enna a patriotic Austrian, in
Rome a sentimental Italian. He was also a warrior, a poet after his own
fashion, a money-getter, and a speculator on 'Change. His alleged
martial feats and his wily, diplomatic moves ever since the first Balkan
war abound in surprises, and would repay close investigation. The ease
with which the Austrians captured Mount Lovtchen and his capital made a
lasting impression on those of his allies who were acquainted with the
story, the consequences of which he could not foresee. What everybody
seemed to know was that if the Teutons had defeated the Entente, King
Nikita's son Mirko, who had settled down for the purpose in Vienna,
would have been set on the throne in place of his father by the
Austrians; whereas if the Allies should win, the worldly-wise monarch
would have retained his crown as their champion. But these well-laid
plans went all agley. Prince Mirko died and King Nikita was deposed. For
a time he resided at a hotel, a few houses from me, and I passed him now
and again as he was on his way to plead his lost cause before the
distinguished wreckers of thrones and regimes.

It seemed as though, in order to provide Paris with a cosmopolitan
population, the world was drained of its rulers, of its prosperous and
luckless financiers, of its high and low adventurers, of its tribe of
fortune-seekers, and its pushing men and women of every description. And
the result was an odd blend of classes and individuals worthy, it may
be, of the new democratic era, but unprecedented. It was welcomed as of
good augury, for instance, that in the stately Hotel Majestic, where the
spokesmen of the British Empire had their residence, monocled
diplomatists mingled with spry typewriters, smart amanuenses, and even
with bright-eyed chambermaids at the evening dances.[1] The British
Premier himself occasionally witnessed the cheering spectacle with
manifest pleasure. Self-made statesmen, scions of fallen dynasties,
ex-premiers, and ministers, who formerly swayed the fortunes of the
world, whom one might have imagined _capaces imperii nisi imperassent_,
were now the unnoticed inmates of unpretending hotels. Ambassadors whose
most trivial utterances had once been listened to with concentrated
attention, sued days and weeks for an audience of the greater
plenipotentiaries, and some of them sued in vain. Russian diplomatists
were refused permission to travel in France or were compelled to
undergo more than average