Part 10

Among the variegate crowds that thronged the highways and byways of Monte Carlo in those days there was no single figure more observed and striking than that of Leopold the Second, King of the Belgians. He had a bungalow overlooking the sea where he lived three months of the year like a country gentleman. Although I have made it a rule to avoid courts and courtiers, an event brought me into acquaintance with this best abused man in Europe, enabling me to form my own estimate of his very interesting personality.

He was not at all what his enemies represented him to be, a sot, a gambler and a roué. In appearance a benignant burgomaster, tall and stalwart; in manner and voice very gentle, he should be described as first of all a man of business. His weakness was rather for money than women. Speaking of the most famous of the Parisian dancers with whom his name had been scandalously associated, he told me that he had never met her but once in his life, and that after the newspaper gossips had been busy for years with their alleged love affair. "I kissed her hand," he related, "and bade her adieu, saying, 'Ah, ma'mselle, you and I have indeed reason to congratulate ourselves.'"

It was the Congo business that lay at the bottom of the abuse of Leopold. Henry Stanley had put him up to this. It turned out a gold mine, and then two streams of defamation were let loose; one from the covetous commercial standpoint and the other from the humanitarian. Between them, seeking to drive him out, they depicted him as a monster of cruelty and depravity.

A King must be an anchorite to escape calumny, and Leopold was not an anchorite. I asked him why I never saw him in the Casino. "Play," he answered, "does not interest me. Besides, I do not enjoy being talked about. Nor do I think the game they play there quite fair."

"In what way do you consider it unfair, your Majesty?" I asked.

"In the zero," he replied. "At the Brussels Casino I do not allow them to have a zero. Come and see me and I will show you a perfectly equal chance for your money, to win or lose."

Years after I was in Brussels. Leopold had gone to his account and his nephew, Albert, had come to the throne. There was not a roulette table in the Casino, but there was one conveniently adjacent thereto, managed by a clique of New York gamblers, which had both a single "and a double O," and, as appeared when the municipality made a descent upon the place, was ingeniously wired to throw the ball wherever the presiding coupier wanted it to go.

I do not believe, however, that Leopold was a party to this, or could have had any knowledge of it. He was a skillful, not a dishonest, business man, who showed his foresight when he listened to Stanley and took him under his wing. If the Congo had turned out worthless nobody would ever have heard of the delinquencies of the King of the Belgians.

Chapter the Seventeenth

A Parisian Pension--The Widow of Walewska--Napoleon's Daughter-in-Law--The Changeless--A Moral and Orderly City

I have said that I knew the widow of Walewska, the natural son of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Polish countess he picked up in Warsaw, who followed him to Paris; and thereby hangs a tale which may not be without interest.

In each of our many sojourns in Paris my wife and I had taken an apartment, living the while in the restaurants, at first the cheaper, like the Café de Progress and the Duval places; then the Boeuf à la Mode, the Café Voisin and the Café Anglais, with Champoux's, in the Place de la Bourse, for a regular luncheon resort.

At length, the children something more than half grown, I said: "We have never tried a Paris pension."

So with a half dozen recommended addresses we set out on a house hunt. We had not gone far when our search was rewarded by a veritable find. This was on the Avenue de Courcelles, not far from the Pare Monceau; newly furnished; reasonable charges; the lady manager a beautiful well-mannered woman, half Scotch and half French.

We moved in. When dinner was called the boarders assembled in the very elegant drawing-room. Madame presented us to Baron ----. Then followed introductions to Madame la Duchesse and Madame la Princesse and Madame la Comtesse. Then the folding doors opened and dinner was announced.

The baron sat at the center of the table. The meal consisted of eight or ten courses, served as if at a private house, and of surpassing quality. During the three months that we remained there was no evidence of a boarding house. It appeared an aristocratic family into which we had been hospitably admitted. The baron was a delightful person. Madame la Duchesse was the mother of Madame la Princesse, and both were charming. The Comtesse, the Napoleonic widow, was at first a little formal, but she came round after we had got acquainted, and, when we took our departure, it was like leaving a veritable domestic circle.

Years after we had the sequel. The baron, a poor young nobleman, had come into a little money. He thought to make it breed. He had an equally poor Scotch cousin, who undertook to play hostess. Both the Duchess and the Countess were his kinswomen. How could such a ménage last?

He lost his all. What became of our fellow-lodgers I never learned, but the venture coming to naught, the last I heard of the beautiful high-bred lady manager, she was serving as a stewardess on an ocean liner. Nothing, however, could exceed the luxury, the felicity and the good company of those memorable three months chez l'Avenue de Courcelles, Pare Monceau.

We never tried a pension again. We chose a delightful hotel in the Rue de Castiglione off the Rue de Rivoli, and remained there as fixtures until we were reckoned the oldest inhabitants. But we never deserted the dear old Boeuf à la Mode, which we lived to see one of the most flourishing and popular places in Paris.

In the old days there was a little hotel on the Rue Dannou, midway between the Rue de la Paix and what later along became the Avenue de l'Opéra, called the Hôtel d'Orient. It was conducted by a certain Madame Hougenin, whose family had held the lease for more than a hundred years, and was typical of what the comfort-seeking visitor, somewhat initiate, might find before the modern tourist onrush overflowed all bounds and effaced the ancient landmarks--or should I say townmarks?--making a resort instead of a home of the gay French capital. The d'Orient was delightfully comfortable and fabulously cheap.

The wayfarer entered a darksome passage that led to an inner court. There were on the four sides of this seven or eight stories pierced by many windows. There was never a lift, or what we Americans call an elevator. If you wanted to go up you walked up; and after dark your single illuminant was candlelight. The service could hardly be recommended, but cleanliness herself could find no fault with the beds and bedding; nor any queer people about; changeless; as still and stationary as a nook in the Rockies.

A young girl might dwell there year in and year out in perfect safety--many young girls did so--madame a kind of duenna. The food--for it was a pension--was all a gourmet could desire. And the wine!

I was lunching with an old Parisian friend.

"What do you think of this vintage?" says he.

"Very good," I answered. "Come and dine with me to-morrow and I will give you the mate to it."

"What--at the d'Orient?"

"Yes, at the d'Orient."

"Preposterous!"