Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1895 — JOINED TO A CORPSE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JOINED TO A CORPSE.

An Incident in the Life of Queen Victoria’s Mother-in-Law. Queen Victoria, who is one of the most uncompromising of reigning monarchs in her intolerance toward those who are divorced, is herself the daugh-ter-in-law of a princess who was divorced by her husband under singularly sensational circumstances. The mother of the prince consort was a lovely woman—it was from her that he inherited his good looks—and was the last descendant of the dukes of Gotha, whose dominions may be said to have constituted her marriage portion, since they were incorporated with those of Saxe-Coburg at the time of her union to the duke of that petty sovereignty. A drunkard and a profligate of the most coarse character, the duke treated his young and beautiful wife with disgraceful brutality; so much so, indeed, that the imperial diet felt constrained to interfere in her behalf, while the good people of Coburg showed their sympathy with their blonde and blueeyed duchess by smashing every window of the husband’s palace and by almost lynching his Polish favorite, Count Schlmbowski. At length the duchess could no longer bear her treatment and eloped from Coburg Nvith a young cavalry lieutenant of the name' of. Baron von Hanstein. The duke at once sued for a divorce, which r as granted, and the young mothfer iwas never permitted to see her children again until just before the Prince consort’s marriage, they being

brought up altogether by their grandmother. Soon after recovering her liberty, the duchess married the companion of her flight, and spent the remainder of her days partly in Switzerland apd partly in Paris, where she died. She bequeathed to her husband, for Whom she had previously obtained the title of Count of Poelzig, a considerable yearly income frtom the revenues of the duchy of Gotha on the one condition that he would never part with her corpse, not even for a single night, and stipulated that if he spent twenty-four hours under any roof than that where her embalmed remains happened to be, the pension should cease at once. So t))& unfortunate count carried the mummy of Queen Victoria’s mother-in-law around with him for years, long even after his marriage to another lady, unqne morning at Paris he was horrified by the discovery that the casket had disappeared. After much investigation he found that It had been stolen by emissaries from the court of Saxe-Co-burg-Gotha, with a view of having It

decently laid to rest, and as the pension was continued he had no reason whatsoever to regret the theft

MRS. PEARY.