Those who know her well say that she never wastes a moment, and she keeps many assistants busy looking out for the poor, finding employment for those who need it and serving the interests of the Roumanian people. Although Bukharest has the reputation of being a very immoral city, there has never been a scandal in the court; her ladies in waiting and maids of honour have always been women of exemplary lives, and their devotion to her is remarkable. Her sweet disposition, her generous heart, and her anxiety for the welfare of her subjects are universally recognized.
and it is said that no one has even known her who has not loved her.
Queen Elizabeth is better known throughout the world by her nom de plume of "Carmen Sylva," and many people who have read her charming lyrics have been ignorant of the fact that they were written by a queen. The peasants of Roumania call her "Mamma Regina." She is now sixtyseven years old, short in stature, a matronly figure, a bright complexion, and pure white hair. Her features are small, her profile is regular Greek; her lips are thin; her eyes are blue, and her forehead is high. She usually brushes her hair straight over a roll and coiled at the back of her head in the old-fashioned way. On formal occasions she appears in royal robes; when she goes out among the people in the country she usually wears the national dress, which pleases them immensely, and while she is at home and employed among her multifarious and often distracting duties she dresses in plain black with a white linen collar. Her gowns and her hats are seldom at the height of fashion, and most of the wives of the boyards, the land-owning aristocracy of Roumania, spend more for gowns and jewels than she. On state occasions she wears a crown that once was worn by Josephine, the unhappy empress of Napoleon I, and she owns a string of pearls that was also worn by Josephine, to whom her husband's great-grandmother was related.
Notwithstanding her unqualified popularity among her own subjects, her brilliant success in everything she has undertaken, and the respect and esteem in which she is universally held by the royal families of Europe, "Carmen Sylva,'* has had a very sad life, and when her face is at rest one can recognize the effect sorrow has had upon her. The saddest thoughts that come into her mind are regrets for her childlessness. A babe was born to her after she had been three years upon the throne, and she called her Marie. But the child lived only a few years and their cradle has since then been empty. The royal palace at Bukharest has known no greater sorrow.
Queen Elizabeth is the daughter of the Prince van Wied, whose ancestors held for several centuries one of the most noble and pictureque castles upon the banks of the Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of the duke of Nassau, sister of the late queen of Sweden, and of the present duke of Luxenburg. Her aunt is the venerable Grand Duchess Helena, widow of Grand Duke Michael of Russia. [^
The queen's childhood was full of sadness because of the illness of her father and her only brother, for both of whom she was nurse and companion. The boy was afflicted with an incurable disease from birth, but had a brilliant mind and lingered on earth until he was fourteen or fifteen years old. Elizabeth's life was wrapped up in his, for they were never separated until his death. She has written the pathetic story in lines that bleed. After the death of her father and brother she made the tour of Europe with her mother, and visited several of the courts of her royal relatives, but at a hotel in Cologne she accepted a proposal of marriage from her future husband. Prince Carol of HohenzoUern, then a colonel in the Prussian army, who had been elected king of Roumania a few months previous and had gone to Bukharest in disguise to accept the crown. Their courtship was very brief and unromantic. "Carmen
Sylva" once told the story to Helene Vacaresco, one of her ladies-in-waiting, and it is worth repeating.
"One day at Cologne," she said, "where we had gone to spend a few hours and listen to a Beethoven festival, we met, by accident, the reigning prince of Roumania, Prince Charles of HohenzoUern-Sigmaringen. We were staying that afternoon at the Hotel du Nord, which can be seen as the train crosses the Cologne station — I never pass on my way to Germany without remembering vividly every word of the interview there which settled my fate. I was very glad to meet the prince of Roumania again, as he had been much talked about in my presence of late, and I knew he had won his way to the throne among political perils almost as great as the perils of war. He had crossed Austria in disguise, because the Austrian government had objected strongly to his election.