inquire of Prince Nicholas, as he then was called, what were the exportations of Montenegro, to which question he gave answer, “My daughters.”
The daughters of King Nicholas have indeed been a wonderful asset to this little nation. One married a Russian Grand Duke, thus securing the friendship of Russia. Another married a Servian, who at the present time reigns over that Kingdom. While another, Elena, married a Prince who presently became a King, making his spouse Queen of a great nation.
The story of the romance of the Montenegran Elena and the Italian Prince, son of the late King Humbert, and now known as King Victor Emanuel III, is one of the most romantic stories connected with the Court life of Europe. Princess Elena was the fourth child of King Nicholas, and she, perhaps more than any of the children, inherited many of her father’s noble qualities.
Many times as I have watched her driving through the streets of Rome, deftly holding the reins and guiding the great black horses up and down the hilly, badly paved streets, or leisurely reposing in one of the magnificent Royal automobiles speeding up the Pincio or through the lovely gardens of the Villa Borghese, complacently acknowledging the salutes of the people, I have tried to fancy the little black-eyed Princess among her native hills—bounding like a chamois from rock to rock among the tallest crags and peaks, rejoicing in the high air, the free life, the glorious rapture that comes only to the mountain-born. In fancy I have pictured her returning to her simple Cittenje home at night, her hands holding delicious bunches of Alpine flowers, her arms laden with flower branches. A strange girlhood this, for a future Queen. But so Elena lived as a child—naturally, spontaneously, freely.