Hors-d’œuvre
Mr. A.

According to what Kipling tells us, a Hindu prince always remains perfectly Hindu, even if he has become perfectly English.
Rajah Sir Hari Singh received an English education, that is to say (according to the expression of the educators) the most refined education; he has won that superlative title: "the most European of rajahs", and, what is even more brilliant, that certificate of civic-mindedness: "a perfect gentleman"... The cause of Right and Liberty owes him, moreover, something, for, during a war which did not concern him, Sir Hari Singh placed at the disposal of the organizers an army which behaved very well on battlefields where it had reasonably no business. Since then, Rajah Hari Singh has learned to know the English women, then the English men. And if the English government, by a process that smacks of treason, did not succeed in rejecting Mowgli towards his brothers and making him a cruel enemy of British civilization, it is because the Hindu princes have truly good character.

Lavish and naive, this noble Oriental had believed to meet love in the guise of a Mrs. Robinson. At least Mrs. Robinson had promised Hari Singh to make him know the refinements of civilized love.

Now, for a certain number of centuries, civilization has brought only one new refinement to the practices of love: it is entolage, of which blackmail is the most expensive form for the one operated on and the most fruitful for the operator.
Mrs. Robinson had a husband; it was not the husband who was deceived. The lover considered himself very lucky to sign a check for 13 million, not in payment for priceless indulgences, but in reward for a precious discretion. Because they still have, in India, singularly backward prejudices. A king of Spain who comes to France to have fun draws a flashy vanity from his amorous successes; he wants it to be known and organizes his publicity in the style of Casanova. But a Hindu prince who sleeps with an English lady incurs the curse of the Brahmins and the risk of losing his caste... Unless the adventure remains confidential.

This is why Rajah Hari Singh slipped 13 million into the hand of the husband (or of the one who held this job), making him a recommendation that happy lovers ordinarily do not make to deceived husbands: "Above all, do not go and tell anyone that you are a cuckold!"

All the characters who took part in this vaudeville in their underpants were discreet. The English government was at first very proper to the prince whom it had ennobled by raising him to the dignity of "Sir" during the trial brought by Mrs. Robinson (because Mrs. Robinson still had something to claim), the rajah was designated under the name of Mr. A..., and the English press received the order to respect an incognito that the rajah thought he had sufficiently purchased by paying 13 million for it. Thus, the members of the English government behaved like gentlemen towards a gallant man.

What has happened since? The English government has just lifted the order. All the newspapers of the islands and the continent are today publishing the name and portrait of the rajah Sir Hari Singh... This gratuitous boorishness seriously affects a Hindu who, in a nasty affair with the English, had the only good role: the role of dupe. Robbed and betrayed in Europe, the prince is going to lose his position in Asia; or, if a Russian prince adapts very well to the wheel of a taxi, a rajah does not know how to do anything outside his job as a rajah.

But, if the British government, by delivering to the press its guest, who was at the same time the loyal servant of the Crown of England, used a procedure that was at the very least discourteous and impolitic, we must pay tribute to the press, which gives us an unexpected example of professional honesty and disinterestedness.
To fulfill this fierce duty which consists of satisfying the curiosity of the reader, the unanimous press did not hesitate to publish the photograph and the biography of a nabob capable of giving like that thirteen million in tips to an ordinary gentleman and an even more ordinary lady, in exchange for their discretion.

G. DE LA FOUCHARDIÈRE