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Updated: June 20, 2025
Count Louis Voynovitch from Ragusa was staying in Cetinje to draw up a new code of laws. This clever adventurer was looked on with some jealousy by the Montenegrins and much favoured by the Royal Family whom he amused with anecdotes and jokes. It was said he was to be permanently Minister of Justice, but he left Montenegro rather suddenly over, it was said, a cherchez la femme affair.
In Montenegro Great Serbia was the talk, and I was shewn crude prints of the heroes of old, on many a cottage wall. And some flashlights on Montenegrin character showed vividly the different mentality of the Balkans. The new British Vice-Consul for Scutari came up to Cetinje on business, for the British Minister had left owing to ill-health.
He, too, like the Russian Legation at Cetinje, made no concealment of his belief that Montenegro had taken the wrong turning, and was on the down grade; said the Prince, after the wholesale arrests of last summer, would never regain his position and popularity.
The road passes along the River Zeta, leaving the village of Spuž on the right, and past the flourishing little town of Danilovgrad, soon to be the connecting town between Cetinje and Nikšić on completion of the projected road. There is nothing of interest in Danilovgrad, though the market is of some importance. A little way beyond the town a nearly complete building can be noticed.
The born soldier is noticed at once, even in the small children; many generations of fighting ancestors have bequeathed a smartness and accuracy of movement which can be envied by many a Continental trained conscript. The traveller meets with little attention either here or in Cetinje.
Having picked up the thread of the Balkans the next thing was to learn a Balkan language, for in 1900 scarcely a soul in Montenegro spoke aught but Serb. Nor was any dictionary of the language to be bought at Cetinje.
He founded his article upon what he believed to be genuine documents, and on the evidence of Nastitch, the Bosnian, who had given sensational evidence at the Cetinje bomb trial. Nastitch proved to be a professional spy, and the evidence forged. Friedjung lost his case, and the sentences of the condemned men were annulled.
Upon each table, in place of the usual programme of the evening's performance at the theatre, lay a black edged sheet of paper informing us that the Serbian travelling company then playing in Cetinje "in consequence of the death of our beloved Sovereign King Alexander" had closed the theatre till further notice.
Russia has all along consistently furthered her influence and plans in the Balkans by planting suitable Bishops as political agents. Russia was now powerful in Montenegro. A Russian officer led the clans a-raiding into Turkey and returned with so many decapitated heads to adorn Cetinje, that the Tsar thought fit to protest. The tug between Austria and Russia continued.
A new wing is rapidly nearing completion to accommodate the female prisoners, who are at present incarcerated in Cetinje. We visited the director that Easter Monday morning, and were received unofficially in his quarters.
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