"Come!" he would sigh. "Another party in my honour!"
Other business detained me and I had not the privilege of being attached to his person during his first stay at Aix. The French Government sent two commissioners from Lyons to watch over his safety; and these worthy functionaries, who had never been charged with a mission of this kind before, lived in a continual state of alarm. To them, guarding a king meant never to lose sight of him, to follow him step by step like a prisoner, to spy upon his movements as though he were a felon. They ended by driving our guest mad: no sooner had he left his bed-room than two shadows fastened on to his heels and never quitted him; if he went to a restaurant, to the casino, to the theatre, two stern, motionless faces appeared in front of him, four suspicious eyes peered into his least action. It was of no avail for him to try to throw the myrmidons off the scent, to look for back-doors by which to escape from them: there was no avoiding them; they were always there. He made a discreet complaint and I was asked to replace them.
"You are very welcome," he said, when I arrived. "Your colleagues from Lyons made such an impression on me that I ended by taking myself for an assassin!"
To my mind the mission of guarding this particularly unaffected and affable King was neither a very absorbing nor a very thankless task. At Aix, where he walked about from morning to night like any ordinary private person, everybody knew him. There was never the least need for me to consult the reports of my inspectors; the saunterers, the shopkeepers, the peasants made it their business to keep me informed.
"Monsieur le Roi," they would say, "has just passed this way; he went down that turning."
Then I would see a familiar form twenty yards ahead, stick in hand, Homburg hat on one ear, the slim, brisk figure clad in a light grey suit, strolling down the street, or looking into a shop-window, or stopping in the midst of a group of workmen. It was "Monsieur le Roi."
KING GEORGE OF GREECE IN THE STREETS OF PARIS
"Monsieur le Roi" had even become "Monsieur Georges" to the pretty laundresses whom he greeted with a pleasant "Good-morning" when he passed them at the wash-tubs on his way to the bathing establishment. For he carefully followed the cure of baths and douches which his trusty physician, Dr. Guillard, prescribed for his arthritis. He left the hotel early every morning and walked to the Baths, taking a road that leads through one of the oldest parts of Aix. The inhabitants of that picturesque corner came to know him so well by sight that they ended by treating him as a friendly neighbour. Whenever he entered the Rue du Puits-d'Enfer, the street-boys would stop playing and receive him with merry cheers, to which he replied by flinging handfuls of coppers to them. The news of his approach flew from door to door till it reached the laundry. Forthwith, the girls stopped the rhythmic beat of their "dollies"; the songs ceased on their lips; they quickly wiped the lather from their hands on a corner of the skirt or apron and came out of doors, while their fresh young voices gave him the familiar greeting: