Princess Marie

Within the last few months various events have con-tributed to render the relations between the Prince and his people more intimate and cordial than they were before. His visit to the West, and the reception he received in Austria, and still more in England, were gratifying to his people as evidence of the importance attached to Bulgaria abroad. Then, too, the Prince gained ground in popular opinion by his marriage last year with the Princess Marie of Parma. The choice of the bride was acceptable to the country from the fact of her representing the house of Bourbon, and of her thus claiming relationship by birth with half the royal dynasties of Europe.

Moreover, by her charm of manner and kindliness of nature, the Princess Marie soon made herself popular in her adopted country; and the feeling of general good-will entertained towards her was intensified when, at the commencement of this year, she gave birth to a son, who was born on Bulgarian soil, and who was given by his parents the name of Boris, the national hero of Bulgarian tradition. The father of a Bulgarian Prince could no longer be regarded as a foreigner, and the dynasty has now acquired a national character which, even under Prince Alexander, it had never quite possessed. An old resident here told me that he had never witnessed such a display of enthusiasm amongst a people singularly undemonstrative by character, as that which greeted the announcement of Prince Boris’s birth.

The popular feeling about the infant Prince would probably have been far more enthusiastic if his parents had consented to have him brought up in the Orthodox Greek Faith. If the babe ever grows up to manhood he will, if he is wise, recognize the political advantages of belonging to the same religion as his people. When the royal infant happens—as was the case the other day, during his parent’s sojourn at Eberfeld—to be the sole kingly occupant of the royal palace, a flag of his own is hoisted over the building. But, as he grows up, a creed of his own would be a more effective passport to Bulgarian respect and affection.

Again, the sudden death of Prince Alexander, which only preceded by a few weeks the birth of an heir to the Bulgarian throne, removed a source of possible danger from the path of the reigning dynasty. Before that event all Bulgarians, who, from one cause or another, were dissatisfied with the existing regime, could always contemplate the possibility of Prince Alexander’s restoration as a means of redressing the grievances, whether real or imaginary, under which they considered themselves to suffer.