Love affairs of the Courts of Europe Part 20

There was good reason for this mockery of death, for Prince Alexander Karageorgevitch had long set ambitious eyes on the crown of Servia, and resolved to wrest it by fair means or foul from the boy-heir to the throne; and it was of the highest importance that Michael's death, which he had so brutally planned, should be concealed from him until the succession had been secured to his young rival, Milan. And thus it was that, before Karageorgevitch could bring his plotting to the head of achievement, Milan was hailed with acclamation as Servia's new Prince, and, on the 23rd June, 1868, made his triumphal entry into Belgrade to the jubilant ringing of bells and the thunderous cheers of the people.

Twelve days later, Belgrade was _en fete_ for his crowning, her streets ablaze with bunting and floral decorations, as the handsome boy made his way through the tumults of cheers and avenues of fluttering handkerchiefs to the Metropolitan Church. The men, we are told, "took off their cloaks and placed them under his feet, that he might walk on them; they cl.u.s.tered round him, kissing his garments, and blessing him as their very own; they wors.h.i.+pped his handsome face and loved his boyish smile." And when his young voice rang clearly out in the words, "I promise you that I shall, to my dying day, preserve faithfully the honour and integrity of Servia, and shall be ready to shed the last drop of my blood to defend its rights," there was scarcely one of the enthusiastic thousands that heard him who would not have been willing to lay down his life for the idolised Prince.

It was by strange paths that the fourteen-year-old Milan had thus come to his Princ.i.p.ality. The son of Jefrenn Obrenovitch, uncle of the reigning Michael, he was cradled one August day in 1854, his mother being Marie Catargo, of the powerful race of Roumanian "Hospodars," a woman of strong pa.s.sions and dissolute life. When her temper and infidelities had driven her husband to the drinking that put a premature end to his days, Marie transferred her affection, without the sanction of a wedding-ring, to Prince Kusa, a man of as evil repute as herself.

In such a home and with such guardians her only child, Milan, the future ruler of Servia, spent the early years of his life--ill-fed, neglected, and supremely wretched.

Thus it was that, when Prince Michael summoned the boy to Belgrade, in order to make the acquaintance of his successor, he was horrified to see an uncouth lad, as devoid of manners and of education as any in the slums of his capital. The heir to the throne could neither read nor write; the only language he spoke was a debased Roumanian, picked up from the servants who had been his only a.s.sociates, while of the land over which he was to rule one day he knew absolutely nothing. The only hope for him was his extreme youth--he was at the time only twelve years old--and Michael lost no time in having him trained for the high station he was destined to fill.

The progress the boy made was amazing. Within two years he was unrecognisable as the half-savage who had so shocked the Court of Belgrade. He could speak the Servian tongue with fluency and grace; he had acquired elegance of manners and speech, and a winning courtesy of manner which to his last day was his most marked characteristic; he had mastered many accomplishments, and he excelled in most manly exercises, from riding to swimming. And to all this remarkable promise the finis.h.i.+ng touches were put by a visit to Paris under the tutors.h.i.+p of a courtly and learned professor.

Thus when, within two years of his emanc.i.p.ation, he came to his crown, the uncouth lad from Roumania had blossomed into a Prince as goodly to look on as any Europe could show--a handsome boy of courtly graces and accomplishments, able to converse in several languages, and singularly equipped in all ways to win the homage of the simple people over whom he had been so early called to rule. As Mrs Gerard says, "They idolised their boy-Prince. Every day they stood in long, closely packed lines watching to see him come out of the castle to ride or drive; as he pa.s.sed along, smiling affectionately on his people, blessings were showered on him. There was, however, another side to this picture of devotion. There were those who hated the boy because he had thwarted their plans." And this hatred, as persistent as it was malignant, was to follow him throughout his reign, and through his years of unhappy exile, to his grave.

But these days were happily still remote. After four years of minority and Regency, when he was able to take the reins of government into his own hands, his empire over the hearts of his subjects was more firmly based than ever. His youth, his modesty, and his compelling charm of manner made friends for him wherever his wanderings took him, from Paris to Constantinople. He was the "Prince Charming" of Europe, as popular abroad as he was idolised at home; and when the time arrived to find a consort for him he might, one would have thought, have been able to pick and choose among the fairest Princesses of the Continent.

But handsome and gallant and popular as he was, the overtures of his ministers were coldly received by one Royal house after another. Milan might be a reigning Prince and a charming one to boot, but it was not forgotten that the first of his line had been a common herdsman, and the blood of Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns could not be allowed to mingle with so base a strain. Even a mere Hungarian Count, whose fair daughter had caught Milan's fancy, frowned on the suit of the swineherd's successor.

But fate had already chosen a bride for the young Prince, who was more than equal in birth to any Count's daughter; who would bring beauty and riches as her portion; and who, after many unhappy years, was to crown her dower with tragedy.

It was at Nice, where Prince Milan was spending the winter months of 1875, that he first set eyes on the woman whose life was to be so tragically linked with his own. Among the visitors there was the family of a Russian colonel, Nathaniel Ketschko, a man of high lineage and great wealth. He claimed, in fact, descent from the Royal race of Comnenus, which had given many a King to the thrones of Europe, and whose sons for long centuries had won fame as generals, statesmen, and amba.s.sadors. And to this exalted strain was allied enormous wealth, of which the Colonel's share was represented by a regal revenue of four hundred thousand roubles a year.

But proud as he was of his birth and his riches, Colonel Nathaniel was still prouder of his two lovely daughters, each of whom had inherited in liberal measure the beauty of their mother, a daughter of the princely house of Stourza; and of the two the more beautiful, by common consent, was Natalie, whose charms won this spontaneous tribute from Tsar Nicholas, when first he saw her, "I would I were a beggar that I might every day ask your alms, and have the happiness of kissing your hand."

She had, says one who knew her in her radiant youth, "an irresistible charm that permeated her whole being with such a harmony of grace, sweetness, and overpowering attraction that one felt drawn to her with magnetic force; and to adore her seemed the most natural and indeed the only position."

Such was the high tribute paid to Servia's future Queen at the first dawning of that beauty which was to make her also Queen of all the fair women of Europe, and which at its zenith was thus described by one who saw her at Wiesbaden ten years or so later: "She walked along the promenade with a light, graceful movement; her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, her figure was elegant, her finely cut face was lit up by those wonderful eyes, once seen never forgotten--brilliant, tender, loving; her luxuriant hair of raven black was loosely coiled round the well-set head, or fell in curls on the beautifully arched neck. For each one she had a pleasant smile, a gracious bow, or a few words, spoken in a musical voice." No wonder the Germans, who looked at this apparition of grace and beauty, "simply fell down and adored her."

Such was the vision of beauty of which Prince Milan caught his first glimpse on the promenade at Nice in the winter of 1875, and which haunted him, day and night, until chance brought their paths together again, and he won her consent to share his throne. That such a high destiny awaited her, Natalie had already been told by a gipsy whom she met one day in the woods of her father's estate near Moscow--a meeting of which the following story is told.

At sight of the beautiful young girl the gipsy stooped in homage and kissed the hem of her dress. "Why do you do that?" asked Natalie, half in alarm and half in pleasure. "Because," the woman answered, "I salute you as the chosen bride of a great Prince. Over your head I see a crown floating in the air. It descends lower and lower until it rests on your head. A dazzling brilliance adorns the crown; it is a Royal diadem."

"What else?" asked Natalie eagerly, her face flushed with excitement and delight. "Oh! do tell me more, please!" "What more shall I say,"

continued the gipsy, "except that you will be a Queen, and the mother of a King; but then--"

"But then, what?" exclaimed the eager and impatient girl; "do go on, please. What then?" and she held out a gold coin temptingly. "I see a large house; you will be there, but--take care; you will be turned out by force.... And now give me the coin and let me go. More I must not tell you."

Such were the dazzling and mysterious words spoken by the gipsy woman in the Russian forest, a year or more before Natalie first saw the Prince who was destined to make them true. But it was not at Nice that opportunity came to Milan. It was an accidental meeting in Paris, some months later, that made his path clear. During a visit to the French capital he met a young Servian officer, a distant kinsman, one Alexander Konstantinovitch, who confided to him, over their wine and cigarettes, the story of his infatuation for the daughter of a Russian colonel, who at the time was staying with her aunt, the Princess Murussi. He raved of her beauty and her charm, and concluded by asking the Prince to accompany him that he might make the acquaintance of the Lieutenant's bride-to-be.

Arrived at their destination, the Prince and his companion were graciously received by the Princess Murussi, but Milan had no eyes for the dignified lady who gave him such a flattering reception; they were drawn as by a magnet to the girl by her side--"a child with a woman's grace and an angel's soul smiling in her eyes"; the incarnation of his dreams, the very girl whose beauty, though he had caught but one pa.s.sing glimpse of it, had so intoxicated his brain a few months earlier at Nice.

"Allow me," said the Lieutenant, "to introduce to Your Highness Natalie Ketschko, my affianced wife." Milan's face flushed with surprise and anger at the words. What was this trick that had been played on him? Had Konstantinovitch then brought him here only to humiliate him? But before he could recover from his indignation and astonishment, the Princess said chillingly, "Pardon me, Monsieur Konstantinovitch, you are not speaking the truth. My niece, Colonel Ketschko's daughter, is not your affianced wife. You are too premature."

Thus rebuffed, the Lieutenant was not encouraged to prolong his stay; and Milan was left, rea.s.sured, to bask in the smiles of the Princess and her lovely niece, and to pursue his wooing under the most favourable auspices. This first visit was quickly followed by others; and before a week had pa.s.sed the Prince had won the prize on which his heart was set, and with it a dower of five million roubles. Now followed halcyon days for the young lovers--long hours of sweet communion, of antic.i.p.ation of the happy years that stretched in such a golden vista before them. It was a love-idyll such as delighted the romantic heart of Paris; and congratulations and presents poured on the young couple; "the very beggars in the streets," we are told, "blessing them as they drove by."

"Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing," and Milan's wooing was as brief as it was blissful. He was all impatience to possess fully the prize he had won; preparations for the nuptials were hastened, but, before the crowning day dawned, once more the voice of warning spoke.

A few days before the wedding, as Milan was leaving the Murussi Palace, he was accosted by a woman, who craved permission to speak to him, a favour which was smilingly accorded. "I know you," said the woman, thus permitted to speak, "although you do not know me. You are the Prince of Servia; I am a servant in the household of the Princess Murussi. Your Highness, listen! I love Natalie. I have known and loved her since she was a child; and I beg of you not to marry her. Such a union is doomed to unhappiness. You love to rule, to command. So does Natalie; and it is _she_ who will be the ruler. You are utterly unsuited for each other, and nothing but great unhappiness can possibly come from your union."

To this warning Milan turned a smiling face and a deaf ear, as Natalie had done to the voice of the gipsy. A fig for such gloomy prophecy! They were ideally happy in the present, and the future should be equally bright, however ravens might croak. Thus, one October day in 1875, Vienna held high holiday for the nuptials of the handsome Prince and his beautiful bride; and it was through avenues densely packed with cheering onlookers that Natalie made her triumphal progress to the altar, in her flower-garlanded dress of white satin, a tiara of diamonds flas.h.i.+ng from the blackness of her hair, no brighter than the brilliance of her eyes, her face irradiated with happiness.

That no Royalty graced their wedding was a matter of no moment to Milan and Natalie, whose happiness was thus crowned; and when at the subsequent banquet Milan said, "I wish from my very heart that every one of my subjects, as well as everybody I know, could be always as happy as I am this moment," none who heard him could doubt the sincerity of his words, or see any but a golden future for so ideal a union of hearts.

By Servia her young Princess was received with open arms of welcome.

"Her reception," we are told, "was beyond description. The festivities lasted three days, and during that time the love of the people for their Prince, and their admiration of the beauty and charm of his bride, were beyond words to describe." Never did Royal wedded life open more full of bright promise, and never did consort make more immediate conquest of the affections of her husband's subjects. "No one could have believed that this marriage, which was contracted from love and love alone, would have ended in so tragic a manner, or that hate could so quickly have taken the place of love."

But the serpent was quick to show his head in Natalie's new paradise.

Before she had been many weeks a wife, stories came to her ears of her husband's many infidelities. Now the story was of one lady of her Court, now of another, until the horrified Princess knew not whom to trust or to respect. Strange tales, too, came to her (mostly anonymously) of Milan's amours in Paris, in Vienna, and half a dozen of his other haunts of pleasure, until her love, poisoned at its very springing, turned to suspicion and distrust of the man to whom she had given her heart.

Other disillusions were quick to follow. She discovered that her husband was a hopeless gambler and spendthrift, spending long hours daily at the card-tables, watching with pale face and trembling lips his pile of gold dwindle (as it usually did) to its last coin; and often losing at a single sitting a month's revenue from the Civil List. Her own dowry of five million roubles, she knew, was safe from his clutches. Her father had taken care to make that secure, but Milan's private fortune, large as it had been, had already been squandered in this and other forms of dissipation; and even the expenses of his wedding, she learned, had been met by a loan raised at ruinous interest.

Such discoveries as these were well calculated to shatter the dreams of the most infatuated of brides, and less was sufficient to rouse Natalie's proud spirit to rebellion. When affectionate pleadings proved useless, reproaches took their place. Heated words were exchanged, and the records tell of many violent scenes before Natalie had been six months Princess of Servia. "You love to rule," the warning voice had told Milan--"to command. So does Natalie"; and already the clas.h.i.+ng of strong wills and imperious tempers, which must end in the yielding of one or the other, had begun to be heard.

If more fuel had been needed to feed the flames of dissension, it was quickly supplied by two unfortunate incidents. The first was Milan's open dallying with Fraulein S----, one of Natalie's maids-of-honour, a girl almost as beautiful as herself, but with the _beaute de diable_.

The second was the appearance in Belgrade of Dimitri Wa.s.seljevitchca, who was suspected of plotting to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Tsar. Russia demanded that the fugitive should be given up to justice, and enlisted Natalie's co-operation with this object. Milan, however, was resolute not to surrender the plotter, and turned a deaf ear to all the Princess's pleadings and cajoleries. "The most exciting scene followed. Natalie, abandoning entreaties, threatened and even commanded her husband to obey her"; and when threats and commands equally failed, she gave way to a paroxysm of rage in which she heaped the most unbridled scorn and contempt on her husband.

Thus jealousy, a thwarted will, and Milan's low pleasures combined to widen the breach between the Royal couple, so recently plighted to each other in the sacred name of love, and to prepare the way for the troubled and tragic years to come.

CHAPTER XXIX

AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE--_continued_

If anything could have restored happiness to Milan of Servia and his Princess, Natalie, it should surely have been the birth of the baby-Prince, Alexander, whom both equally adored and equally spoiled.

But, instead of linking his parents in a new bond of affection "Sacha"

was from his cradle the innocent cause of widening the breach that severed them.

For a time, fortunately, Milan had little opportunity of continuing the feud of recrimination with his high-spirited and hot-tempered spouse.

More serious matters claimed him. Servia was plunged into war with Turkey, and his days were spent in camp and on the battlefield, until the intervention of Russia put an end to the long and hopeless struggle, and Milan found himself one February day in 1882, thanks to the Berlin Conference, hailed the first King of his country, under the t.i.tle of Milan I.

Then followed a disastrous war with Bulgaria into which the headstrong King rushed in spite of Natalie's warning--"Draw back, Milan, and have no share in what will prove a b.l.o.o.d.y drama. You have no chance of conquering, for Alexander is made of the stuff of the Hohenzollerns."

And indeed the struggle was doomed to failure from the first; for Milan was no man to lead an army to victory. Read his method of conducting a campaign, as described by one of his aides-de-camp--

"Our troops continue to retreat--I never imagined a campaign could be so jolly. We do nothing but dance and sing and fiddle. Yesterday the King had some guests and the champagne literally flowed. We had the Belgrade singers, who used to delight us in the theatre-cafe. They sang and danced delightfully. The last two days we have had plenty of fun, and yesterday a lot of jolly girls came to enliven us." Such was Milan's method of conducting a great war, on which the very existence of his kingdom hung. Wine and women and song were more to his taste than forced marches, strategy, and hard-fought battles. But once again foreign intervention came to his rescue; and his armies were saved from annihilation.

When his sword was finally sheathed, if not with honour, he returned to Belgrade to resume his gambling, his dallyings with fair women--and his daily quarrels with his Queen, whose bitterness absence had done nothing to a.s.suage. So far from Natalie's spirit being crushed, it was higher and prouder than ever. She would die before she would yield; but she was in no mood to die, this autocratic, fiery-tempered, strong-willed daughter of Russia. She gave literally a "striking" proof of the spirit that was in her at the Easter reception of 1886, when the wife of a Greek diplomat--a beautiful woman, to whom her husband had been more than kind--presented herself smilingly to receive the "salute courteous"

from Her Majesty. With a look of scorn Natalie coolly surveyed her rival from head to foot; and then, in the presence of the Court, gave her a resounding slap on the cheek.

But the Grecian lady was only one of many fair women who basked successively (or together) in Milan's favour. A much more formidable rival was Artemesia Christich, a woman as designing as she was lovely, who was quick to envelop the weak King in the toils of her witchery. Not content with his smiles and favours she aspired to take Natalie's place as Queen of Servia; and, it is said, had extorted from him a promise that he would make her his Queen as soon as his existing marriage tie could be dissolved. And to this infamous compact Artemesia's husband, a man as crafty and unscrupulous as herself, consented, in return for his promotion to certain high and profitable offices in the State.

In vain did the Emperor and the Crown Prince of Austria, with many another high-placed friend, plead with Milan not to commit such a folly.

He was driven to distraction between such powerful appeals and the allurement of the siren who had him so effectually under her spell, until in his despair he entertained serious thoughts of suicide as escape from his dilemma. Meanwhile, we are told, "a perfect h.e.l.l" raged in the castle; each day brought its scandalous scene between his outraged Queen and himself. His unpopularity with his subjects became so acute that he was hissed whenever he made his appearance in the streets of his capital; and Artemesia was obliged to have police protection to s.h.i.+eld her from the vengeance of the mob.

As for Natalie, this crowning injury decided her to bear her purgatory no longer. She would force her husband to abdicate and secure her own appointment as Regent for her son; or, failing that, she would leave her husband and seek an asylum out of Servia. And with the object of still further embittering his subjects against the King she made the full story of her injuries public, and enlisted the sympathy, not only of Milan's most powerful ministers, but of the entire country.

"The castle is in utter confusion," wrote an officer of the Belgrade garrison, in October, 1886. "The King looks ill, and as if he never slept. Poor fellow! he flies for refuge to us in the guard-house, and plays cards with the officers. Card-playing is his worst enemy. He loves it pa.s.sionately, and plays excitedly and for high points--and he always loses."

Matters were now hastening to a crisis. Hopelessly in debt, scorned by his subjects, and hated by his wife, Milan's plight was pitiful. The scenes between the King and the Queen were becoming more violent and disgraceful every day. "There was no peace anywhere, nor did anyone belonging to the Court enjoy a moment of tranquillity." So intolerable had life become that, early in 1887, Milan decided to dissolve his marriage; and it was only at the pleading of the Austrian Emperor that he consented to abandon this design, on condition that his wife left Servia; and thus it was that one day in April Queen Natalie left Belgrade, accompanied by her son "Sacha," ostensibly that he might continue his education in Germany.