[4] The Crown Prince of Portugal and his father, Don Carlos the King, were killed in the winter of 1908. The dreadful murder was curiously glossed over by the newspapers as a “political crime,” and outside of Portugal at least has apparently been quickly forgotten. The boy was a sweet-faced youth with charming manners. I cannot think of him without remembering the superstition that “whom the gods love die young.” As I look back at those fabulous fêtes in the light of the dreadful double regicide, there seems something curiously suggestive and characteristic in the representatives sent by the different monarchs to the King of Spain’s wedding. It must be an openly accepted fact that there is great risk in attending such a celebration. The Kaiser thriftily sent his uncle, the Czar sent another uncle, Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, all sent old men, uncles or cousins of the sovereign, whose lives were not particularly valuable. England (so like England) sent the King’s only son; Sweden sent the heir to the throne, and Portugal, unsuspicious, trustful in the character of its solid, serious, law-abiding people, sent the heir to the throne. The countries that have suffered most from the assassins of Anarchy—Austria, Russia, and Italy—risked only a small counter on the dreadful hazard.
[5] The picture is owned by Miss Dorothy Whitney of New York.
