‘Oh, ages ago. When him and me were first friends. I can’t remember exactly. But I know it’s donkey’s years; since I read that silly old book.’
‘Donkey’s years being, I take it, rather less than a, year ago — unless you knew Alexis before he came-to Wilvercombe.’
That’s right. Wait a minute. Look! Here’s a bit of a cinema-ticket stuck in at another page, with the date on it. Ooh, yes! November 15th that’s right. I remember now. We went to the pictures and then Paul came round to see me afterwards and told me a lot about himself. It was the same evening. He expected me to be terribly excited about it all.’
‘November; you’re sure?’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘At any rate, it was some time before those funny letters started to come for him?’
‘Oh, yes, ages. And after the letters started to come, he shut up about it, and wanted his silly old paper back. I told you that before.’
‘I know you did. All right. Now, sit down. I want to look at this.’
This was the paper:
Francis Josias
D. of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1678—735)
|
Charles Marie Levannier = Anastasia (illegitimate)
(of the French Legation) b. 1728
|
Nicholas I = Charlotte, b. 1770
Tsar of Russia (youngest of seven children)
(morganatically in
1815)
|
Nicolaevna (Nicole) = Gaston, natural son of
Louis-Philippe,
b. 1820, m.1847
|
Capt. Stefan; Ivanovitch Krasky = Louise, b. 1848
m. 1871
|
Alexis Gregorovitch Vorodin = Melanie, b. 1883
|
Pavlo Alexeivitch Vorodin, b. 1909
‘H’m!’ said. Wimsey. ‘I wonder where he got this from. I never knew that Nicholas I married anybody but Charlotte-Louise of Prussia.’
‘I remember about that,’ said Leila. ‘Paul said that that marriage couldn’t be proved. He kept on about that. He said, if only it could be proved he’d be a prince or something. He was always worrying over that Charlotte person, horrid old wretch she must have been, too. Why, she was forty-five if she was a day, and then she went and had a baby. I wonder it didn’t kill her. It ought; to have, I’m sure.’
‘Nicholas I must have been quite a, kid at the time. Let’s see—1815 that would be when he was in Paris after the Waterloo business. Yes, I see — Charlotte’s father was something to do with the French legation; that fits in all right. I suppose he had this illegitimate daughter of Duke Francis pushed off on to him when he was in Saxe-Coburg. She went back and lived with him in Paris and had seven children, and the youngest of them was Charlotte, who, I suppose, somehow got hold of the young Emperor and cradle-snatched him.’
‘The old beast!” I said to Paul, when he took up with this Mrs Weldon. “Well,” I said, “marrying old hags must run in your family,” I said. But he wouldn’t hear anything against Great-Great-Grandma Charlotte. She was something quite out of the way, by his account of it. A sort of what’s-her-name.’
‘Ninon de l’Enclos?’
‘Yes, I daresay if that’s the old wretch who went on having lovers till she was about a hundred and fifty. I don’t think it’s nice at all. I can’t think what the men were thinking about. Potty, they must have been, if you ask me. Anyway, what you, said is about right. She was a widow several times over — Charlotte, I mean. She married some Count or other or General Somebody — I forget — and had something to do with politics.’
‘Everybody in Paris in 1815 had to do with politics,’ said Wimsey. ‘I can see Charlotte all right, playing her cards carefully among the new, nobility. Well, this elderly beauty marries, or doesn’t marry, the young Tsar and produces a daughter and calls her Nicolaevna after her illustrious papa. Being in France, they call the child Nicole. What happens next? Old Charlotte goes on playing her cards well, and, having tasted royal blood, so to speak, thinks she’ll worm herself in on the Bourbons. There are no legitimate princes she can bag for her daughter, but’ she thinks the wrong side of the blanket better than being left out in the cold, and marries the girl off to some little accident of Louis Phillippe’s.’
‘A nice set of people they must have been in those days!’
‘So-so. I daresay Charlotte may really have thought she was married. to Nicholas, and been frightfully disappointed at finding her claims set aside. They must have been one too many for her there — Nicholas and his diplomats. Just when she thought he had hooked her fish so well — the fading beauty, with her wit and charm, pulling off the biggest, coup of her life — making herself Empress. France was in confusion, the Empire broken, and those who had climbed to power on the eagle’s wings falling with his fall — who knew what would happen to the intriguing widow of one of Napoleon’s counts or generals? — but Russia! The double-headed eagle still had all his pinions—’
‘How you do go on!’ said Miss Garland, impatiently. ‘It doesn’t sound a bit likely to me. If you ask me, I think Paul made it all up out of those books he was so fond of.’
‘Very probably,’ admitted Wimsey. ‘I only mean that it was a good story. Colourful, vivid stuff, with costume effects and plenty of human interest. And it fits in reasonably well from the historical point of view. You’re quite sure you heard all about it in November?’
‘Yes, of course I’m sure.’
‘My opinion of Paul Alexis’ powers of invention is going up. Romantic fiction should have been his line. Anyhow, we’ll pass all that. Here’s Charlotte, still clinging to this idea about morganatic marriages and thrones, and marrying her daughter Nicole to this Bourbon fellow, Gaston. Nothing unlikely about that. He’d come in between the Prince de Joinville and the Duc d’Aumale as regards age, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t. Now, what happens to Nicole?? She has a daughter — the family seems to have run to daughters — called Melanie. I wonder what happened to Gaston and Nicole under the second Empire. Nothing is said about Gaston’s profession. Probably he accepted the fait accompli and kept his royalist leanings and origin quiet. At any rate, in 1871, his daughter Louise marries a Russian — that’s a throw-back to the old stock. Let’s see—1871. What do I connect with 1871? Of course — the Franco-Prussian War, and Russia’s behaving rather unkindly to France about the Treaty of Paris. Alas! I fear Louise went over, horse, foot and artillery, to the enemy! Possibly this Stefan Ivanovitch came to Paris in some diplomatic connection about the time of the Treaty of Berlin. Goodness knows!’
Leila Garland yawned dreadfully.