The modern type of king shows a disposition
to intimate at the outset that he cannot help it, and to justify or at
any rate utilise his exceptional position by sound hard work. It is an
age of working kings, with the manners of private gentlemen. The King
of Italy for example is far more accessible than was the late Pierpont
Morgan or the late Cecil Rhodes, and he seems to keep a smaller court.
I went to see him from Udine. He occupied a moderate-sized country villa
about half an hour by automobile from headquarters. I went over with
General Radcliffe; we drove through the gates of the villa past a single
sentinel in an ordinary infantry uniform, up to the door of the house,
and the number of guards, servants, attendants, officials, secretaries,
ministers and the like that I saw in that house were--I counted very
carefully--four. Downstairs were three people, a tall soldier of the
bodyguard in grey; an A.D.C., Captain Moreno, and Col. Matteoli, the
minister of the household. I went upstairs to a drawing-room of much
the same easy and generalised character as the one in which I had met
General Joffre a few days before. I gave my hat to a second bodyguard,
and as I did so a pleasantly smiling man appeared at the door of the
study whom I thought at first must be some minister in attendance. I did
not recognise him instantly because on the stamps and coins he is always
in profile.
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