He is getting sadly old and fat, is England's heir, the likeness to his mamma becoming more marked each year.His voice, too, is oddly like hers, deep and guttural, more adapted to the paternal German (which all this family speak when alone) than to his native English.Hair, he has none, except a little fringe across the back of his head, just above a fine large roll of fat that blushes above his shirt-collar.Too bad that this discovery of the microbe of baldness comes rather late for him! He has a pleasant twinkle in his small eyes, and an entire absence of POSE, that accounts largely for his immense and enduring popularity.
But the Hotel Cap Martin shelters quieter crowned heads.The Emperor and Empress of Austria, who tramp about the hilly roads, the King and Queen of Saxony and the fat Arch-duchess Stephanie.
Austria's Empress looks sadly changed and ill, as does another lady of whom one can occasionally catch a glimpse, walking painfully with a crutch-stick in the shadow of the trees near her villa.It is hard to believe that this white-haired, bent old woman was once the imperial beauty who from the salons of the Tuileries dictated the fashions of the world! Few have paid so dearly for their brief hour of splendor!
Cannes with its excellent harbor is the centre of interest during the racing season when the Tsarewitsch comes on his yacht Czaritza.
At the Battle of Flowers, one is pretty sure to see the Duke of Cambridge, his Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Michael, Prince Christian of Denmark, H.R.H.the Duke of Nassau, H.R.H.the Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, their Serene Highnesses of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, also H.R.H.Marie Valerie and the Schleswig-Holsteins, pelting each other and the public with CONFETTI and flowers.Indeed, half the A1MANACH DE GOTHA, that continental "society list," seems to be sunning itself here and forgetting its cares, on bicycles or on board yachts.It is said that the Crown Princess of Honolulu (whoever she may be) honors Mentone with her presence, and the newly deposed Queen "Ranavalo"of Madagascar is EN ROUTE to join in the fun.
This crowd of royalty reminds me of a story the old sea-dogs who gather about the "Admirals' corner" of the Metropolitan Club in Washington, love to tell you.An American cockswain, dazzled by a doubly royal visit, with attending suites, on board the old "Constitution," came up to his commanding officer and touching his cap, said:
"Beg pardon, Admiral, but one of them kings has tumbled down the gangway and broke his leg."It has become a much more amusing thing to wear a crown than it was.Times have changed indeed since Marie Laczinska lived the fifty lonely years of her wedded life and bore her many children, in one bed-room at Versailles - a monotony only broken by visits to Fontainebleau or Marly.Shakespeare's line no longer fits the case.
Beyond securing rich matches for their children, and keeping a sharp lookout that the Radicals at home do not unduly cut down their civil lists, these great ones have little but their amusements to occupy them.Do they ever reflect, as they rush about visiting each other and squabbling over precedence when they meet, that some fine morning the tax-payers may wake up, and ask each other why they are being crushed under such heavy loads, that eight hundred or more quite useless people may pass their lives in foreign watering-places, away from their homes and their duties?
It will be a bad day for them when the long-suffering subjects say to them, "Since we get on so exceedingly well during your many visits abroad, we think we will try how it will work without you at all!"The Prince of little Monaco seems to be about the only one up to the situation, for he at least stays at home, and in connection with two other gentlemen runs an exceedingly good hotel and several restaurants on his estates, doing all he can to attract money into the place, while making the strictest laws to prevent his subjects gambling at the famous tables.Now if other royalties instead of amusing themselves all the year round would go in for something practical like this, they might become useful members of the community.This idea of Monaco's Prince strikes one as most timely, and as opening a career for other indigent crowned heads.
Hotels are getting so good and so numerous, that without some especial "attraction" a new one can hardly succeed; but a "Hohenzollern House" well situated in Berlin, with William II.to receive the tourists at the door, and his fat wife at the desk, would be sure to prosper.It certainly would be pleasanter for him to spend money so honestly earned than the millions wrested from half-starving peasants which form his present income.Besides there is almost as much gold lace on a hotel employee's livery as on a court costume!
The numerous crowned heads one meets wandering about, can hardly lull themselves over their "games" with the flattering unction that they are of use, for, have they not France before them (which they find so much to their taste) stronger, richer, more respected than ever since she shook herself free of such incumbrances? Not to mention our own democratic country, which has managed to hold its own, in spite of their many gleeful predictions to the contrary.
