All these efforts of the imagination, all these prodigies of ingenuity, all these amorous suggestions were wasted. As I have said, the Shah took no notice whatever of the six hundred and odd begging letters of different kinds addressed to him during his visits to France. Pleasure-loving and capricious, careful of his own peace of mind, he dreaded and avoided emotions. Nevertheless, he was not insensible to pity nor indifferent to the charms of the fair sex. At certain times, he was capable of sudden movements of magnificent generosity: he would readily give a diamond to some humble workwoman whom he met on his way; he would of his own accord hand a bank-note to a beggar; he freely distributed Persian gold-pieces stamped with his effigy.
He would also fall a victim to sudden erotic fancies that sometimes caused me moments of cruel embarrassment. I remember that, one afternoon, when we were driving in the Bois de Boulogne, near the lakes, Muzaffr-ed-Din noticed a view which he admired, ordered the carriages to stop and expressed a desire himself to take some snapshots of the charming spot. We at once alighted. A little further, a group of smart ladies sat chatting gaily without taking the smallest heed of our presence. The Shah, seeing them, asked me to beg them to come closer so that he might photograph them. Although I did not know them, I went upand spoke to them and, with every excuse, explained the sovereign's whim to them. Greatly amused, they yielded to it with a good grace. The Shah took the photograph, smiled to the ladies and, when the operation was over, called me to him again:
THE SHAH LEAVING THE ÉLYSEÉ PALACE FOR A WALK
"Paoli," he said, "they are very pretty, very nice; go and ask them if they would like to come back with me to Teheran."
Imagine my face! I had to employ all the resources of my eloquence to make the King of Kings understand that you cannot take a woman to Teheran, as you would a piano; a cinematograph or a motor-car, and that you cannot say of her, as of an article in a shop, "Je prends."
I doubt whether he really grasped the force of my arguments, for, some time after, when we were at the Opera in the box of the President of the Republic, we perceived with dismay that His Persian Majesty, instead of watching the performance on the stage—consisting of that exquisite ballet Coppélia, with some of our prettiest dancers taking part in it—kept his opera-glass obstinately fixed on a member of the audience in the back row of the fourth tier, giving signs of manifest excitement as he did so. I was beginning to wonder with anxiety whether he had caught sight of some "suspicious face," when the court minister, in whose ear he had whispered a few words, came over to me and said, with an air of embarrassment:
"His Majesty feels a profound admiration for a lady up there. Do you see? The fourth seat from the right. His Majesty would be obliged to you if you would enable him to make her acquaintance. You can tell her, if you like, as an inducement, that my sovereign will invite her to go back with him to Teheran."
"Again!"