On 6 May, 1920--the day of the publication of the Turkish Peace terms granted by the Allies at San Remo--a Royal Decree was issued at Athens abolishing martial law. As at a signal, the Press turned its search-lights on the inroads made into the Constitution. Abuses and excesses hitherto held back by the Censorship gained publicity. Political groups started organizing themselves for the electoral contest, with every grievance of the past as an incitement to action in the future. Most disturbing manifestation of all--though one that might have been foretold--streets and taverns resounded again with the song in which King Constantine was referred to as "The Son of the Eagle" leading his army to glory. Evidently the efforts to root up loyalism had not succeeded: far from it.
While M. Venizelos grew less by his elevation, King Constantine was raised by his humiliation to a condition, if not actually divine, half-way towards divinity. In many a house his portrait stood among the holy icons, with a light burning before it, and the peasants worshipped it much as their pagan ancestors would have done. It was but the culmination of a process long at work--a process in which the historical element was strangely mingled with the mythical.[1] Since the Balkan Wars, King Constantine had been identified in the peasant mind with the last Byzantine _Basileus_--his namesake, Constantine Palaeologus, slain by the Turks in 1453; who, according to a widely believed legend, lay in an enchanted sleep waiting for the hour when he should wake, break with his sword the chains of slavery, and replant the cross { 219} on the dome of Saint Sophia. This singular fancy--whether a case of resurrection or of reincarnation, is not clear--was strengthened by the fact that his fall occurred on the very anniversary (29 May/11 June) of the day on which that unfortunate Emperor fell in the ramparts of Constantinople. The coincidence completed the association between the monarch who sacrificed his life to save his people from subjection and the monarch who, after leading his army in two victorious campaigns and doubling the extent of his country, did not hesitate to sacrifice his crown to save his people from disaster. Henceforth, even in minds not prone to superstition, the two events were linked by the same date, the mourning for the one rekindled the memory of the other, and King Constantine acquired a new and imperishable title to the gratitude of the nation. If all the efforts made in the past to blast his glory or to belittle his services had only heightened his popularity, all the efforts made since to blot out his image could only engrave it still deeper on the hearts of the people. His very exile was interpreted, symbolically, as the enchanted sleep whence he would arise to fulfil the ancient prophecies.