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1914] AN AUDIENCE OF KING GUSTAF 269
time. At the entrance to the reception-rooms, full of
beautiful furniture, pictures, bronzes, and admirable
Gobelin tapestries of the eighteenth century, the whole
Court awaited me. As soon as the introductions had
been made, the doors were thrown open, and I was
ushered into the presence of Gustaf V. His Majesty,
in cold and formal tones, exchanged the usual
compliments with me, greeted the members of my suite in the
same manner, and then begged me to follow him into
his private drawing-room; the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, M. Wallenberg (whose acquaintance I had made
the day before), was invited to accompany us. The
King’s expression and his tone then changed completely.
He sat down, having offered us chairs, and began by
asking me questions about the health of the Emperor
and that of his family; he then passed on quite simply
to the delicate question of the recent divorce of his son,
and expressed, in terms which one felt were perfectly
sincere, his regrets at having for ever lost the young
Grand-Duchess, his daughter-in-law, whom he had liked
very much. I appreciated the dignity and the frankness
of these words, which at once put me at my ease with
the King. His Majesty then questioned me about the
events that had occurred in Bulgaria. "How had King
Ferdinand, who had the reputation of being such a subtle
politician, managed so completely to lose the game in
which he had taken part ?"
I replied by a few comments on the events I had
recently witnessed and on Ferdinand himself. Amongst
other things I expressed the opinion that the curiously
undecided character of the King had had a great deal to
do with his mishap; if from the outset he had taken up
a definite line and had stuck to it throughout, a great
many things would never have happened. But Ferdinand
was always changing his mind and his direction. . . .
Here the King interrupted me. "Oh! but, monsieur,"
he exclaimed, significantly, "do not judge sovereigns
too harshly! If you only knew how difficult it is,
how painful it is sometimes, to make a decision amidst
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