Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/105

Rh I quite understood what the bitterness of his innermost feelings must have been. I often had long and interesting conversations with the Prince which helped me on the banks of the Koura to remember distant France.

One night I went to a Russian play at the theatre with my aunt; and the Prince, who sat next to me, whispered in my ear its version in French. Between the acts he escorted me on his arm to the foyer, when I asked him:

"Monseigneur, et la France? N'y songez- vous donc jamais?"

He looked at me and smiled, then said:

"It would be necessary to change the whole of the Army and the whole of the Navy."

When I told him of the spark of light, still visible very often amongst the Norman peasants of another generation, in the pupils of the old men's eyes, those who had fought the wars of the Empire and would have willingly laid down their lives for their Emperor—whose children now are fighting for France.

The Prince seemed pleased and surprised.

"En tous les cas," me dit-il, "ce ne serait pas à moi mais à mon frère."

As every one knows, his brother Prince Victor Napoléon lived in Brussels and married Princess Clémentine, daughter of the late King of the Belgians, after the death of the latter who for years had been opposed to the marriage. The Prince and Princess