"General," she said, "don't forget to buy me some post cards!"
This pink, fair-haired girl, with the clear voice, was Queen Wilhelmina, who at that time was the very personification of the title of "the little Queen" which Europe, with one accord, had bestowed upon her, a title suggestive of fragile grace, touching familiarity and affectionate deference. She was just sixteen years of age. It was true that, as a poet had written:
A pair of woman's eyes already gazed
Above her childish smile;
and that her apprenticeship in the performance of a queen's duties had already endowed her mind with a precocious maturity. Nevertheless, her ready astonishment, her spontaneity, her frank gaiety, her reckless courage showed that she was still a real girl, in the full sense of the word. She hastened, happy and trusting, to the encounter of life; she blossomed like the tulips of her own far fields; she was of the age that gives imperious orders to destiny, that lives in a palace of glass! I doubt whether she really understood—although she never made a remark to me on the subject—that the French government had thought itself obliged to appoint a solemn functionary—even though it were only M. Paoli!—whose one and only mission was to protect her against the dagger of a possible assassin. The sweet little Queen could not imagine herself to possess an enemy; and the people who had approached her hitherto had learnt nothing from her but her gentle kindness.
As for Queen Emma, she was as simple and as easy of access as her daughter, although more reserved. She fulfilled her double task as regent and mother, as counsellor and educator with great dignity, bringing to it the virile authority, the spirit of decision and the equability of character which we so often find in women summoned by a too-early widowhood to assume the responsibilities of the head of a family. And nothing more edifying was ever seen than the close union that prevailed between those two illustrious ladies, who never left each other's side, taking all their meals alone, although they were accompanied by a numerous suite, and living in a constant communion of thought and in the still enjoyment of a mutual and most touching affection.
Their suite, as I have said, was a numerous one. In fact, it consisted, in addition to Lieutenant-General Count Du Monceau, of two chamberlains: Colonel (now Major-general) Jonkheer Willem van de Poll and Jonkheer Rudolph van Pabst van Bingerden (now Baron van Pabst van Bingerden); a business secretary: Jonkheer P. J. Vegelin van Claerbergen; two ladies-in-waiting: "Mesdemoiselles les baronnes" (as they were styled in the Dutch protocol) Elizabeth van Ittersum and Anna Juckema van Burmania Rengers; a reader: Miss Kreusler; five waiting-women; and five footmen. Compared with the tiny courts that usually accompanied other sovereigns when travelling, this made a somewhat imposing display! Nevertheless and notwithstanding the fact that this sixteen-year-old Queen appeared to me decked with the glory of a fairy princess, I am bound to admit that the royal circle presented none of the venerable austerity and superannuated grace so quaintly conjured up in Perrault's Tales. The Jonkheers[4] were not old lords equipped with shirt frills and snuff-boxes; Mesdemoiselles les baronnes were not severe duennas encased in stiff silk gowns: the court was young and gay, with that serene and healthy gaiety which characterises the Dutch temperament.
QUEEN WILHELMINA
Why was it going to Aix? The choice of this stay puzzled me. Aix-les-Bains is hardly ever visited in November. The principal hotels are closed, for, in that mountainous region, winter sets in with full severity immediately after the end of autumn.