Colonel Roosevelt (15 page)
Authors: Edmund Morris
The Kaiser swooped again when he saw Roosevelt being accosted by the henpecked Prince Consort of Holland. The King of Denmark introduced the
King of Greece, whom he already knew.
Monarch vied with monarch in getting him to tell stories of Africa, Cuba, and “the Wild West.”
As the all-male evening dragged on through dinner and cordials and cigars, Roosevelt was treated to royal confidences of embarrassing intimacy. Prince Ernest of Cumberland complained that “if it were not for him”—glowering across the table at Wilhelm II—“he would be the King of Hanover.” The King of Greece begged him to lend his voice to Greek claims on Crete, just as George V wanted him to do on behalf of British rule in Egypt. Even after he had said goodnight,
three more kings pursued him to the palace door.
They knew that I was not coming back to Europe, that I would never see them again, or try in any way to keep up relations with them; and so they felt free to treat [me] with an intimacy, and on a footing of equality, which would have been impossible with a European.… In a way, although the comparison sounds odd, these sovereigns, in their relations among themselves and with others, reminded me of the officers and wives in one of our western army posts in the old days, when they were shut up together and away from the rest of the world, were sundered by an impassable gulf from the enlisted men and the few scouts, hunters and settlers round about, and were knit together into one social whole, and nevertheless were riven asunder by bitter jealousies, rivalries, and dislikes.
FRIDAY, 20 MAY 1910
, was a day so beautiful that all London seemed to want to be outdoors and see the procession scheduled to depart from Buckingham Palace at 9:30
A
.
M
. Hours before the first drumbeat sounded, a mass of humanity blocked every approach to the parade route along the Mall to Westminster Hall. There was little noise and less movement as the crowd waited under a cloudless sky. Green Park was at its greenest. The air, washed clean by rain overnight, was sweet and warm, alive with birdsong.
Roosevelt arrived early in the palace yard, where horses and coaches were lining up, and was again accosted by a furious Stéphen Pichon. The Duke of Norfolk had decreed that because of their lack of royal uniforms, they could not ride with the mounted mourners. Instead, they were to share a dress landau. Pichon noted, in a voice shaking with rage, that it would be eighth in a sequence of twelve, behind a carriage packed with Chinese imperials of uncertain gender. Not only that, it was a closed conveyance, whereas some royal ladies up front had been assigned “
glass coaches.”
The landau struck Roosevelt as luxurious all the same, and he admitted afterward, in describing the funeral, that he had never heard of glass coaches “excepting in connection with Cinderella.” But Pichon could not be calmed down:
He continued that “ces Chinois” were put ahead of us. To this I answered that any people dressed as gorgeously as “ces Chinois” ought to go ahead of us; but he responded that it was not a laughing matter. Then he added that “ce Perse” had been put in with us, pointing out a Persian prince of the blood royal, a deprecatory, inoffensive-looking Levantine of Parisian education, who was obviously ill at ease, but whom Pichon insisted upon regarding as somebody who wanted to be offensive. At this moment our coach drove up, and Pichon bounced into it. I suppose he had gotten in to take the right-hand rear seat, to which I was totally indifferent.… But Pichon was scrupulous in giving me precedence, although I have no idea whether I was entitled to it or not. He sat on the left rear seat himself, stretched his arm across the right seat and motioned me to get in so that “ce Perse” should not himself take the place of honor! Accordingly I got in, and the unfortunate Persian followed, looking about as unaggressive as a rabbit in a cage with two boa constrictors.
Band music blared as the gates of the palace opened and the Duke of Connaught rode out onto the Mall, escorting the two chief mourners, George V and Wilhelm II. Behind them came file upon file of mounted monarchs, princes, dukes, pashas, and sultans. The pace of the procession was so slow that people in the crowd were able, with the help of printed lists, to identify every strange or famous face. Eyes lingered longer on the Kaiser than on King George. He sat erect on a gray charger, helmet and jeweled orders flashing in the sun, his little left arm curving into the horse’s reins in a practiced
trompe l’oeil
.
When the last royal rider, Prince Bovaradej of Siam, had meekly trailed a posse of minor-state European dukes out the gates, the coaches and carriages started to roll. Edith Roosevelt stood with Kermit and Ethel on a private balcony overlooking the park, searching for her husband’s landau. They were among the few spectators to pay any attention to it when it passed. Roosevelt sat well back, with
the strange reticence that sometimes overcame him on ceremonial occasions, avoiding eye contact with the crowd. There was no indicating that he was being subjected to a further Gallic tirade:
Pichon’s feelings overcame him.… He pointed out the fact that we were following “toutes ces petites royautés,” even “le roi du Portugal.” I then spoke to him seriously, and said that in my judgment France and the United States were so important that it was of no earthly consequence whether their representatives went before or behind the representatives of utterly insignificant little nations like Portugal, and that I thought it was a great mistake to make a fuss about it, because it showed a lack of self-confidence. He shook his head, and said that in
Europe they regarded these things as of real importance, and that if I would not join him in a protest he would make one on his own account. I answered that I very earnestly hoped that he would not make a row at a funeral (my French failed me at this point, and I tried alternately “funéraille” and “pompe funèbre”), that it would be sure to have a bad effect.
A Franco-American accord (Persia abstaining) was reached before the landau made its first stop in Parliament Square. Pichon agreed to wait and see where he was seated later in the day, at lunch in Windsor Castle, before making his placement a
casus belli
that might prevent France’s attendance at the future coronation of George V.
THE ENORMOUS PARADE
, growing ever more brilliant as the sun climbed high, looked almost festive until King Edward’s coffin was brought out from Westminster Hall, to a single toll of Big Ben. Cannons boomed across the river. The casket was placed on a gun carriage, which led the way up Whitehall. By now, the procession was a mile long. Moving to the implacable rhythm of funeral marches by Handel, Beethoven, and Chopin, it took over an hour to get to Marble Arch. Roosevelt remained unobtrusive, but caught the eye of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, reporting for the
Daily Mail:
“
One remembers the strong profile of the great American, set like granite as he leans back in his carriage.”
Another profile, less strong but equally expressionless, was that of the heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. Franz Ferdinand, plumed and corseted, gave off waves of hauteur that disagreeably affected many observers. An American correspondent predicted that the archduke was “
destined to make history in Southeastern Europe.”
Belgium’s enormous young king made a handsome figure, modestly dressed in a dark uniform that reproved the baroque costumes of the German dukes. They in turn failed to match the splendor of the Bulgarian Tsar, sweating under a white fur hat and carbuncled from groin to shoulder with decorations.
The Tsar whom everybody would have preferred to see had stayed home in Russia, preoccupied with a pogrom against the Jews of Kiev. He was represented by his brother and mother.
Epaulettes pulsed like golden jellyfish and hundreds of medals swayed as the Earl Marshal, worrying about the approach of noon, tried to hurry his lead horses down the Edgware Road to Paddington. By 11:57 every dignitary expected at Windsor for the interment service was aboard the waiting royal train. It departed with no further ceremony, hauling a white-domed coffin car. Bystanders on the platform who had watched that equipage bearing away the Victorian Age, only nine years before, now saw it carry off the Edwardian.
M. PICHON’S MOOD
began to improve when he was required to walk ahead of Roosevelt on the long march from Windsor Station to the castle.
The midday heat was stifling, and only an occasional breeze darkened the buttercup fields stretching down to the Thames.
Roosevelt suffered in his black clothes. For some reason, his aides-de-camp had made him carry an overcoat. He shifted it uncomfortably from arm to arm, making no attempt to keep step with his marching companions. It was plain that the special ambassador of the United States had had enough of
pompe funèbre
.
“E
PAULETTES PULSED LIKE GOLDEN JELLYFISH
.”
Roosevelt (far right) marches in the funeral procession of Edward VII, 20 May 1910
.
(photo credit i3.2)
But there was more to come.
The cloister of St. George’s Chapel was heavy with the scent of stacked flowers. Members of His Majesty’s government sat waiting inside. To the delight of one socialistic reporter, there were no pews available for the royal mourners. They stood perspiring, awkwardly jockeying for position as the burial service got under way. Their swords and thigh boots made kneeling difficult, and getting up even more so. The liturgy was interminable, and the air in the room almost too close to breathe. Roosevelt began to look pale under what was left of his African tan.
Not until almost two o’clock did the coffin descend into the crypt. The
mourners filed by to take a last look at it—Wilhelm II visibly distraught—then adjourned for lunch in the castle. Roosevelt sat at the King’s table. M. Pichon sat at Queen Mary’s, and seemed satisfied that the honor of France had been restored.