King Peter the Silent.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 6, 11 August 1909, Page 44

King Peter the Silent.

(By

PERCIVAL PHILLIPS.)

They call him “the Silent King” in Belgrade, and “the King who does not care.” He is the loneliest monarch in all Europe, this man without friends or amusements, whom other monuchS will not know, and whose personality and very thoughts are impenetrable. I saw him at his bedroom window

overlooking Milan-street this morning—a gaunt, shrunken, old man, with hollow cheeks above his brush-like, white moustache, and with cavernous, crafty eyes. He was gazing listlessly at the frantic efforts of a bullock team to avoid an approaching tramcar. One elaw-like hand picked restlessly at the buttons of his general’s blue undress tunic. Then with another puff of the inevitable cigarette he turned away with an air of utter boredom. Peter Karageorgevitch is an unhappy man because his occupation is gone. All his life he has plotted and intrigued to gain the Servian throne. The years he spent in his little villa at Geneva were devoted to negotiations with conspirators. Conspiracies were meat and drink to him. He thought of nothing but his cipher correspondence with the Karageorge party in Belgrade and the clandestine meetings with his supporters in Switzerland. Having walked to the throne over the bodies of an assassinated King and Queen, he has no further need for conspiracies. His future is fairly assured. It would be a kindness to Peter Karageorgevitch if he lost his crown and were sent back to Geneva to resume his intrigues by post. Modest Palace. He lives in a small, two-storeyed, cream-coloured palace fronting on Belgi ado’s principal street. It is a modest royal residence, with French window.?, -and a lawn separated from the public pavement by an equally modest iron fence. There was once another palace. It adjoined tire present excessively new-

looking structure. But after a Kmg and Queen were murdered there one June morning nearly eeven years ago, and their mutilated bodies thrown into the forecourt, the building was razed to the ground, that the sight might not eonjure up unpleasant memories for King Peter ■when he looked out his front windows. Hence the stretch of cool, green lawn, ■with the curious raised mound in the centre, which marks the site of the old palace cellars. Like most of his subjects, King Peter rises early, usually with the sun. Then, at six o’clock he rides or drives for perhaps an hour with two or three equerries. He remains indoors the rest of the day. Sometimes his ordinary programme is disturbed by a religious festival or a State ceremony, but at the earliest possible moment he hastens back to his seclusion. Coffee and Cigarettes.

He continually sips black coffee and smokes strong Servian cigarettes and scans the latest editions of the newspapers. He eagerly reads every line of criticism about himself, but he never shows anger or amusement, no matter what may be said about him. Some time ago, when an unusually outspoken journal pilloried his Majesty in a series of ronst excoriating articles, demanding that be relinquish a throne which he ascended through assassinations, King Peter never gave any sign of resentment. Neither did he express surprise when the unfortunate editor, an earnest and patriotic Serb, was arrested for lese-majeste. A few days later the editor was murdered in the police station, within a stone’s throw of the palace. The King “regretted” that the police had made a mistake. ■“■\» police were never punished. The _..ig has no marked tastes in any direction. He reads very little. Few members of the Court dine wit'h him. The officers in attendance are wearied almost beyond expression by their palace duties. His Majesty is never cross, never exeited, never talkative. His con-

versa tion is confined usually to amiable monosyllables. Greatest Trial. One of the greatest trials in the life of this colourless King is to attend '* State ball. Eight hundred guests arrive at the palace on a given night, and King- Peter, resplendent in full dress—• he is fond of changing his general’s uniform from day to day—greets his guests ■with a set smile on his parchment-lik® face, and distributes little sentences in a somewhat asthmatic voice. At the earliest possible moment tha King goes to bed. Intense amusement was created by the manner of his withdrawal from a recent ball. A gorgeous lackey passed down the corridor solemnly bearing—a large tin of hot water. Then there were eries of “The King!” and as the guests drew back against the walls, a solemn little procession came through the corridor towards the royal bedchamber, with the King bowing mechanically right and left. A moment later he disappeared after the tin of hot water. Sometimes, during the war fever, he rose at four in the morning to drive into the country, and review a regiment or two. He was always back in Belgrade before six, shut up in his cream-colour-ed prison by the time ’ the capital was awake. He is not over-interested in military matters. A man who has spent so many years among tourists in Switzerland eannot be expected suddenly to rise to the dignity of a War Lord at the age of sixty.