"I entreat you, Madam, calm yourself! You have nothing to fear: a King is not an epidemic disease!"
The good lady quieted down; but we reached the hotel without being able to extract a word from her paralysed throat.
In this respect, she did not resemble the majority of her sisters of the fair sex, before whose imperious and charming despotism we have bowed since the days of our father Adam. As a matter of fact, no sovereign that I know of ever aroused more affectionate curiosity in the female circles than King George. The glamour of his rank had something to say to the matter, no doubt; but I have reason to believe that the elegance of his person, the affability of his manners and the conquering air of his moustache were not wholly unconnected with it. Whether leaving his hotel, or entering the restaurant or one of the rooms of the Casino, or appearing in the paddock at the races, which he attended regularly, he became the cynosure of every pair of bright eyes and the object of cunning manœuvres on the part of their pretty owners, who were anxious to approach him and to find out what a king is made of when you see him close. No man is quite insensible to such advances. At the same time, George I was too clever to be taken in; he was amused at the homage paid him and accepted it in his usual spirit of bantering, but polite coyness, although the ladies' persistence often became both indiscreet and troublesome.
For the rest, he led a very quiet, very methodical and rather monotonous life, both at Aix and in Paris; for to the character of this sovereign, as to that of most others, there is a "middle-class" side that displays itself in harmless eccentricities. For instance, King George, when he travels abroad, always goes to the same hotel, occupies the same rooms and is so averse to change that he likes every piece of furniture to be in exactly the same place where he last left it. I shall never forget my astonishment when, entering the King's bed-room a few moments after his arrival at the Hôtel Bristol in Paris, I caught him bodily moving a heavy Louis-XV chest of drawers, which he carried across the room with the help of his physician.
"You see," he said, "it used to stand by the fireplace and they have shifted it to the window, so I am putting it back."
Certainly, he had the most wonderful memory for places that I ever observed.
4.
I have spoken of my duties with regard to this monarch as an agreeable sinecure. But I was exaggerating. Once, when I was with him at Aix, I had a terrible alarm. I was standing beside him, in the evening, in the petits-chevaux room at the Casino, when one of my inspectors slipped a note into my hand. It was to inform me that an individual of Roumanian nationality, a rabid Grecophobe, had arrived at Aix, with, it was feared, the intention of killing the King. There was no further clue.
I was in a very unpleasant predicament. I did not like to tell the King, for fear of spoiling his stay. To go just then in search of further details would have been worse still: there could be no question of leaving the King alone. How could I discover the man? For all I knew, he was quite near; and instinctively, I scrutinised carefully all the people who crowded round us, kept my eyes fixed on those who seemed to be staring too persistently at the King and watched every movement of the players.
At daybreak the next morning, I set to work and started enquiries. I had no difficulty in discovering my man. He was a Roumanian student and had put up at a cheap hotel; he was said to be rather excitable in his manner, if not in his language. I could not arrest him as long as I had no definite charge brought against him. I resolved to have him closely shadowed by the Aix police and I myself arranged never to stir a foot from the King's side. Things went on like this for several days: the King knew nothing and the Roumanian neither; but I would gladly have bought him a railway-ticket to get rid of him.