Oxford in the autumn of 1912 was to be the next phase of the Prince’s education, but before he went up it was decided he should spend a few months in France. He was reasonably fluent in French but had picked up ‘a very John Bull intonation’ while at Dartmouth, and this called for improvement.78 The Marquis de Breteuil, an anglophile French aristocrat with an American wife and two sons of the Prince’s age, somewhat reluctantly allowed himself to be selected as host. He was summoned to Buckingham Palace to inspect his future charge and found him ‘very thin, younger in appearance than his years, puny [chétif], timid but most attractive’. He insisted that Hansell, by whom he was much impressed, should accompany the Prince. George V emphasized that the visit must be entirely informal; the Marquis pointed out that his guest could hardly fail to call on the President. ‘You’re right,’ said the King. ‘I can’t get used to the idea that in a few months he will be eighteen, and that he’s already the Prince of Wales.’79
He had some excuse for his failure. Everyone agrees that both physically and mentally the Prince was slow to develop. The image of the slight, shy, wistful figure which was to become imprinted in the public consciousness over the next twenty years was already well established. In 1912 he still seemed conspicuously ill-equipped to grapple with the demands imposed on him by his position. Any boy of his age would have been discomfited by the ‘huge and most alarming’ luncheon given by the prefect of police, Louis-Jean Lépine – ‘it was rather trying and the food was nasty,’ but most would have coped better with the informal dance which the Breteuils held in his honour: ‘They were mostly young folk who went on to a ball. I danced once or twice but it bores me to a degree. I went to bed at 10.15.’80 There is no evidence from his diary that he met any girl in France who engaged his attention for more than a few minutes.
How much French he learnt is another matter. An amiable French scholar, Maurice Escoffier, had been engaged to conduct the Prince around France and supervise his studies; not surprisingly he reported on his protégé’s amazing progress. To judge, however, from the Prince’s dislike of the language and reluctance to speak it, an aversion which persisted even after he had lived in France for many years, the progress must have been limited, or at least not maintained. The most that can be said of his three months in France was that he mildly enjoyed them and learnt quite a lot about the country’s history and political structure. More important still, he made himself well liked. ‘He charmed everyone during his stay,’ read a letter which was the more convincing for not being intended for the eyes of his parents. ‘Old and young, rich and poor, were equally impressed by his frankness. The Breteuils could not say enough about his generous and open [belle et franche] nature.’81
‘French customs are very curious, but I suppose I shall get used to them in time,’ wrote the Prince resignedly.82 He was happiest at the Breteuil château in the valley of the Chevreuse, shooting, bathing in the lake, and generally behaving as if he was at home. ‘We hope you will treat him exactly like your own son,’ the King had written. ‘He is a good boy and I know he will always do at once what you tell him.’83 The Marquis’s real sons may not have been best pleased by the imposition on them of this unexpected extra brother but they played their part gallantly. The Prince liked both of them: ‘Even the eldest who likes music is very nice.’84 Fortunately François made up for this aberrant taste by liking tennis too. In Paris the Prince saw the sights; watched Sarah Bernhardt play L’Aiglon – ‘she is about 70 and takes the part of a boy of 18. I think she ought to stop acting now’;85 visited the Jardin d’Acclimatation – ‘a rotten kind of zoo’;86 was received by President Fallières and presented with the grand cordon of the Légion d’honneur – ‘Nothing could have been better or more self-possessed and tactful than the Prince’s manner,’ wrote the British Ambassador. ‘He did not hesitate at all in his French’; and visited the studio of the painter Monsieur Gillot – ‘The Yacht’s foremast is about half the height it ought to be,’ he told the King. ‘I think M. Gillot is one of these impressionist artists, but I know that you hate that sort of painting.’87
He was not greatly impressed by the capital, telling the Aga Khan that he could not imagine what his grandfather had seen in it.88 The press did not make it more agreeable for him. For the first time he found himself assailed by importunate photographers, and he did not relish the experience. His father sympathized. Unless the reporters behaved better, he decreed, ‘drastic steps must be taken to get rid of them’.89 It would be interesting to know what he had in mind. The Premier and future President, Raymond Poincaré, met him several times during his stay in Paris and was struck by his ‘thoughtful character, eagerness to learn, interest in practical problems, and a real knowledge of industrial possibilities’. He was a poor trencherman, however, ‘the choicest menus being treated by him with complete indifference’.90 What the Prince enjoyed most of all was the week he spent with the French Mediterranean fleet: he had a passion for the sea, wrote the Marquis de Breteuil, and would happily have made this part of his visit twice as long.91
And so it was back to England and the final preparations for his life at Oxford. It seems to have been Hansell and Lord Derby who urged the merits of a university education on the King, probably with some encouragement from Lord Esher. Not everyone approved. ‘Surely this cannot be true,’ expostulated his great-aunt Augusta. ‘It is too democratic.’92 That was one of the reasons that the King favoured it: ‘I have always been told that one can have the best time of one’s life at College if one makes up one’s mind,’93 he told his son. The Prince was sceptical. He accepted that the time would probably pass well enough, at least provided Hansell came along, but he remained unenthusiastic.94 When his mother tried to get him to make some choices about the furnishing of his rooms, he noted gloomily in his diary, ‘I am afraid it does not interest me much. I am just about fed up with the whole affair.’95 The root of his woe became apparent when his brother Bertie remarked how much he envied him and the Prince retorted that the feeling was mutual. Oxford might be tolerable in its own way but it was not where he wished to be: ‘It is an awful situation and I only wish I was back quietly in the only service – the navy.’96
As a Magdalen man himself, Hansell naturally urged its merits as a haven for the Prince. George V appealed to Lord Derby for advice. Starting from the very reasonable hypothesis that only three colleges were worth consideration, Derby dismissed New College as being at that moment beset by troubles and Christ Church as the haunt of nouveaux riches. That left Magdalen.97 The King concurred. An additional argument was that Derby was ready to send his own son, Edward Stanley, to the same college. ‘David is certainly a most loyal boy and I am sure would always do his best to be keen and get on wherever he was,’ the King told Hansell.98 In fact Magdalen does not seem to have been a bad choice. It had a reputation for independence of mind, the eschewing of anything that seemed smart or extravagant and a robust indifference to rank.99 It was well suited for the somewhat special needs of an undergraduate who was also heir to the throne.
With Oxford as with Dartmouth, George V decreed that his son should be treated exactly like his contemporaries and then took steps to ensure that this would be impossible. The Prince was to be attended at Oxford not merely