His court was characterised by gross favouritism and arbitrary revisions of the constitution; and his position became finally untenable when he committed the fatal error of marrying Draga Mashin, a woman of no position and notorious private character.

On June 10, 1903, Alexander and Draga were assassinated by a gang of Serbian officers, under circumstances of the utmost brutality such as nothing can excuse.

Having gone for much-needed relaxation to see his mother at Biarritz, he fell violently in love with her lady in waiting, Madame Draga Ma[)s]in, the divorced wife of a Serbian officer.

Royal purple, the story of Alexander and Draga of Serbia.

Royal purple, the story of Alexander and Draga of Serbia.

But Natalie was fated never to be happy long, and once more her evil Destiny was to snatch the cup from her lips, assuming this time the form of Draga Maschin, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, under the spell of whose black eyes and voluptuous charms her son quickly fell, after that first dramatic incident at Biarritz, when she plunged into the sea to his rescue and saved him from drowning.

Certainly Draga Maschin was the last person she would have suspected of being a source of dangera woman many years older than her son, the penniless widow of a drunken engineera woman, moreover, of whose life, before Natalie had taken pity on her poverty, many strange stories were toldhow, for instance, she had often been seen in low resorts, "with the arm of a forester or a tradesman round her, singing the old Servian songs.

But she had not taken into account Draga's sensuous beauty, before which her son was powerless.