PROTECTOR OF KINGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVIII, Issue 1856, 1 September 1923, Page 2

PROTECTOR OF KINGS.

DEATH OF MOST DECORATED POLICE OFFICER. M. Xavier Paoli, who watched over so many kings and princes when in France, and was the most decorated police officer in the world, died in July, in his ninety-first year. For 25 years M. Paoli was entrusted by the French Government with safeguarding visiting sovereigns. Christened the “Protector of Sovereigns’’ by King Leopold of the Belgians, Paoli was discovered by Queen Victoria in 1887 when she was staying at Aix-les-Bains. Thereafter she refused to cross French territory unless he was in attendance, and always referred to him as “ce bon Paoli.” A man of medium height, rigidly erect, and looking not more than 60 when he was nearly 77, Paoli retired in 1909. At that time his hat in Paris was a museum of gifts from emperors and empresses, kings and princes—gemstudded cigarette cases, gold scarf pins, decorations in diamonds, each with its history. Queen Yiotoria was so fond of him that she gave him a place among the princes and distinguished envoys at her Jubilee. Her affection was equalled by that of King Edward. When the life of King Edward (then Prince of Wales) was attempted by Sipido at the Gare du Nord, Brussels, in 1899, he exclaimed: “Had only Paoli been there, it would never have happened.”