Around the World with a King

by William N. Armstrong

  King Humberto and Queen Margherita entered, received our sovereign cordially, and led him to an adjoining room, where they conversed for half an hour. Both Humberto and his Queen were plainly dressed; they had come to Naples for rest, and were pleased, they said, to meet the King of Hawaii.

  While the sovereigns were conversing, the suite engaged in conversation with the ladies of the court. When we spoke in English, they were surprised, for they expected we would speak in Hawaiian and that an interpreter would aid us. The Queen's sister said it was believed that the King of Hawaii had come to meet his natural sons, who were in the military and naval schools, and it must give him great pleasure to do so. We replied that the young men were not related to the King, which surprised them. We now detected the adventurer's game; he was securing consideration from the Italian government as the guardian of those who, he had confidentially stated, were the natural sons of the Hawaiian King.

  Their Majesties now returned to the reception-room and joined in the general conversation. The Queen was not a handsome woman, but the aureole of royalty about her person, like well-adjusted lights, set off her features to good advantage. She was not stately, nor had she an impressive presence, but was gracious and simple. By her side was the little Crown Prince; she seemed to have a pathetic expression as she took and held his hand. Their Italian Majesties knew something about the Hawaiian group through persons of the court who had visited them; they asked about their countrymen who had settled there. The Queen was greatly pleased when she learned that many of the Hawaiian subjects were good Catholics.

  We then retired. King Humberto walked to the steps of the carriage with our King; the bugle sounded, the troops presented arms, and we returned to our hotel. Within an hour King Humberto returned the visit. He said that the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rome would show our King the attention due to his rank, and regretted his own absence from the capital. After he left, our King informed us that his Italian Majesty, in their interview in the drawing-room, had assumed that the native youths were his sons, but he had corrected his error and regretted that the adventurer had misled him.

  Moreno now abandoned his scheme of connecting himself with the King, but he asked to be permitted to accompany him to Rome as an old and faithful friend. The suite advised the King n()t to compromise himself further with him, and his request was denied.

  The following day we visited the ruins of Pompeii and the spots which usually attract tourists.

  The Italians have a custom of addressing poems of admiration to their friends or to distinguished visitors; the inspiration of the poet, in many cases, being stimulated by the hope of some substantial reward. Numerous Italians eagerly sought decorations from the King. One devised a plan of securing one through his Minister, by addressing him in verse,-

  "All Egregio Signore

  Sua Eccellenza——"

  The poet asked excuse for his boldness in offering spontaneous words of praise to the Minister's noble merits and his splendid virtues; he declared that all Italy breathed through his words as he struck his lyre in honour of one who was the glory of Hawaii and one of the honourable men of the earth. It was an infinite pleasure to address one who was entitled to adoration; the Minister was kindly asked to accept the loyalty of the song.

  It was signed by one Beneduce, who called the next day, sent up his card, and, after some preliminary conversation, humbly asked the gift of a decoration. The King, as well as the Chamberlain, received many fervid effusions. A large number, perhaps the most of them, were not followed by applications for decorations, but were only harmless ways of gratifying the Italian emotions.

  During the next day Ismail, the ex-Khedive of Egypt, and the father of the present Khedive, called on the King. He was short, fat, blear-eyed, and had reddish hair. When he was deposed by the Powers two years before this time, because he was extravagant beyond control and oppressed the fellahin, he selected forty of his wives, gathered the richest furniture of his palace, took the state jewelry, and moved to a residence near Naples. During his reign he had invested vast sums in the cultivation of sugar-cane and in factories for the making of sugar. He said that he had heard of the sugar-production of the Hawaiian group, and asked many questions about the labour used by the planters; he believed that Egypt would become one of the largest sugar-producing countries of the earth, but he had no longer any interest in such matters, as he had been sent away. He asked the King to make him a visit, but, he said, he was now only a private citizen and not entitled to a visit from him.

  Our troubles with the rapacious hotel-keepers of Europe now began. We were charged exorbitant prices without mercy. In the Orient royal gratuities to servants in the palaces which we occupied were expected, and largely exceeded the expenses of hotels. The lists of servants who expected such gratuities in one Eastern palace numbered over one hundred, although there were only three in our party. But we were having a royal dance and paid the pipers royally. The European hotel-keepers took merciless advantage of us. Their most effective and cunning way of doing it was by withholding our accounts until we were on the point of leaving, when it was awkward for the Chamberlain to review or dispute the items of the bills. The Chamberlain, who attended to those matters, looked upon the hour of leaving as one of great annoyance. Apartments were charged to us which we did not occupy; the prices for those we used were excessive; quantities of wine were charged which we never had; charges for meals and service were made sufficient to maintain a large retinue. The valet had declared that he was well capable of preventing these extortions, but in no instance did he aid the Chamberlain. The King was not aware of these gross impositions. Perhaps it should not have been expected that a king would be treated as a common guest, though he received only the same accommodations. When the ex-King of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte, received a bill from an innkeeper of a hotel in Bordentown, New Jersey, which contained a charge, "Miscellaneous, $300," he inquired for the items; the innkeeper promptly informed his secretary that it might be read, "For kicking up a damned fuss while you were my guest." The European innkeepers were without even this excuse in charging our royal party.

  The Crown Prince of Italy (1881).

  Just before we left Naples we were informed of the shooting of President Garfield, in Washington, by Guiteau. This was the second assassination of a ruler since we began the tour. Revising these notes of travel, I recall the incident of King Humberto's taking off twenty years after our interview with him. I had known General Garfield from early days, and was one of his friends who regretted his election to the Presidency, which withdrew him from occupations which were better suited to his talents and temperament.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Rome — Cardinal Jacobini — Interview with the Holy Father — Pleasant Conversation — Cardinal Howard — A Picturesque Scene — The King Prevented by his Suite from Visiting St. Petersburg — Leave for England via Paris — A Scheming Hollander — Ride through Paris and Leave for London — Violation of French Etiquette.

  WHEN we arrived in Rome, by command of the King, I addressed a note to Cardinal Jacobini, the Papal Secretary of State, asking for an interview with the Holy Father. He replied at once, fixing four o'clock as the most convenient hour. We accordingly, in evening dress, drove to the Vatican. An officer led us to a corridor through which we passed and were taken by other officials through other grand corridors to an upper chamber. At the rest on the broad stairways, Swiss soldiers, armed with spears and lances and clad in rich uniforms, stood on guard. Cardinal Jacobini, short, fat, jolly, and shrewd, received us, and led us through several chambers, with ceilings richly frescoed, to a room which was comparatively small; this was the audience-room. It was exquisitely frescoed, and a soft light entered the stained windows. The Cardinals silently entered; among them Cardinal Howard, an enormous Englishman, about seven feet in height, with ruddy cheeks, a humorous expression, and a living proof that these high prelates did not always mortify the flesh.

  A door opened, and his Holiness, Leo
XIII, a thin and spare old man with an extremely pale face, entered and slowly moved across the room, while all bowed in reverence, to a chair on a dais raised a few inches from the floor. In front of him another chair was placed for the King; around the Holy Father the Cardinals were grouped, and we of the suite stood near the King.

  The Pope began the conversation at once in Italian, which was interpreted by Cardinal Howard. He asked many questions about the Hawaiian kingdom. The Cardinals joined, and soon showed that they were well informed about the condition of the native Catholics in Hawaii, of whom there were almost as many as there were Protestants. The Holy Father said to the King: "Will you present your companions?" The King presented us. The Pope asked: "Are they natives of your country?" The King replied that we were, and the sons of Protestant missionaries. Cardinal Howard laughed, and said, "Then they are in the opposition." The Holy Father smiled. There was no solemnity in the interview; it was only a pleasant chat.

  "Do my people in your kingdom behave well?" asked the Pope.

  "Yes," said the King, "they are good subjects."

  "If they do not behave," said the Pope, "I must look after them. Why do you have a white Minister in your government?" he continued.

  The King could not make a brief explanation and turned to me. I answered, for him, that the kings of Hawaii chose educated white men, who were better able to deal with the foreigners, who held most of the wealth of the country.

  Pope Leo XIII (1881).

  Cardinal Howard asked: "Are there any Catholics in your government?"

  I answered: "No, the American Protestants entered the country before the Catholics did, and have kept control of public affairs; but no efficient Catholic is excluded from high office by reason of his faith."

  There was often a pleasant twinkle in the Holy Father's eye, and he smiled while he spoke. I then recalled his humour in the naive blessing which, it was said, he had given to the Oriental bishops during the CEcumenical Council. They were, as a rule, not very clean in person. He raised his vicarious hand when they knelt before him, saying, sotto voce, "Dirty as ye all are" (then aloud), "I give ye all my blessing."

  After an interview which lasted twenty we kissed the Holy Father's hand and rose. to the King: "Your country is far away. pray for your safe return."

  The scene was picturesque. On the slightly raised dais sat a slender, quiet man, with a kindly eye, holding supreme power over nearly two hundred millions of people, their faith in him qualified by no conditions, reservations, or distinctions; in another and in its best sense, "the strongest business corporation of the world," or, as Cardinal Pacca, the Prime Minister of Pius VII, said of the Pontifical government, "a masterpiece, not of divine, but of human policy." Here was the solitary man to whom these millions looked for guidance in life and for salvation beyond the grave. Before this stupendous power in the moral world sat the king of an insignificant group of islands; the great mountain and the mole-hill were confronting each other.

  Though Heine had called this great Church the "Bastile of the Spirit," it was for centuries the conservative power which, through its influence over the State, maintained whatever order existed; it was the police force of the civilised world for a thousand years, whatever the truth of its religious doctrine might be.

  We were then taken through many rooms of the Vatican, and from them went to St. Peter's, where so many kings had humbled themselves before the awful power of Rome.

  We made an agreement with Cardinal Jacobini by which the Holy Father would confer on the King and suite some Papal decoration, and the King would confer his own Orders on the Holy Father and the Papal Staff.

  The King had not given up his intention to visit St. Petersburg, for he hoped to exchange decorations with the Tsar. His suite opposed such a visit for a number of reasons; not only would he fail to be in London during the "season," but he might find the Tsar had left St. Petersburg, and his time was limited. He was obstinate, and inclined to push on at once to Russia. The suite then resorted to a trick which caused him to change his mind. While taking our coffee in the morning I opened a morning Italian paper and pretended to read it. The Chamberlain, according to a prearranged conspiracy, asked for the news. I therefore read to him from the paper, composing or improvising as I read, this item: "There has been a fresh outbreak of the Nihilists in St. Petersburg, and there is great fear of an attack on the Tsar. Ten thousand troops are ordered out to protect the Palace." This was not read directly to the King, nor did we call his attention to it, but he listened. I then handed the paper to him, saying, "Perhaps your Majesty wishes to look over this paper." I knew that he could not read it. The Chamberlain remarked: "If his Majesty goes to St. Petersburg, the Nihilists, in their hatred of all sovereigns, may attack him; better for him, before leaving, to sign papers containing his wishes in the event of any trouble." We said no more; but within an hour the King told us that on reflection he would not visit the Tsar.

  We left Rome in a direct and unbroken journey to London, in order to be there before the season closed.

  During the journey to Paris, a clever Hollander, who had visited our kingdom for a few hours while on a voyage to New Caledonia, introduced himself to the King when he was alone. He adroitly placed before him a specious financial scheme which, he said, would be of much personal benefit to him. He had opened large beds of nickel ore in New Caledonia; he proposed to furnish his Majesty's government with nickel coins of small denomination, for which his Majesty's government should pay the sum of $200,000. The cost of the coin would not exceed $50,000, and the profit, he proposed, should be equally divided between the King and himself. This simple scheme of forcing a base coin into our kingdom for personal gain captivated the King, and he favoured it, and did not display any more lack of moral sense in this affair than the majority of rulers and statesmen. The Hollander subsequently caused samples of the nickel coin to be made in Paris and sent them to his Majesty after he had returned home; but the King's white advisers were again obstinate and refused to execute the scheme. The suite suspected the nature of the transaction, and warned the Hollander that it would fail to bring him any profit; but he believed that the King was an absolute monarch in his own country and refused to abandon it. The King's justification for engaging in it was that the largest capitalist in his kingdom, a white man, had secured a great profit by introducing silver coin into the kingdom in a similar manner, and there was no reason why the King himself should not take advantage of a business opportunity.

  We reached Paris at five o'clock in the morning and were met by the King's Vice-Consul and suite. We drove for several hours through the streets until the departure of the train to Boulogne. On passing through the Place Vendôme, the Vice-Consul pointed to the site of the grand Column of Napoleon, which was destroyed during the Commune. "There," he said, "stood the magnificent column; it was torn down by the vicious Communists." I replied, "I was here, and saw it destroyed. I saw the workmen boring holes in its base." "How extraordinary," he said;" is not this the first visit of the King and his party in Europe? Do people travel from your country to Paris?" By a mere chance, in 1871, I had been assistant bearer of despatches to the American Minister in Paris during the Commune, and left the city just before the attack and massacre of the Communists by the Versailles troops.

  We left for London, but ignorantly committed a breach of courtly etiquette which subsequently annoyed us. Though only in transition through the city, the King should have directed his Chamberlain to call at the palace of the Elysee, and leave his card with the President of the French Republic. This omission was regarded by the Foreign Office as a breach of etiquette, as we soon discovered. The King had no minister at the French court, although he had a Consul-General in Paris without diplomatic power. It was our purpose to visit Paris later in the season, and exchange courtesies with the French President.

  We had no love for the French nation. Its diplomatic agents and warships had made hostile visits to our Islands on several occasions. Under threat o
f bombarding our capital they at one time had extorted unjust commercial privileges from our government, and at a later period had, in spite of the protests of the representative of the United States, landed an armed force, destroyed a large amount of government property, spiked the guns of the fortress, and carried away the King's yacht to the South Seas.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  London, Claridge's Hotel — Royal and Ministerial Callers — The Duke of Edinburgh's Visit to Hawaii — The Prince of Wales Makes a Social "Lion" of the King — The Royal Family Takes the King up Without Reserve — The Queen's Carriages at His Service — Patti at the Royal Italian Opera — An Old Schoolmate, General Armstrong — The Houses of Parliament — The "Plug" Hat the Symbol of British Power — Volunteer Review in Windsor Park — The Crown Prince of Germany — Novelty of Our Situation — Westminster Abbey — A Trip on the River with Lord Charles Beresford.

  WHEN we reached London the King's Consul-General for England insisted that his Majesty should lodge at Claridge's Hotel, where all visiting monarchs reside if they are in good and regular standing and are not invited to any of the palaces.

  The Gladstone government was in power, and Earl Granville promptly called on the King, and was followed by Lord Charles Beresford, who, with the Duke of Edinburgh, had visited the Hawaiian kingdom in the warship "Galatea" some years before. After them came Sir Thomas and Lady Brassey, who had also visited the kingdom in the "Sunbeam." By the King's command our Chamberlain called on Mr. James Russell Lowell, the American Minister, with the deep regrets of the King for the deadly attack on President Garfield. Mr. F. R. Synge, of the Foreign Office, was directed by Earl Granville to attend the King so long as he remained in London. He was a clever man, familiar with royal etiquette, knew everybody, and, moreover, had lived when a child in Hawaii, where his father at one time resided as British Commissioner. Mr. Synge at once relieved us of all anxiety about matters of etiquette, and managed with great skill what we in private called the "royal circus with a Polynesian lion in the cage."