I agreed with him that Nice had not yet put on the tinsel and pasteboard of her Carnival attractions. As you know, Carnival in Nice is gay enough, but, after all, it is a forced gaiety got up for the profit of the shops and hotels, combined with the "Cercle des Bains" of Monaco—the polite title of the Prince's gilded gambling hell.
We smoked together and chatted, as we often did when His Imperial Highness became bored. I was still mystified why we had come to the Riviera so early in the season, because the white and pale green paint of the hotels was not yet dry, and half of them not yet open.
Yet our coming had, no doubt, been privately signalled, because within half an hour of our arrival at the Villa Lilas a short, stout old Frenchman, with white, bristly hair—whom I afterwards found out was Monsieur Paul Bavouzet, the newly-appointed Prefect of the Department of Alpes-Maritimes—called to leave his card upon the Count von Grünau.
The Imperial incognito only means that the public are to be deluded. Officialdom never is. They know the ruse, and support it all the world over. His Highness the Crown-Prince was paying his annual visit to Nice, and the President had sent his compliments through his representative, the bristly-haired little Prefect.
Soon after eleven that night the Crown-Prince, after chatting affably with me, strolled back to the Promenade des Anglais, where Knof, the chauffeur, awaited us with a big open car, in which we were whizzed around the port and up to Montboron in a few minutes.
As I parted from the Crown-Prince, who yawned and declared that he was tired, he said:
"Ah! Heltzendorff. How good it is to get a breath of soft air from the Mediterranean! We shall have a port on this pleasant sea one day—if we live as long—eh?"
That remark showed the trend of events. It showed how, hand in hand with the Emperor, he was urging preparations for war—a war that had for its primary object the destruction of the Powers which, when the volcano erupted, united as allies.
The bright autumn days passed quite uneventfully, and frequently I went pleasant motor runs into the mountains with His Highness, up to the frontier at the Col di Tenda, to La Vésubie, Puget-Théniers, and other places. Yet I was still mystified at the reason of our sojourn there.
After we had been at the Villa Lilas about ten days I was one afternoon seated outside the popular Café de l'Opéra, in the Place Masséna, when a lady, dressed in deep mourning and wearing the heavy veil in French style, passed along the pavement, glanced at me, and then, hesitating, she turned, and, coming back, advanced to the little table in the corner whereat I was sitting.