PRINCE ALEXANDER'S MARRIAGE.
THE outburst of annoyed surprise which has followed the reported morganatic marriage of Prince Alexander of Battenberg to the Fritulein Loisinger, a public singer of the third rank, is natural enough, because the public considers itself done out of a romance; but it has taken, we conceive, an erroneous direction. The European community takes an interest in Prince Alexander, because at a moment when heroes are scarce, it supposes him to be an heroic, or at all events semi-heroic, figure. His unexpected election to the throne of Bulgaria, his assumption of nearly autocratic power there, his breach with Russia in the interest of his new sub- jects, his sudden manifestation of himself in the war with Servia as a great officer and considerable General, his seizure by kidnappers while still a ruler, his escape and his restora- tion, were all incidents in a most romantic drama, and their effect was not wholly destroyed by his apology to the Czar, and his final abdication. It was expected that the Prince would return, and when it was known that he had been accepted by the Emperor and Empress of Germany as a husband for their daughter, there was a widespread conviction that he would not only be Prince of Bulgaria, but be admitted into the fullest privileges of the caste, as a legitimate ruler of an independent, though perhaps a petty State. The desperate fight waged over him within the German House, the anger of Prince Bismarck, the protests received from Russia, and the resolution to wait attributed to the young couple, all increased the charm of Prince Alex- ander's personality; and the world in general expected a happy denouement to the romance almost as confidently as it expects a happy termination to a domestic novel. The announcement, therefore, of a morganatic marriage with a lady of estimable character but inferior birth, has all the effect of a disappointment, and the irritated onlookers declare with one voice that the Prince has ruined himself, and that his career is closed. He will pass the rest of his life, it is said, as an Austrian officer of distinction, but his European position has ended for ever.
That is not quite so certain. It may, of course, be taken as clear that the Prince's chance of what may be called the regular career is either dead, or so diminished as to be irrecognisable. His conduct, though not unusual among men of his rank, or greatly condemned by them, is always treated as a fault amounting, when the actor in the scene is not a reigning Sovereign, almost to a disqualification. It is not quite one, for had King Ferdinand of Coburg and Portugal accepted the Throne of Spain when it was offered him by Marshal Prim, he would, though morganatically married, have been accepted by all the Courts of Europe and by the proudest among her peoples. Still, a marriage of the kind tells against a Prince, and Prince Alexander will not, we may rest assured, become, as he might have become, the favourite of three dynasties, or be restored to Bulgaria as the choice of a European Conference assembled after a war to decide the destiny of the Balkans. That road to grand promotion is closed to him, possibly for ever; but then, Prince Alexander had two roads, and the second and more romantic one is as open as it was. When nations are in death-grips, they do not
think much of the history of their Generals, but only of their capacity of securing victory; and it is well under- stood that if the great war breaks out, the only possible Generalissimo of the Balkans is Prince Alexander of Battenberg. He is the only competent General who can excite enthusiasm in Eastern Europe, who knows precisely where such new soldiers fail, who can pour into Bulgarians and Servians the necessary somewhat, and who, if he leads, will be followed to the death. The power of turning 300,000 drilled men into efficient soldiers is, when great battles are at hand, a power which overrides etiquettes, and even dynastic dislikes ; and if he were once needed, the marriage with Fraulein Loisinger would be no more in Prince Alexander's way than the fact that he himself is only half Royal by descent. He would be called on to fight, and if he fought successfully, he would name his own reward, if it were the Throne of Constantinople, or the recognition of his wife as Queen of Bulgaria and the equal of Queen Natalie, the other lady in Europe who, born a subject of no high rank, has been acknowledged by all Courts, and protected by at least two against her husband's oppression. No one in the Balkan would care one straw whom the Prince had married, any more than they cared for ages who was the reigning Sultana at Constantinople, or cared seventy years ago who was the wife of the first Obrenoviteh. Victory and popular favour taken together constitute irresistible claims, and where there is no hereditary dynasty to compete, a crown may be won on the battle-field as well as through the intrigues of diplomacy, and kept, it may be, a great deal longer. The sword, after all, has been in all countries the original sceptre, and Europe may be approaching a phase, temporary let us hope, in which, if force will not constitute the highest right, no right will be valid, to a throne at all events, which force does not sustain. How many were the ancient thrones, one of them among the oldest in Europe, which were blown away, so to speak, by the cannon in 1866 ? Prince Alexander of Battenberg has disappointed those who watched his career ; but he is still a great soldier, and Destiny may not have said her last word about him yet.
We cannot wonder that so many of the Princes of the Continent contract these morganatic alliances. Their lot has become of late years infinitely more oppressive than of old, for they have been shut out by causes which it would take a volume to explain from politics and diplomacy. They may become Generals, and often do—the Archduke Albrecht is one of the best-known soldiers of Europe, and so was the "Red Prince "—but they rarely govern provinces, they are never Cabinet Ministers, and unless mediatised, they do not try to become Ambassadors. Isolated by his rank, weighed down by etiquettes, secretly disliked by those around him who resent the pretensions which nevertheless they recognise, the modern Prince must of all men feel the need of a wife chosen by himself, one in whose affection he can trust, and of whom he can make, in domestic life at all events, an equal. Rather we wonder that the Royal caste, the Sovereigns included, do not insist on recovering their old freedom, and choosing their wives, like other men, at their own discretion. They used to do it, outside Germany at all events, only two centuries ago—Anne Hyde was married in 1660—and it is by no means easy to understand how the new system, which must be to the individual so profoundly disagreeable, so heavy a counterpoise to all the advantages of rank, has ever become so rigid. It is usually attributed to pride of caste ; but that pride does not prohibit all manner of irregular connections, and must often be regarded by the Princes themselves as a ridiculous nuisance. The custom is plainly threatening the caste, whose members find it more and more difficult to avoid the tendencies to insanity, stupidity, and eccentricity which have developed themselves in many of its branches, and who perceive more and more keenly, as the democratic wave advances, the necessity that Princes, if they are to keep the respect they still enjoy, should be able men. We fancy the strongest protection now of the tradition is not the pride of Kings, not even their fear that if the rule were relaxed their sons would choose unworthy women, so much as an expectation which in some strange way has grown up among the people. They think themselves democratic, and talk for the hour about equality ; but they do not like, nevertheless, to hear of their Princes marrying subjects. They look upon such an alliance as a deroga-
tion, and regard the new family with a distinct suspicion and dislike. It is they, more than the Kings, who feel offended when the caste rule is broken, and who predict for such unions all manner of unhappiness and failure. Napoleon III, almost apologised for his own marriage in the procla- mation which announced it, and had his wife been a French- woman, and of the people, he would have hardly obtained their pardon. That is an odd state of feeling in a democratic age, but that it exists could be proved by many instances, by none stronger perhaps than this,—that were Prince Alexander's marriage as finally legal and complete as it would be were he not semi-Royal, his chance of a throne would be supposed to be even more completely extinct than it is now. It is not extinct at all, except in the imagination of the millions whose social jealousy helps at least as much as regal pride to keep up a system which nevertheless they condemn, and which, whatever excuses may be made for it, tends very seriously to degrade the European ideal. It is not a light thing that the highest placed caste in Europe holds itself incompletely bound by the obligation of monogamy.
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