Within royal palaces : a brilliant and charmingly written inner view of emperors, kings, queens, princes and princesses ... . ial magnate. Only once in many years, have I seen Francis Josephdisconcerted and displaying loss of composure. It was onthe occasion of a banquet at the Palace of Schoenbrunn inhonor of the Shah of Persia. The champagne at dinner hadbeen too strong in quality and copious in quantity, for theKing of Kings, w^ho became disgracefully drunk. A numberof presentations had to be made to Nasr-el-Deen, once din-ner over, and the Emperor looked utterly horrified when hewitnessed
Within royal palaces : a brilliant and charmingly written inner view of emperors, kings, queens, princes and princesses ... . ial magnate. Only once in many years, have I seen Francis Josephdisconcerted and displaying loss of composure. It was onthe occasion of a banquet at the Palace of Schoenbrunn inhonor of the Shah of Persia. The champagne at dinner hadbeen too strong in quality and copious in quantity, for theKing of Kings, w^ho became disgracefully drunk. A numberof presentations had to be made to Nasr-el-Deen, once din-ner over, and the Emperor looked utterly horrified when hewitnessed the manner in which his Oriental guest greeted thegreat dignitaries of the empire as they approached to maketheir obeisance. Instead of acknowledging their low bows,he merely leered at them through his spectacles, sniffed con-temptuously at some, hiccoughed and laughed offensively atothers, and after indulging in some particularly insulting andaudible remarks in French concerning the appearance of oneof the principal dignitaries of the Church, who w^as being in-troduced to him, he suddenly turned on his heel and stalked. 32 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austro-Hungary. 498 WITHIN ROYAL PALACES. or rather, reeled off to a mirror in another part of the room,where he stood for nearly ten minutes grinning and mutteringat his reflection in the glass and twirling his long that time the Emperor was engaged in attempting toexcuse and atone for the rudeness of his royal visitor,to propitiate those who had been offended thereby, and tocheck the almost irrepressible merriment of those who hadbeen merely spectators to this most extraordinary and ludi-crous scene. After this I need scarcely add that the Persianmonarch did not impress those present with the feeling thatthere was any superior kind of clay in his composition or thathe had any just claim to consideration as one of theanointed of the Lord. Indeed, judging by the horrible littlemans appearance and character, Allah, i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectcourtsandcourtiers
