“C’est mon metier d’être Roi!” So said one of the many dead and gone martyrs on the rack of sovereignty. Alas, poor soul, thou would’st have been happier in any other ‘métier’ I warrant! For kingship is a profession which cannot be abandoned for a change of humour, or cast aside in light indifference and independence because a man is bored by it and would have something new. It is a routine and drudgery to which some few are born, for which they are prepared, to which they must devote their span of life, and in which they must die. “How shall we pass the day?” asked a weary Roman emperor, “I am even tired of killing my enemies!”
‘Even’ that! And the strangest part of it is, that there are people who would give all their freedom and peace of mind to occupy for a few years an uneasy throne, and who actually live under the delusion that a monarch is happy!
The gardener soon finished his task of cutting the narcissi, and though he might not, without audacity, look at his Sovereign-master, his Sovereign-master looked at him, furtively, from under half-closed eyelids, watching him as he bound the blossoms together carefully, with the view of giving as little trouble as possible to those whose duty it would be to arrange them for the Royal pleasure. His work done, he walked quickly, yet with a certain humble stealthiness,--thus admitting his consciousness of that greater presence than his own,--down a broad garden walk beyond the terrace towards a private entrance to the palace, and there disappeared.
The King was left alone,--or apparently so, for to speak truly, he was never alone. An equerry, a page-in-waiting,--or what was still more commonplace as well as ominous, a detective,--lurked about him, ever near, ever ready to spring on any unknown intruder, or to answer his slightest call.
But to the limited extent of the solitude allowed to kings, this man was alone,--alone for a brief space to consider, as he had informed his secretary, certain documents awaiting his particular and private perusal.
The marble pavilion in which he sat had been built by his father, the late King, for his own pleasure, when pleasure was more possible than it is now. Its slender Ionic columns, its sculptured friezes, its painted ceilings, all expressed a gaiety, grace and beauty gone from the world, perchance for ever. Open on three sides to the living picture of the ocean, crimson and white roses clambered about it, and tall plume-like mimosa shook fragrance from its golden blossoms down every breath of wind. The costly table on which this particular Majesty of a nation occasionally wrote his letters, would, if sold, have kept a little town in food for a year,--the rich furs at his feet would have bought bread for hundreds of starving families,--and every delicious rose that nodded its dainty head towards him with the breeze would have given an hour’s joy to a sick child. Socialists say this kind of thing with wildly eloquent fervour, and blame all kings in passionate rhodomontade for the tables, the furs and the roses,--but they forget--it is not the sad and weary kings who care for these or any luxuries,--they would be far happier without them. It is the People who insist on having kings that should be blamed,--not the monarchs themselves. A king is merely the people’s Prisoner of State,--they chain him to a throne,--they make him clothe himself in sundry fantastic forms of attire and exhibit his person thus decked out, for their pleasure,--they calculate, often with greed and grudging, how much it will cost to feed him and keep him in proper state on the national premises, that they may use him at their will,--but they seldom or never seem to remember the fact that there is a Man behind the King!