Worldly Ways and Byways Part 7

No. 17--Royalty At Play

Few more amusing sights are to be seen in these days, than that of crowned heads running away from their dull old courts and functions, roughing it in hotels and villas, gambling, yachting and playing at being rich n.o.bodies. With much intelligence they have all chosen the same Republican playground, where visits cannot possibly be twisted into meaning any new "combination" or political move, thus a.s.suring themselves the freedom from care or responsibility, that seems to be the aim of their existence. Alongside of well-to-do Royalties in good paying situations, are those out of a job, who are looking about for a "place."

One cannot take an afternoon's ramble anywhere between Cannes and Mentone without meeting a half-dozen of these magnates.

The other day, in one short walk, I ran across three Empresses, two Queens, and an Heir-apparent, and then fled to my hotel, fearing to be unfitted for America, if I went on "keeping such company." They are knowing enough, these wandering great ones, and after trying many places have hit on this charming coast as offering more than any other for their comfort and enjoyment. The vogue of these sunny sh.o.r.es dates from their annexation to France,--a price Victor Emmanuel reluctantly paid for French help in his war with Austria. Napoleon III.'s demand for Savoy and this littoral, was first made known to Victor Emmanuel at a state ball at Genoa. Savoy was his birthplace and his home! The King broke into a wild temper, cursing the French Emperor and making insulting allusions to his parentage, saying he had not one drop of Bonaparte blood in his veins. The King's frightened courtiers tried to stop this outburst, showing him the French Amba.s.sador at his elbow. With a superhuman effort Victor Emmanuel controlled himself, and turning to the Amba.s.sador, said:

"I fear my tongue ran away with me!" With a smile and a bow the great French diplomatist remarked:

"_Sire_, I am so deaf I have not heard a word your Majesty has been saying!"

The fas.h.i.+on of coming to the Riviera for health or for amus.e.m.e.nt, dates from the sixties, when the Empress of Russia pa.s.sed a winter at Nice, as a last attempt to prolong the existence of the dying Tsarewitsch, her son. There also the next season the Duke of Edinburgh wooed and won her daughter (then the greatest heiress in Europe) for his bride. The world moves fast and a journey it required a matter of life and death to decide on, then, is gayly undertaken now, that a prince may race a yacht, or a princess try her luck at the gambling tables. When one reflects that the "royal caste," in Europe alone, numbers some eight hundred people, and that the East is beginning to send out its more enterprising crowned heads to get a taste of the fun, that beyond drawing their salaries, these good people have absolutely nothing to do, except to amuse themselves, it is no wonder that this happy land is crowded with royal pleasure-seekers.

After a try at Florence and Aix, "the Queen" has been faithful to Cimiez, a charming site back of Nice. That gay city is always _en fete_ the day she arrives, as her carriages pa.s.s surrounded by French cavalry, one can catch a glimpse of her big face, and dowdy little figure, which nevertheless she can make so dignified when occasion requires. The stay here is, indeed, a holiday for this record-breaking sovereign, who potters about her private grounds of a morning in a donkey-chair, sunning herself and watching her Battenberg grandchildren at play. In the afternoon, she drives a couple of hours--in an open carriage--one outrider in black livery alone distinguis.h.i.+ng her turnout from the others.

The Prince of Wales makes his headquarters at Cannes where he has poor luck in sailing the Brittania, for which he consoles himself with jolly dinners at Monte Carlo. You can see him almost any evening in the _Restaurant de Paris_, surrounded by his own particular set,--the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re (who started a penniless German officer's daughter, and became twice a d.u.c.h.ess); Lady de Grey and Lady Wolverton, both showing near six feet of slender English beauty; at their side, and lovelier than either, the Countess of Ess.e.x. The husbands of these "Merry Wives" are absent, but do not seem to be missed, as the ladies sit smoking and laughing over their coffee, the party only breaking up towards eleven o'clock to try its luck at _trente et quarante_, until a "special" takes them back to Cannes.

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 s.h.i.+rt-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-d.u.c.h.ess 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 fas.h.i.+ons 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 Na.s.sau, H.I.H. the Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, their Serene Highnesses of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, also H.I.H. Marie Valerie and the Schleswig-Holsteins, pelting each other and the public with _confetti_ and flowers. Indeed, half the _Almanach 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, love to tell you. An American c.o.c.kswain, dazzled by a doubly royal visit, with attending suites, on board the old "Const.i.tution," 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 pa.s.s 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 inc.u.mbrances? Not to mention our own democratic country, which has managed to hold its own, in spite of their many gleeful predictions to the contrary.

No. 18--A Rock Ahead

Having had occasion several times during this past season, to pa.s.s by the larger stores in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, I have been struck more than ever, by the endless flow of womankind that beats against the doors of those establishments. If they were temples where a beneficent deity was distributing health, learning, and all the good things of existence, the rush could hardly have been greater. It saddened me to realize that each of the eager women I saw was, on the contrary, dispensing something of her strength and brain, as well as the wearily earned stipend of the men of her family (if not her own), for what could be of little profit to her.

It occurred to me that, if the people who are so quick to talk about the elevating and refining influences of women, could take an hour or two and inspect the centres in question, they might not be so firm in their beliefs. For, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it, the one great misfortune in this country, is the unnatural position which has been (from some mistaken idea of chivalry) accorded to women here. The result of placing them on this pedestal, and treating them as things apart, has been to make women in America poorer helpmeets to their husbands than in any other country on the face of the globe, civilized or uncivilized.

Strange as it may appear, this is not confined to the rich, but permeates all cla.s.ses, becoming more harmful in descending the social scale, and it will bring about a disintegration of our society, sooner than could be believed. The saying on which we have all been brought up, viz., that you can gauge the point of civilization attained in a nation by the position it accords to woman, was quite true as long as woman was considered man's inferior. To make her his equal was perfectly just; all the trouble begins when you attempt to make her man's superior, a something apart from his working life, and not the companion of his troubles and cares, as she was intended to be.

When a small shopkeeper in Europe marries, the next day you will see his young wife taking her place at the desk in his shop. While he serves his customers, his smiling spouse keeps the books, makes change, and has an eye on the employees. At noon they dine together; in the evening, after the shop is closed, are pleased or saddened together over the results of the day. The wife's _dot_ almost always goes into the business, so that there is a community of interest to unite them, and their lives are pa.s.sed together. In this country, what happens? The husband places his new wife in a small house, or in two or three furnished rooms, generally so far away that all idea of dining with her is impossible. In consequence, he has a "quick lunch" down town, and does not see his wife between eight o'clock in the morning and seven in the evening. His business is a closed book to her, in which she can have no interest, for her weary husband naturally revolts from talking "shop," even if she is in a position to understand him.

His false sense of s.h.i.+elding her from the rude world makes him keep his troubles to himself, so she rarely knows his financial position and sulks over his "meanness" to her, in regard to pin-money; and being a perfectly idle person, her days are apt to be pa.s.sed in a way especially devised by Satan for unoccupied hands. She has learned no cooking from her mother; "going to market" has become a thing of the past. So she falls a victim to the allurements of the bargain-counter; returning home after hours of aimless wandering, irritable and aggrieved because she cannot own the beautiful things she has seen. She pa.s.ses the evening in trying to win her husband's consent to some purchase he knows he cannot afford, while it breaks his heart to refuse her--some object, which, were she really his companion, she would not have had the time to see or the folly to ask for.

The janitor in our building is truly a toiler. He rarely leaves his dismal quarters under the sidewalk, but "Madam" walks the streets clad in sealskin and silk, a "Gainsborough" crowning her false "bang." I always think of Max O'Rell's clever saying, when I see her: "The sweat of the American husband crystallizes into diamond ear-rings for the American woman." My janitress sports a diminutive pair of those jewels and has hopes of larger ones! Instead of "doing" the bachelor's rooms in the building as her husband's helpmeet, she "does" her spouse, and a char- woman works for her. She is one of the drops in the tide that ebbs and flows on Twenty-third Street--a discontented woman placed in a false position by our absurd customs.

Go a little further up in the social scale and you will find the same "detached" feeling. In a household I know of only one horse and a _coupe_ can be afforded. Do you suppose it is for the use of the weary breadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated." The carriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two she will go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces the income. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in a half-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additional words could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "for richer for poorer," I should like to hear a bride promise to cling to her husband "for winter for summer!"

Make another step up and stand in the entrance of a house at two A.M., just as the cotillion is commencing, and watch the couples leaving. The husband, who has been in Wall Street all day, knows that he must be there again at nine next morning. He is furious at the lateness of the hour, and dropping with fatigue. His wife, who has done nothing to weary her, is equally enraged to be taken away just as the ball was becoming amusing. What a happy, united pair they are as the footman closes the door and the carriage rolls off home! Who is to blame? The husband is vainly trying to lead the most exacting of double lives, that of a business man all day and a society man all night. You can pick him out at a glance in a ballroom. His eye shows you that there is no rest for him, for he has placed his wife at the head of an establishment whose working crushes him into the mud of care and anxiety. Has he any one to blame but himself?

In England, I am told, the man of a family goes up to London in the spring and gets his complete outfit, down to the smallest details of hat- box and umbrella. If there happens to be money left, the wife gets a new gown or two: if not, she "turns" the old ones and rejoices vicariously in the splendor of her "lord." I know one charming little home over there, where the ladies cannot afford a pony-carriage, because the three indispensable hunters eat up the where-withal.

Thackeray was delighted to find one household (Major Ponto's) where the governess ruled supreme, and I feel a fiendish pleasure in these accounts of a country where men have been able to maintain some rights, and am moved to preach a crusade for the liberation of the American husband, that the poor, down-trodden creature may revolt from the slavery where he is held and once more claim his birthright. If he be prompt to act (and is successful) he may work such a reform that our girls, on marrying, may feel that some duties and responsibilities go with their new positions; and a state of things be changed, where it is possible for a woman to be pitied by her friends as a model of abnegation, because she has decided to remain in town during the summer to keep her husband company and make his weary home-coming brighter. Or where (as in a story recently heard) a foreigner on being presented to an American bride abroad and asking for her husband, could hear in answer: "Oh, he could not come; he was too busy. I am making my wedding-trip without him."

No. 19--The Grand Prix

In most cities, it is impossible to say when the "season" ends. In London and with us in New York it dwindles off without any special finish, but in Paris it closes like a trap-door, or the curtain on the last scene of a pantomime, while the lights are blazing and the orchestra is banging its loudest. The _Grand Prix_, which takes place on the second Sunday in June, is the climax of the spring gayeties. Up to that date, the social pace has been getting faster and faster, like the finish of the big race itself, and fortunately for the lives of the women as well as the horses, ends as suddenly.

In 1897, the last steeple chase at Auteuil, which precedes the _Grand Prix_ by one week, was won by a horse belonging to an actress of the _Theatre Francais_, a lady who has been a great deal before the public already in connection with the life and death of young Lebaudy. This youth having had the misfortune to inherit an enormous fortune, while still a mere boy, plunged into the wildest dissipation, and became the prey of a band of sharpers and blacklegs. Mlle. Marie Louise Marsy appears to have been the one person who had a sincere affection for the unfortunate youth. When his health gave way during his military service, she threw over her engagement with the _Francais_, and nursed her lover until his death--a devotion rewarded by the gift of a million.

At the present moment, four or five of the band of self-styled n.o.blemen who traded on the boy's inexperience and generosity, are serving out terms in the state prisons for blackmailing, and the _Theatre Francais_ possesses the anomaly of a young and beautiful actress, who runs a racing stable in her own name.

The _Grand Prix_ dates from the reign of Napoleon III., who, at the suggestion of the great railway companies, inaugurated this race in 1862, in imitation of the English Derby, as a means of attracting people to Paris. The city and the railways each give half of the forty-thousand- dollar prize. It is the great official race of the year. The President occupies the central pavilion, surrounded by the members of the cabinet and the diplomatic corps. On the tribunes and lawn can be seen the _Tout Paris_--all the celebrities of the great and half-world who play such an important part in the life of France's capital. The whole colony of the _Rastaquoueres_, is sure to be there, "_Rastas_," as they are familiarly called by the Parisians, who make little if any distinction in their minds between a South American (blazing in diamonds and vulgar clothes) and our own select (?) colony. Apropos of this inability of the Europeans to appreciate our fine social distinctions, I have been told of a well-born New Yorker who took a French n.o.blewoman rather to task for receiving an American she thought unworthy of notice, and said:

"How can you receive her? Her husband keeps a hotel!"

"Is that any reason?" asked the French-woman; "I thought all Americans kept hotels."

For the _Grand Prix_, every woman not absolutely bankrupt has a new costume, her one idea being a _creation_ that will attract attention and eclipse her rivals. The dressmakers have had a busy time of it for weeks before.

Every horse that can stand up is pressed into service for the day. For twenty-four hours before, the whole city is _en fete_, and Paris _en fete_ is always a sight worth seeing. The natural gayety of the Parisians, a characteristic noticed (if we are to believe the historians) as far back as the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, breaks out in all its amusing spontaneity. If the day is fine, the entire population gives itself up to amus.e.m.e.nt. From early morning the current sets towards the charming corner of the Bois where the Longchamps race-course lies, picturesquely encircled by the Seine (alive with a thousand boats), and backed by the woody slopes of Suresnes and St. Cloud. By noon every corner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with a blare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in his turnout _a la Daumont_, two postilions in blue and gold, and a _piqueur_, preceded by a detachment of the showy _Gardes Republicains_ on horseback, and takes his place in the little pavilion where for so many years Eugenie used to sit in state, and which has sheltered so many crowned heads under its simple roof. Faure's arrival is the signal for the racing to begin, from that moment the interest goes on increasing until the great "event." Then in an instant the vast throng of human beings breaks up and flows homeward across the Bois, filling the big Place around the Arc de Triomphe, rolling down the Champs Elysees, in twenty parallel lines of carriages. The sidewalks are filled with a laughing, singing, uproarious crowd that quickly invades every restaurant, _cafe_, or chop-house until their little tables overflow on to the gra.s.s and side- walks, and even into the middle of the streets. Later in the evening the open-air concerts and theatres are packed, and every little square organizes its impromptu ball, the musicians mounted on tables, and the crowd dancing gayly on the wooden pavement until daybreak.

The next day, Paris becomes from a fas.h.i.+onable point of view, "impossible." If you walk through the richer quarters, you will see only long lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations are blocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" is fleeing to the seash.o.r.e or its _chateaux_, and Paris will know it no more until January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since there has been no court, the aristocracy pa.s.s longer and longer periods on their own estates each year, partly from choice and largely to show their disdain for the republic and its entertainments.

The shady drives in the park, which only a day or two ago were so brilliant with smart traps and spring toilets, are become a cool wilderness, where will meet, perhaps, a few maiden ladies exercising fat dogs, uninterrupted except by the watering-cart or by a few stray tourists in cabs. Now comes a delightful time for the real amateur of Paris and the country around, which is full of charming corners where one can dine at quiet little restaurants, overhanging the water or buried among trees. You are sure of getting the best of attention from the waiters, and the dishes you order receive all the cook's attention. Of an evening the Bois is alive with a myriad of bicycles, their lights twinkling among the trees like many-colored fire-flies. To any one who knows how to live there, Paris is at its best in the last half of June and July. Nevertheless, in a couple of days there will not be an American in Paris, London being the objective point; for we love to be "in at the death," and a coronation, a musical festival, or a big race is sure to attract all our floating population.

The Americans who have the hardest time in Paris are those who try to "run with the deer and hunt with the hounds," as the French proverb has it, who would fain serve G.o.d and Mammon. As anything especially amusing is sure to take place on Sunday in this wicked capital, our friends go through agonies of indecision, their consciences pulling one way, their desire to amuse themselves the other. Some find a middle course, it seems, for yesterday this conversation was overheard on the steps of the American Church:

_First American Lady_: "Are you going to stop for the sermon?"

_Second American Lady_: "I am so sorry I can't, but the races begin at one!"