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»30 KING FERDINAND [chap. ii.
have his own janizaries, and he succeeded up to a
point.
At the time that I became acquainted with Ferdinand
and his Court, Princess Marie-Louise had been dead
some years; her death had caused sincere grief to all
around her, and had put an end to all family-life in the
Palace in Sofia. Princess Clementine had followed her
daughter-in-law to the grave, leaving a terrible void in
her son’s life; he had married again, but his second
wife played no part whatever in his life, or in that of
his subjects. The King plunged into voluntary solitude,
absorbed completely in his plans, his dreams of grandeur,
his acute anxieties, his masterly political combinations.
If Ferdinand had lived in the very middle of the
"Quattrocento " as podestd either of Ferrara or Mantua,
he would have vacillated between the Pope, the King of
France, the Roman Emperor and the " Serenissima";
he would have pillaged orphanages and erected
beautiful buildings; he would have caused his enemies to be
stabbed at night in the streets, or he would have
poisoned them at his feasts ; he would have surrounded
himself with scholars and artists, and luxurious palaces,
with brocades and halberdiers covered in gold lace.
He would certainly have possessed that fine and true
artistic taste which now he only pretends to have. Born
four centuries too late, the King of the Bulgarians
contents himself with indulging in dreams of greatness,
with dressing-up as a Byzantine " Basileus," and with
being portrayed thus by third-rate painters; instead of
erecting palaces, he is content to lay-out botanical
gardens, for, far from having become rich as a sovereign,
he has on the contrary ruined himself by presents,
endowments and pecuniary assistance destined to purchase
partisans ; being unable to exterminate his enemies by
poison or steel, Ferdinand endeavours to pit them one
against the other. But, exactly like his mediaeval
prototypes, he wields the weapon of political intrigue
admirably, preferring it to any other occupation or any other
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