RUMANIA: Regular Royal Queen

Speeding from Constantinople the famed Simplon-Orient Express picked up a royal saloon car at Bucharest last week, sped across the Balkans toward Paris. At every terminal crowds surged to glimpse Queen Marie of Rumania. During the run across Jugoslavia a second royal car was coupled to the train. Within rode Queen Marie of Jugoslavia who was thus able to visit her royal mother en passant. For a time the spectacle of two “regular royal queens” distracted attention from Prince Nicholas, 23, and Princess Ileana,, 17, of Rumania who accompanied their mother.

Mishaps. Scarcely had Her Rumanian Majesty settled down to the journey than she remembered having left a vial of “seasickness pills” on her dressing table at Bucharest. Since her forthcoming voyage to the U. S. looms as the Queen’s first long sea journey, she had attached great importance to this particular vial of pills, compounded especially by a Florentine pharmacist. Soon, however, Her Majesty was reassured. Hasty telegraphing effected the despatch of the pills by airplane to Paris.

This first contretemps safely weathered, there remained the problem of washing Tricky, the Queen’s pet spaniel. Tricky had managed to soil her coat on a lump of railway grease. Hot water in quantities was requisite. Resourceful, a lady-in-waiting heated pot after pot of water in an electric percolator. . . .

That evening it was discovered that the percolator had been left connected too long, had run down the battery of the royal car until no current remained to light the lights.* Resigned, Her Majesty went to bed at dusk, awoke next morning as her train entered Paris, after 48 hours of travel.

Victoria’s Granddaughter. Parisians rubbed their eyes once more at Queen Marie, unquestionably the most modish of the late Queen Victoria’s granddaughters. Queen Marie, the daughter of Victoria’s second son, the Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, never seemed more the perfect type of Germano-British womanhood than when she greeted with a radiant smile General Lasson, the military aide of President Doumergue who welcomed her to Paris and presented an armful of roses.

As the royal party drove to the Ritz Hotel, Parisians wondered whether Queen Marie would give audience during her stay in Paris to her eldest son, the abdicated Crown Prince Carol of Rumania, now resident at Paris with his favorite, Mme. Lupescu (TIME, Jan. 18). Her Majesty, astute, kept interest in a possible reconciliation between herself and Carol at fever heat during the week by refusing to affirm or deny that she would see him.

Almost the only one of Queen Marie’s children not in the public eye with her last week was, therefore, her eldest daughter, the deposed Queen Elizabeth of Greece.

Marie’s daughter-in-law, Princess Helene of Greece, wife of the abdicated Crown Prince Carol, resides quietly in Bucharest, ignoring her husband’s philanderings, comforted by the companionship of Princess Irene of Greece, her sister.

Strenuous Days. Her Majesty no sooner reached the Ritz (in a fur trimmed coat of beige and green velvet with a close fitting hat) than she sallied forth again to the establishments of Patou and Redfern (in a regal purple hat exactly matching a long swishing cloak). Behind stepped Princess Ileana, demure in a blue frock, a leopard fur clasped about her throat, a small tan silk hat.

Within an hour toute Paris was agog to learn that Queen Marie had ordered sleeves—long sleeves— on all her daytime frocks and had further defied the mode by order-ing her dresses long—almost ankle length.

In these circumstances only one course remained to Prince Nicholas. He strolled the boulevards, defying the mode with a hole in his left sock. Toute Paris warmed to him for continuing to stroll even after the hole was called to his attention. None the less Prince Nicholas dashed to London for a few days, saw a tailor or two whose like is not upon the Continent.

Strenuous Nights. Her Majesty attended the theatre nightly, saw Felix, Le Dictateur, La Prisonniere (now in Manhattan as The Captive), Ciboulette (operetta), and the Douglas Fairbanks cinema, Black Pirate.

Princess Ileana, tired after the first two royal 16-hour days, went to bed early thereafter. Later Ileana assisted her mother to entertain at tea a lady who expressed her intention of sailing for the U. S. on the SS. Leviathan with her Majesty—Mrs. Woodrow Wilson.

Finally Princess Ileana attended with her mother a banquet which began at noon and lasted until high tea time. The host who tendered this Lucullan feast was His Highness, Jagatjit Singh Bahadur, Maharaja of Kapurthala, famed pearl fancier.

U. S. Preparations. In Manhattan an apartment of seven rooms, including a kitchen, was especially redecorated at the Hotel Ambassador for Her Majesty’s personal use—her suite to be lodged in other rooms on the same floor.

A great deal of pussyfooting was indulged in by Rumanian officials at Washington and Paris as to whether Her Majesty might accept a reputed offer to appear for a day before Hollywood cinema cameras as the Queen in Tolstoy’s Resurrection—for $25,000. Said Her Majesty archly to newsgatherers: “I might perhaps have obtained a better engagement than that. But let us not jest! It is false, this report. Absolutely false!”

Though the Queen’s U. S. itinerary was not fixed definitely last week it appeared certain that she would land in Manhattan on Oct. 18, dine the next evening at the White House, and tour the U. S. thereafter until mid-December.

Press Welcome. The Chicago Tribune, which has probably printed more accounts of Prince Carol’s amours and Queen Marie’s alleged philanderings in Bucharest than any other U. S. newspaper, was guilty of the following editorial gaucherie: “[On the Leviathan Queen Marie] will be surrounded by the deck chairs of her old pals, most of whom have beards, and start their sentences with ‘Woof.’ Nobody not of the court will be allowed to set foot within a ship’s length of the queen.”

The U. S. press in general displayed a friendly spirit of welcome, gave publicity to a remark made by Lady Astor as she sailed for England last week: “There is no woman in all Europe who has a better War record than Queen Marie. Do you know she went into leprous buildings where all others were afraid to go and where the dead were piled high and people were dying of disease?”

Significance. Her Majesty’s departure from Rumania is taken at a time when the oppressive Rumanian oligarchy on which her throne rests has its house well in order for inspection by the world at large. Theoretically those pillars of the throne, the brothers Bratiano and Her Majesty’s potent favorite Prince Babu Stirby, have withdrawn from active participation in the Government, following the victory of the People’s Party over the Liberals at the last election (TIME, June 7). Actually the Bratianos stepped out of office as Liberals only to send in their henchman Premier Averescu as a pretended exponent of the People’s Party over the Liberals at the last election (TIME, June 7). Actually the Bratianos stepped out of office as Liberals only to send in theirhenchman Premier Averescu as a pretended exponent of the People’s Party. That is to say, theRumanian oligarchy control the incredibly corrupt electoral machinery of the country and continue to set up in office whom they please under what political label suits them. It suited them to raise the number of People’s Party Deputies at the last election from ten to a two-thirds majority of the entire Chamber which numbers 500.

The Bratianos have thus become politically invisible for a time, leaving the present Government irresponsible for their sins: 1) suppression of over 100 revolutionary movements begun by the people of Bessarabia to free themselves from the Rumanian yoke; 2) systematic encouragement of Rumanians who desire to default debts owed to the U.S. and other countries’ business concerns; 3) exploitation of the peasant class in the interest of great landholders such as the Bratianos

*The royal car, antiquated, was not supplied with a dynamo to charge the battery, as are all modern railroad cars. The trainmen, louts, did not attempt to rig up emergency lights connected to the batteries of other cars on the train.