On May 10 1906, at two in the afternoon, a French liner called the Amiral-Kersaint set sail from Saigon carrying a troupe of nearly a hundred classical dancers and musicians from the royal palace at Phnom Penh. The ship was bound for Marseille, where the dancers were to perform at a great colonial exhibition. It would be the first time Cambodian classical dance was performed in Europe.

Also travelling on the Amiral-Kersaint was the sixty-six year-old ruler of Cambodia, King Sisowath, along with his entourage of several dozen princes, courtiers and officials. The King, who had been crowned two years before, had often spoken of his desire to visit France, and for him the voyage was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.

The Amiral-Kersaint docked in Marseille on the morning of June 11. The port was packed with curious onlookers; the city's trams had been busy since seven, transporting people to the vast, covered quay where the King and his entourage were to be received. Two brigades of gendarmes and a detachment of mounted police were deployed to keep the crowd from bursting in.

The crowd had its first, brief glimpse of the dancers when the Amiral-Kersaint loomed out of the fog shortly after nine and drew alongside the quay. A number of young women were spotted on the bridge and on the upper decks, flitting between portholes and clutching each other in what appeared to be surprise and astonishment.

Within minutes a gangplank decorated with tricoloured bunting had been thrown up to the ship. Soon the King himself appeared on deck, a good-humoured, smiling man, dressed in a tailcoat, a jewel-encrusted felt hat and a dhoti-like Cambodian sampot made of black silk. The King seemed alert, even jaunty, to those privileged to observe him at close range: a man of medium height, he had large, expressive eyes and a heavy-lipped mouth, topped by a thin moustache.

King Sisowath walked down the gangplank with three pages following close behind him; one bore a ceremonial gold cigarette case, another a gold lamp with a lighted wick, and a third a gold spittoon in the shape of an open lotus. The King was an instant favourite with the Marseillais crowd. The port resounded with claps and cheers as he was driven away in a ceremonial landau and he was applauded all the way to his specially-appointed apartments at the City's Préfecture.

In the meanwhile, within minutes of the King's departure from the port, a section of the crowd had rushed up the gangplank of the Amiral Kersaint to see the dancers at first hand. For weeks now the Marseille newspapers had been full of tantalising snippets of information: it was said that the dancers entered the palace as children and spent their lives in seclusion ever afterwards; that their lives revolved entirely around the royal family; that several were the King's mistresses and had even borne him children; that some of them had never stepped out of the palace grounds until this trip to France. European travellers went to great lengths to procure invitations to see these fabulous recluses performing in the palace at Phnom Penh: now here they were, in Marseille, visiting Europe for the very first time.

The dancers were on the ship's first class deck; they seemed to be everywhere, running about, hopping, skipping, playing excitedly, feet skimming across the polished wood. The whole deck was a blur of legs, girls' legs, women's legs, `fine, elegant legs', for all the dancers were dressed in colourful sampots which ended shortly below the knee.

The onlookers were taken by surprise. They had expected perhaps a troop of heavily-veiled, voluptuous Salomés; they were not quite prepared for the lithe, athletic women they encountered on the Amiral-Kersaint: nor indeed, was the rest of Europe. An observer wrote later: "...with their hard and close-cropped hair, their figures like those of striplings, their thin, muscular legs like those of young boys, their arms and hands like those of little girls, they seem to belong to no definite sex. They have something of the child about them, something of the young warrior of antiquity and something of the woman."

Sitting regally amongst the dancers, alternately stern and indulgent, affectionate and severe, was the slight fine-boned figure of the King's eldest daughter, Princess Soumphady. Dressed in a gold-brown sampot and a tunic of mauve silk this redoubtable woman had an electrifying effect on the Marseillais crowd. They drank in every aspect of her appearance, her betel-stained teeth, her chestful of medals, her close-cropped hair, her gold-embroidered shoes, her diamond brooches and her black silk stockings. Her manner, remarked one journalist, was at once haughty and childlike, her gaze direct and good-natured; she was amused by everything and nothing; she crossed her legs and clasped her shins just like a man: indeed, except for her dress she was very much like one man in particular - the romantic and whimsical Duke of Reichstadt, l'Aiglon, Napoleon's tubercular son.

Suddenly to the crowd's delight, the Princess's composure dissolved. A group of local women appeared on deck, accompanied by a ten-year-old boy, and along with all the other dancers, the Princess rushed over and crowded around them, admiring their clothes and exclaiming over the little boy.

The journalists were quick to seize this opportunity."Do you like Frenchwomen?" they asked the Princess.

"Oh! Pretty, so pretty..." she replied.

"And their clothes, their hats?"

"Just as pretty as they are themselves."

"Would your Highness like to wear clothes like those?"

"No!", the Princess said after a moment's reflection. "No! I am not used to them and perhaps would not know how to wear them. But they are still pretty... oh! Yes..."

And with that she sank into what seemed to be an attitude of sombre and melancholy longing.