In the spring of the year 1895, when Elena was twenty-two years old, she and her sister Anna came with their mother, Princess Melena, to the opening of the annual International Art Exhibition at Venice. This is one of the events of the year in the art world of Europe and is looked forward to almost as much as the annual salon in Paris and the Spring Academy Exhibition in London. The King and Queen frequently open the exhibition, and not infrequently distinguished members of other Royal houses are also present. So it was in the memorable month of April 1895. King Humbert and Queen Margherita with their son, the heir to the throne, the young Prince of Naples, travelled up from Rome to inaugurate the exhibition. Of course courtesy calls were exchanged between the sovereigns and the other Royal visitors present, including Princess Melena and her daughters.
Princess Elena was now a tall, large-framed woman of twenty-two. She had the physique of one much older, but her manner and face showed all the keenness and freshness of a young girl. By this time she had outgrown the hoydenish traits of her girlhood and there was dignity and repose in her manner. One feature distinguished her from other Princesses in Europe. She was totally free from the social veneer which comes inevitably from a long continuance of ceremonious life. Any Prince of a western European court would have been quick to notice this, and Prince Victor Emmanuel was by no means the least to fall under the spell of its charm.
Prince Victor Emmanuel as heir to the Italian throne was one of the most sought-after Princes in all Europe. Popular gossip had successively betrothed him to Princess Clementine, daughter of the King of the Belgians, to Princess Feodora of Schleswig-Holstein, sister of the Emperor of Germany, to Archduchess Annunziati, daughter of archduke Carl Ludwig of Austria; and to Princess Mary Magdalene, daughter of the King of Greece. The trouble with all of these alliances was, according to the Prince, that they were political rather than personal, and may it be writ large on the page of history that Victor Emmanuel had a romantic soul which would be satisfied whatever came of the political ambitions of his family.
THE QUEEN OF ITALY.
When grey and hoary councillors of state approached him in regard to the desirability of his marrying one or another of the Royal Princesses in the eligible list, he would shake his square head and turn aside saying, “I have time enough.” He knew that one day he would see the Princess whom he would love, and for her he was content to wait.
When in Venice, “The city of poetry, love and feeling,” he met for the first time Princess Elena of Montenegro, he promptly said to his Royal father, “There is the Princess I will marry.” Politically, little was to be gained for Italy by a marriage alliance with the little Balkan state, so Humbert, a wise king, counselled patience, though not actually opposing the will of the Crown Prince.
Elena and her mother and sister returned to their own country after only two days. But in those two days the Prince had found a time and place to speak. Only two days! Surely a brief courtship with an interminable round of official ceremonies consuming, as it seemed, all of the hours. Two busy days, yet the Prince of Naples had whispered the thrilling words and Elena, the Balkan Princess, knew that her future was henceforth spread in greater Europe.