Another sovereign of the Orleans family, recently little known but certain to become important, is King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the strength of whose secret hand was shown in the downfall of the Turkish power in Europe. He is a son of the only daughter of Louis Philippe of France, and therefore my cousin by marriage; and I knew him intimately before he was called to the throne of Bulgaria. He has made that country almost single-handed, building it up commercially, attracting money to it for railroads and industrial development, and administering its finances as ably as he administers his own private fortune. His cleverness in using rightly for his own ends circumstances that would pass unperceived by any one less astute, made him one of the marked men of Europe. He used to flatter me that I was the only person who understood him; and I could reply that it was lucky for him, since, if others understood what he was trying to do, they would surely stop him. He has a wonderful mind. The lives of these men, who are kings in fact as well as in name, are as full and interesting as the life of any one who has work to do and power to do it. They have something to compensate them for the restrictions of grandeur and the cramping stiffnesses of pomp. Their dignity has cause. Their isolation is inevitable. But, for every one of these, there are hundreds of little princes and princesses, grand dukes and archdukes, and such minor personages of royal blood, who are less free in their lives than kings are and have nothing to occupy their mental idleness. It astonished me as I went among them to find them supported by a consciousness of self-importance that seemed to me pathetic. I could name a score of such persons, quite unknown, who would never believe that their existence is not a matter of eager public interest to the whole world. They apply themselves to the observances of royal etiquette devotedly. They patronise and condescend to the lesser orders of mankind with a touching sense of their own supremacy. They defend themselves jealously in their degrees of royal blood and precedence, and see themselves as conspicuously exalted as if they had high seats in some hierarchy of heaven just below the Eternal Throne.