239 



CHARACTER SKETCH. 



KING FERDINAND OF BULGARIA. 



BY ALFRED G. GARDINER. 



In a house in Sofia, I have been told, 

 there is a dead hand, preserved not as a 

 relic but as a reminder. The house is 

 the old home of the murdered Stambu- 

 loff, the hand is the hand of that rough- 

 hewn patriot hiii self. One day the 

 hand is to be bur.ed. The day will be 

 that on which S^ambuloff's murder is 

 avenged. It is an uncomfortable reflec- 

 tion for King Ferdinand. 



And yet to live under the shadow of 

 a dead hand seems the perfectly fitting 

 destiny of Ferdinand, for he is the 

 King of melodrama. Those people who 

 suppose that melodrama is not true to 

 life have not studied his story or his 

 character. Both are Transpontine. He 

 is the very stuff of which the dreams of 

 the playwright and the romancist are 

 compact. There are times indeed when 

 you almost doubt whether he was no^ 

 invented by Dumas or Stevenson or Mr. 

 Anthony Hope ; you seem to see the 

 movement of the wires and the face of 

 the author between the wrings enjoying 

 the success of his triumphant creation. 

 When the curtain goes down the author 

 will surely appear and thank you for 

 your kind reception of the child of his 

 invention. 



KING BY HOOK OR CROOK. 

 As a matter of fact King Ferdinand 

 was invented by his mother. It used 

 to be said that Princess Clementine was 

 the cleverest woman m Europe. This 

 only meant that she was a very skilful 

 ancl ambitious intriguer. The daughter 

 of King Louis Philippe and the widow 

 of Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg- 

 Gotha, she felt that her youngest and 

 favourite child had a special claim 

 upon Providence. She resolved 

 that he should be King by hook 

 or by crook. ^Moreover, she had 

 the assurance of a gipsy that he was 

 destined like Macbeth for a throne, and 



Princess Clementine was not a person 

 to bandy words with a gipsy. She took 

 •the practical course, and prepared her 

 son, from the cradle, for the career 

 marked out for him. He was whisked 

 from capital to capital, habituated to 

 the company of princes, indoctrinated 

 with the diplomatic subtleties of "The 

 Prince," taught the facile graces of the 

 charmeur, made to cultivate entomology 

 as one of those hobbies that sit so pret- 

 tily on potentates, coached in iialf-a- 

 clozen languages, even in Hungarian, 

 for one never knew from whence the 

 call to kingship would come. Thrones 

 might spring up or fall vacant any- 

 where. One must be ready to pounce. 

 It IS a beautiful idyll of maternal love 

 — modern inversion of the legend of 

 the Roman matron who sacrificed her 

 children to the State, or of the story of 

 Catherine Sforza. 



SEARCHING FOR A PRINCE. 

 The moment came. One day some 

 twenty-five years ago there sat in a 

 X'lennese beer garden a group of Bul- 

 garian statesmen, 'i'hey were returning 

 empty handed from their quest for a 

 prince. They had a throne to offer, but 

 had found no one hungry enough to 

 take it. Nor was the reluctance of the 

 European princelings surprising. fen 

 years had passed since Bulgaria had 

 won its freedom after five centuries of 

 Turkish misrule. But it had only 

 escaped from the t}ranny of the Turk 

 to fall under the shadow of Russia. 

 The Tsar meant it to be the pawn in 

 his own Balkan game. Poor Prince 

 Alexander of Battenburg — brave, cour- 

 ageous, and beloved by the simple 

 Bulgarian peasantry — had been de- 

 throned, ancl anyone who ventured to 

 follow him had to face the menace of 

 Russia. And without Russia none of 

 the Powers would give him countenance. 



