The Skuptshina (the Servian Parliament) was amazed at the proclamation, and its president as well as the Metropolitan of Servia implored the King on their knees to revoke it. He had only deaf ears for them.
On the fifth of August, 1900, the wedding was solemnized, and Draga Maschin took her place on the throne of Servia.
If the King had hoped that the irritation of the public would die out after the wedding, he must have been a badly disappointed man; for the scandals about Draga continued. Not only was her past life with its many stains and blemishes laid bare unsparingly, but her life as queen consort was also unmercifully exposed. Every word and every act of her married life were carefully weighed in the scales of public opinion, and hardly ever was a word of praise accorded to her, while vituperation, insinuations, and direct accusations abounded. The Belgrade correspondents of foreign newspapers knew that anything they might have to report of King Alexander, Queen Draga, or any member of her family would be read with interest. If they could not pick up anything of interest they invented some unfavorable story. Unquestionably many of the stories circulated about Draga, and also of Alexander are utterly untrue. It should also be remembered that the elevation of Draga to a station which none of her rivals could hope to attain made her an object of envy, and that they resented this elevation by telling about her all the bad things they knew. But after making all these allowances, we still find enough to justify us in saying that the two were an exceedingly ill-matched couple,--he a voluptuous, ungrateful, good-for-nothing simpleton, and she a designing, ambitious, unscrupulous woman of powerful mind.
The scandal which has been most widely circulated referred to the fictitious pregnancy of the Queen. Unquestionably the young King was anxious to have a son. Alexander was the last Obrenovitch, and it was natural for him to desire to have a son so that his dynasty might continue to rule over Servia. It was equally natural for Draga to desire to become the mother of an heir, because as such she would have had an additional claim on the affection of her husband,--a claim which might have outlasted her physical beauty. This desire was certainly not unreasonable in a wife twelve years older than her husband. This pregnancy was officially announced by the court physician, but it was afterwards stated that the announcement had been premature. These are the facts in the case; and on these slim facts a superstructure of rumors and fables has been erected. Very likely the great anxiety of the couple to have an heir was the real cause of the announcement. The rumors so widely circulated in the kingdom did certainly not contribute to improve the reputation of the Queen, or to give the people the impression of a happy domestic life.