easing to the author.

The press of the day printed delightful articles about the scene, but
with no pretense to accuracy. I had nothing to do with that in any way.

Her Majesty Queen Amelie of Portugal once honored me in a distinctive
manner. She received me alone without any of her ladies of honor, which
allowed her to dispense with all etiquette and to have me sit in a chair
near her. In this intimate way she entertained me for three-quarters of
an hour asking questions on all sorts of subjects. I had the chance to
tell her how the oriental theme of the ballet in _Samson_ had been given
to me years before by General Yusuf, and to give her many details of
that interesting personage of whom she had heard her uncles speak.

"I am going to leave you," she said at last, "but not because I want to.
If one conscientiously practices the _metier_ of being a queen, one
doesn't always find it amusing."

What would that unhappy woman have said, could she have foreseen the
calamities that were to befall her!

In Rome I had the honor to be invited to a musicale at Queen
Margharita's. The great drawing-rooms were filled with great ladies
laden down with family jewels of fabulous value. All the music was
terribly serious. Now this kind of music does not make for personal
acquaintance, especially as all these great people were victims of a
boredom they did their best to conceal. Afterwards the two queens wanted
to talk to me. Queen Helene, who is a violinist, told me that her
children were learning the violin and the cello, an arrangement I
praised highly, for the exclusive devotion to the piano in these later
days has been the death of chamber music and almost of music itself.

In my gallery of sovereigns I cannot forget the gracious Queen of
Belgium. I have always seen her, however, in company with her august
husband, and this story would become interminable if I were to include
"Their Majesties" of the sterner sex--the Emperor of Germany, the Kings
of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Portugal....

As I have had more to do with princes than with sovereigns, my tongue
sometimes slips in talking to the latter. As I excused myself one day
for addressing the Queen of Belgium as "Highness," she replied, with a
smile, "Don't apologize; that recalls good times."

She told me of the time when she and the king, then only heirs apparent,
used to go up and down the Mediterranean coast in a little two-seated
car. It was during this period that