On the Steps of the Throne

Summary

In a baroque kingdom of painted domes and perfumed treachery, a silver-haired regent Count Backine fondles the scepter he must soon surrender, and so he moulds his own blood—ice-blonde niece Alexandra—into a marital key that might keep the lock jammed on power. Yet the heir, Prince Vladimir, carries in his veins the fever of first love: clandestine twilight trysts with cousin Olga among cypress shadows, their whispered oaths stitched into night air thick with lilac. A spy’s eye catches them; Parisian exile is decreed beneath marble council arches. Before the whistle of the locomotive, steel sings: the boy-prince duels his beloved fencing mentor, accepting a scar that will later bloom as proof of identity. In the gilded Babylon of Montmartre, a mirage named Chicita—music-hall doppelgänger sculpted in greasepaint and sin—mirrors Vladimir’s face so perfectly that a cellar trapdoor can swallow the original while the counterfeit boards the imperial train back home. Letters soaked in Olga’s tears smolder in Thais’s jealous fingers; gunpowder threads the Parisian catacombs; an explosion erases one villain, and a repentant dancer unlocks the prince’s irons. Coronations loom under cathedral gold: velvet carpets, incense, choirs, the false prince extending his hand to Alexandra. Then doors thunder open—dust, moonlight, living legend—Vladimir strides in, scar bared, to reclaim throne and heart, leading Olga up the marble stairs where destiny exhales.

Synopsis

The kingdom of Silistria, during the minority of the heir to the throne, Prince Vladimir, is ruled by Count Backine as Regent. Backine, an ambitious, power-loving man, knowing that the end of his period of power is approaching with the Prince's twenty-first birthday, uses all his wiles to bring about a marriage between Vladimir and his niece Alexandra, trusting to the influence which he hopes to be able to exercise on the Prince through his wife to keep him still, in fact if not in name, the ruler of Silistria. Unhappily for the Regent's plans, Vladimir has already fallen in love with his pretty cousin Olga, and the lovers frequently meet secretly in the beautiful gardens of the palace. One of these meetings is witnessed by a creature of the Regent, who hastens to tell Backine what he has seen, and, alarmed at the danger thus threatened to his project, Backine, after an attempt to affiance Vladimir to Alexandra has proved unsuccessful, summons a meeting of the Council of State, and persuades his colleagues to decide that the Prince shall be requested to spend the time which must pass before his coronation in Paris. Vladimir cannot refuse the request, which is, in effect, a command, but before he goes he visits all his old friends in Silistria- not forgetting his old fencing master, with whom he engages in a last friendly bout, in the course of which an incident occurs which has an important bearing on future events. The master's foil slips and inflicts a wound on the Prince's forearm, which, although not serious, will leave a permanent scar. Later a series of superb stagings show him clad in the uniform of his regiment of guards leaving the palace after a passionate farewell to Olga, and entering a motor-car, in which, with an escort of soldiers, he is driven to the railway station", en route to the French capital. Backine has arranged for one of the lieutenants to accompany Vladimir, with secret instructions to induce the Prince, by plunging him into all the distractions which Paris can offer, to forget Olga and the promise he has made to her. Although, with a letter from his sweetheart always carried in his breast pocket, Vladimir is not likely to be untrue to her, he willingly enters into the amusements provided for him, and his admiration for Mile. Thais, a dancer who is the sensation of the hour, gives his enemies the opportunity they require. Backine's emissary in Paris is greatly struck with the resemblance which a rather shady young dancer, whom he encounters in a cafe bears to the Prince, and he thinks the discovery so important that he reports it to Backine in Silistria, and receives detailed instructions, upon which he acts immediately. Chicita, the dancer, calls upon Thais, who has fallen in love with the Prince, whom she believes to be an English nobleman, and, showing her a letter from Olga to Vladimir, in which she asks the latter to return to Silistria, informs her who her lover really is, and tells her that he will surely desert her at the first opportunity. Temporarily blinded by jealousy, Thais agrees to become an accomplice to the Regent's plans and writes to Vladimir asking him to meet her at a certain house - in reality one which Backine's employee has engaged. When the Prince arrives at the house he is shown into a sitting-room and a trap-door is released under his feet. He is plunged into a cellar which has been prepared, and from which there is no egress, and with Thais and one of the Regent's men as gaolers is left there while Chicita is hastily made up as the Prince, and prepared for the journey to Silistria. The formal coming-of-age of Prince Vladimir is announced, and at the same time publicity is given to his engagement to Backine's niece, Alexandra. A triumphant reception is arranged for the returning ruler, and the pretender is driven through files of soldiers, cheered by the populace of the capital, to the palace. The resemblance between the real Vladimir and the sham is so close that everybody is deceived but Olga, who at once knows as if by intuition that this is not the man. She makes known her suspicions to one-or two friends, am rig then the old fencing master, who vows to solve the puzzle. Challenging the supposed Prince to a bout with the foils, the master contrives to wound him slightly in the arm, and, on pretense of examining the wound, discovers that there is no trace of the old scar which his sword inflicted on Vladimir. The Regent has fathomed the suspicions of the fencing master, who is known, moreover, to be a firm friend of Vladimir, and gives instructions so that the faithful old man is shot while out for his morning ride, and his body thrown in the river. Seriously injured though he is, he manages to scramble to shore and to attract the attention of two officers, to whom be tells the story of the imposture he has discovered. Meanwhile, orders have been sent to Backine's agent in France ordering him to put the captive Vladimir to death, but, though the Prince is bound and the train of powder which is to blow him to pieces is almost lighted, Thais relents at the last moment and releases the Prince. When their enemy attempts to detain them lie is thrown on the trap-door, which hurls him into the cellar. The explosion occurs, and the villain meets the death he had destined for the Prince. Meanwhile, Coronation Day dawns in Silistria. One after another the superb ceremonies are carried through, and at last the sham Prince and his Consort are led, through a company of men clad in blazing uniforms and women in sumptuous dresses, to the steps of the throne. Then, before the actual act of coronation can take place, the real Vladimir with his few faithful friends bursts into the chamber, the usurper is swept aside, and while all look on with amazement, Vladimir goes to Olga, and, taking her by the hand, leads her to the steps of the throne which is rightfully his.