Will democracy ever rule in some countries? I will not dare to prophesy, only in so far as there is a tendency gradually spreading which gives hope that in the end it will permeate the entire Western life. Many years will be necessary for its development here and there—in Russia, for instance—but most peoples are almost ready for the change, and unless kings meet the movement and, so to speak, merge themselves in it, leading it, they will pass and their thrones with them. Some great crisis will occur, and suddenly the people will themselves displace their dictators. But the tentacles of royalty are firmly fixed into the beings of many nations. In Austria, for example, before the war there was so much royalty that half the Austrian Army seemed doing sentry duty round the palaces of archdukes. In that country there is a vast amount of clericalism and a vast amount of Court stupidity, which, however ridicu{182}lous it may appear to the outside observer, is really the prop upon which the monarchy rests. I should think that the Court life there must be one degree duller than in Spain.
In Italy the people are more clever; the country is alive and prospering, and the King is sufficiently Socialistic in his leanings to be in sympathy with the progress and the ambition which he helps to direct.
Unfortunately, on our visit to Rome, we had arranged, through our Ambassador, to be presented both to the Vatican and to the Court; and at the eleventh hour, before going to the Vatican, we were notified by letter that the Pope would only receive us on condition that neither before nor after seeing him should we call on the King. This stipulation had been withheld from our Ambassador, with characteristic cleverness, until it could put us in a position of insulting the Throne by failing to keep an appointment that we had solicited. We were saved from the awkward situation by a telegram that called us back to Spain, with the news that my mother-in-law was seriously ill. But that is one of the things that can make the travels of Royalty not altogether comfortable.{183}
The princes of the house of Orleans have almost all been very clever. They are good financiers, shrewd politicians, witty, and easy in their address. The late King Leopold of Belgium had these qualities in a high degree, together with the cynicism that often accompanies them. He was less like a king in his palace than like a banker in his counting-house; and he left Belgium established in wealth. When his nephew, the present King Albert, succeeded to the throne it was the problems of wealth and the dissatisfaction of the working classes that confronted him. How tragic that fact sounds to-day with the country laid waste and despoiled and her people scattered. He is one of the few sovereigns in Europe who have clearly seen the power and virtue of the modern Socialist movement; and he seemed to me to be alone in his ability to lead it beneficently for itself and its opponents. He had made it an effective engine of social reform instead of a disruptive force of revolution. The King of the Belgians is a man of such quiet tact and modesty that he was little known in Europe, but that did not prevent him from being one of the wisest and cleverest of its rulers. Through a peaceful reign{184} he would have done much for his country. Apart from the share he took in the war, he, by his ability as a sovereign, would have been a factor to be reckoned with in world politics. As it was, his success so far in the internal affairs of his kingdom could give lessons to half the Governments of Europe. If I did not go, at least twice a year, to see for myself what he had been doing, I had come to feel that I was neglecting my best opportunity of education. There are few kings for whom one can feel that!
Another sovereign of the Orleans family, recently little known but certain to become important, is King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the strength of whose secret hand was shown in the downfall of the Turkish power in Europe. He is a son of the only daughter of Louis Philippe of France, and therefore my cousin by marriage; and I knew him intimately before he was called to the throne of Bulgaria. He has made that country almost single-handed, building it up commercially, attracting money to it for railroads and industrial development, and administering its finances as ably as he administers his own private fortune. His cleverness in using rightly for his own ends circumstances that would pass unper{185}ceived by any one less astute, made him one of the marked men of Europe. He used to flatter me that I was the only person who understood him; and I could reply that it was lucky for him, since, if others understood what he was trying to do, they would surely stop him. He has a wonderful mind.
The lives of these men, who are kings in fact as well as in name, are as full and interesting as the life of any one who has work to do and power to do it. They have something to compensate them for the restrictions of grandeur and the cramping stiffnesses of pomp. Their dignity has cause. Their isolation is inevitable. But, for every one of these, there are hundreds of little princes and princesses, grand dukes and archdukes, and such minor personages of roy............