Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 300, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1911 — Page 3

bib HEN a king’s love is mentioned, M II the mind flies to the morganl 111 In America the word has r 8! ■ jftf been misused for seemliness In BfW mentioning the usual heart asJBLT fairs of royalty, but It Is an exraj act term of purely German m f genealogical law, And means a Dj £ J legal and binding marriage that *P J does not raise an un-royal wife - to royal rank. Now, If a false morganatic marriage is the easiest thing imaginable and a true one disadvantageous but quite possible, hpw shall we sufllcieqtly admire -an emperor who lifts a little countess to be empress beside him? Add an unstable throne, new in itself, newly mounted, in sore need of royal alliances; add the bitter opposition of his family, the laugh of the world, the contempt of statesmen, and the estrangement of partisans; make the betayed one a foreigner completely unpopular with his people, and you, will have the elements of Napoleon Ill’s heroism in loving Eugenie. , : Few kings since Cophetua have loved like this.

Among so many royal loves that lacked devotion. it shines like a star. It begins with a gypsy at Madrid. Eugenie’s mother, a widow, camarera mayor to the queen, lived In her own house in the Plaza del Angel. One day—Eugenie being thirteen and a tomboy—they refused to take her in the Prado carriage promenade, which, with the opera, still remains the common ground where toor, proud families meet the great ones of as equals. The Countess de Montljo clung to her carriage and her opera box. Alone, Tomboy Eugenie was sliding down the banister. She slid too strong, banged against the fly-screen front door, and fell Inanimate. A gypsy woman, passing, took the girl’s head in her lap and brought her to. Then she looked attentively at her and said: * “The senorlta was born under the open sky, the night of a battle.” “What!" exclaimed the countess, returned with the carriage. She was struck by the truth of the words. Thirteen years ago, at Oranada, an earthquake had forced them to camp a night In the garden, and Eugenie was there prematurely born. . “What will be her future?” asked the superstitious mother. "She will be queen,” said the gypsy. The prediction was bold, and beauty only could lift the thlrteen-year-old* girl to its realization; but beauty bad already done much for that family. • - So dreamed the mother. She herself had been a really poor girl, daughter of a British subject who had failed in business in Malaga. His name was Kirkpatrick, and he had long been American vice-consul. He had married one of two beautiful sisters, yet still poorer—see how hereditary beauty will force Its way, through four generations, from its unadorned self to a throne! The first was a poor Spanish girl, Oallegros, whose sole possession was her beauty. Grevlgne, French wine merchant of Malaga, married her and had two lovely daughters; and two foreign consuls, French de Lesseps and Scotch Kirkpatrick, lifted them by marriage to the first rounds of the social ladder. From the De Lesseps alliance came the “grand Francats” erf Suez and Panama; but Kirkpatrick’s wife gave him a daughter of such rare charms that a Spanish grandee, with a place at court and of considerable family, married her for love. He was a duke, a marquis, a viscount and a baron, but the title by which-he had'been ’ known to the world was Count de Montljo. He had two daughters fairer yet than mother, grandmother or great-grandmother, and he died. Eugenie was one, her sister Pacca was the other. On the thlrteen-year-old girl the gypsy's prediction made a formative Impression. Confirming it, as she grew up she saw her elder sister Pacca (Marla Francises) make an unprecedented match even In that family. Pacca caught the rich and mighty Duke of Alva. Higher than the Duke of Alva could only be a king. _ Eugenie, growing up, refused brilliant Spanish offers; first the Duke of Osauna, then the rich and handsome young Duke of Bests. Sesto In truth Inspired her with “a certain •sympathy and admiration. He was so attractive!” But it was not love. Deep In her heart she loved a dream prince, the unknown of the gypsy, endowed by her girl’s fancy with a thousand charming attributes. She smiled at the absurdity of it. Where could such a prince be? Yet she held off from all other suitors. When her mother took, her to Paris her heart leaped at an unexpected premonition. - The handsome, dark-brewed, careworn man, still young, who, as French president, received at the Elysee, became a romantic figure in her •yes. Eugenie wished to attend a presidential Her mother hesitated. It would make them ridiculous with the mildewed smart set "But my father was an officer of the great Napoleon." said Eugenie, and she had her waff.

Romances Near to Thrones

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"MADEMOISELLE, WHICH WAY SHALL I TAKE TO GET YOU?"

dangerous and complicated details of his plot. Was struck by the girl’s beauty. That evening he sought her out a second time. He was touched and flattered by the romantic Interest she showed In his person and his cause. The beautiful girl stuck in his mind. He felt as If he had always known her. He knew that he would meet her again. Eugenie felt the same mysterious attraction. “Ah, would that I could help him!" She thought of the lonely prince and his risky ambitions that were being laughed about In Paris as an open secret At the moment of the coup d’etat she fairly burned with anxiety. She dashed about the little flat like a tigress. "What can I do?” she asked herself. “What can I do to aid him?” ♦ That night Napoleon received a letter. It was from a romantic, inexperienced girl, but ardent and sincere. It gave him her good wishes and audaciously offered him all she possessed should his projects need ready money. After December 2 it was the Empire in fact if not in- name. Napoleon gave hunts like a sovereign, at Fontainebleau and Compiegne. At these be met again the beautiful Spanish girl, fearless horsewoman, tireless dancer. He remembered above all her letetr written In that dark hour of his wavering chances. His love at first sight for Eugenie was soon noticed, showing Itself full-blown In the most open attentions. The girl and her mother had continual Invitations to Compeigne and the Tuileries, Napoleon soon found the uselessness of throwing Ms handkerchief at ttie beautiful foreigner. Yet he felt—he knew —that she loved him passionately.- It was a desperate situation for the girl, and his heart swelled with love and pride and admiration of her. Once Eugenie and her mother were bidfen to a parade review at the Tuileries. In the courtyard Napoleon drew up his horse under the windows of the first floor to salute the ladies. He wished to dismount and go up to them. “Mademoiselle,” he said, addressing Eugenie, “wMch way shall I take to get to you?” “He was almost as new to the Tuileries as any of us,” told the Eugenie of eighty-three years. “He did not know his way about the palace.” “Sire,” she called down to Mm," “you must come by the way of the chapel!" As a fact the corridor leading to the chapel was the shortest route to these rooms, but Napoleon , understood her hidden meaning. Again, one afternoon at Compeigne, when the flower of the brand-new emperor’s court was Idling around his vingt-et-un table, she made the situation clear to him. Seated at Napoleon’s right, she consulted him from time to time as to her play. She foqnd two picture cards in her hand, counting twenty out of twenty-one ■ possible points. “Btand on that," said the emperor, “it is very high.” “No," said Eugenie, "I must have an or nothing!" Every morning old Jerome Bonaparte, Ms undo, last surviving brother of the gftat Napoleon, would arrive, confidential, flattering. Mailing and agog with bad Insinuations:

By STERING HEILIG

"Have you got her?" Hoary old sinner, unrepentant of his desertion, fifty years ago, of his true American wife In Baltimore, he had the court ladles in full slander-of Eugenie before Napoleon had made up his mind, and he exercised a diabolical ingenuity in trying to prevent an honest marriage. Those first ladies of the Second Empire had extraordinary manners. One evening, at Compeigne, when Eugenie was going in to dinner on the arm of Colonel de Toulongeon, a slight confusion permitted him to whisk Eugenie ahead of Madame Fortoul, wife of the minister of that name. “How,” exclaimed, audibly to her cavalier, “do you permit that creature to push past me?” The next morning Mile, de Montljo, with tears in her .eyes, stood on the terrace apart from the others. It was no ruse to attract Napoleon’s sympathy, the girl saw her princehero disappearing In a nightmare of hateful gossip. Napoleon, who had sought her, asked the cause of her sorrow." > - "I must leave Compeigne,” she faltered—and told of the slights and Insults to which she was subjected.

The emperor listened to the beautiful girl. Then, when she had finished, he tore a green string of ivy from a park tree, deftly twisted it into a crown, and said loudly—that all might hear—as he placed it on her head: "Wear this one —meanwhile.” It is a twice-told anecdote, but, as it was Napoleon’s proposal of marriage, I see no way to omit it He never actually asked her hand —he took it Not another murmur arose from the court ladies. At once they flocked around Eugenie. It was another matter, however, for Napoleon to force his choice on the statesmen and soldiers backing his still risky empire. Opln- • ions were divided on what royal alliance he should make. Some were for a princess of Sweden; some for a Braganza, some for the Hohenzollern. Then, suddenly, Napoleon, speaking of Eugenie, sprung the mine by saying, “There Is no question but the fight of hand." “No question but the right of hand!” The words ran through his backers like an alarm of fire. One with the strongest hold upon Napoleon—De Persigny, his minister of the Interior —was sent to tell him In the name of all that It would not do. De Persigny, mixed up with Napoleon in many an adventure, had kept his old-comrade liberty of speech. He joked about Napoleon’s admiratipn for Eugenie; surely the emperor must amuse himself. When he noticed that Napoleon’s face grew stern, he rose to flghtliyj arguments, brutally accumulating proofs and reasons why a marriage would be Idiotic, both dynastically—and otherwise. He sneered at the Montljo title; brought out the grandfather, Kirkpatrick, bankrupt Malaga raisin merchant; and then he took up Eugenie’s roving life, "What was the girl doing here in Paris?" “Did you ever hear of the young Duke of 8esto?” asked De Persigny. “Did you ever hear of Merimee?" “Merimee is a great writer,” said Napoleon. /‘Surely—for he writes Eugenie’s letters to you!" laughed De Persigny. "Mother, daughter, and newspaper man sit round the table and concoct the beautiful letters that you cherish. Really, It was not worth risking the coup d’etat to arrive at that!” What a triumph for the aged lady to recall Napoleon’s steadfast love in face of both policy and slander! It was always known why Eugenie hated De Persigny, Prince Jerome and the Princess Matbilde. Bhe could forgive political counselors who pressed the royal cesses upon Napoleon; she could not forgive the powerful ones who sought *n take away her character behind her back. Napoleon beard them all alike. He answered nothing. Fould and most of the military backers, with' Edward Ney and Toulongeon for their spokesmen, formed rapidly "The dan of the Lov«rs." In vain did Matbilde drag herself at Napoleon’s knees, begging him to renounce a marriage that would be the ruin of them aU. The emperor had decided. “Ton will give a great ball to announce the engagement,"

he said to his weeping cousin. And she did It j Napoleon acted toward Eugenie with chlval rous loyalty. He laid before her all the disadvantages of the brilliant yet uncertain position l|p was offering her. He explained to her his unpopularity with the old French aristocrats, the bad will of certain great powers, the possibility of his being assassinated by some secret ociety of which he had become a member In his adventurous youth. There were hostilities even In the army, in his opinion the most serious danger; but he could cut them short by declaring a war. --- ---- —-*'■ *1 would not have It otherwise,” she answered. “I will take my risks beside you. So may I be worthy!” As a queen she lacked dignity. She had not been bora to the solemn self-appreciation of royalty; and she was a mixture of lightness and austerity, generosity and sense, kindness and Indifference, in which the transitions were abrupt and disconcerting to French orderliness. Alone among the sovereigns of Europe Queen Victoria had received her cordially; more, she had taken up Eugenie and imposed her on the courts of Europe. Vet even at Windsor, where the imperial couple were received with extraordinary pomp, Eugenie’s insouciance threatened to play her a bad turn that would have illustrated her un-imperial attitude. .

A quarter of an hour before they were to be received by Victoria and her beloved consort In the throne room, Eugenie discovered that, among the hundred trunks of the French visitors, hers alone had not arrived! The emperor was deeply mortified that the discovery should have been made so late, as showing lack of discipline and serene orderliness, and on his advice Eugenie had already begun to pretend a headache due to suppressed seasickness when one of her ladies dared to offer her a choice of gowns. A blue dress of the simplest description seemed the only one that promised well. Great ladles and maids fell upon it deftly, and in a few minutes the blue gown was readjusted to the empress. So Eugenie—without jewels, flowers at her corsage and flowers In her hart —appeared before the British court In her own dazzling beauty. She made an immense success. What most touched Victoria’s heart, it may be told, was the pathetic and pretty way In which the young couple spontaneously -confided certain doubts and fears to her as an experienced matron and mother of eight. They had been married two years, and as yet there was no heir. When the little prince-imperial was born, one lady only was permitted to be present with the doctors and the servingwomen all the time. This was the Countess of Ely, Queen Victoria's Intimate friend, sent over from England to help along. As had been done for the King of Rome, It was announced In advance that should the Infant be a boy, cannon would fire, not twenty-, one times, but a hundred. It happened, after midnight, and the Parle lans, awakening, counted the cannon-shots. When they got past twenty-one, the Parisians rolled over in their beds and yawned: "Well, she is lucky!"

The bigamous old Jerome had bitterly pen secuted her as an interloper. His son, PlonPlon, her Iftter and detractor by Inheritance, was not persona grata with Eugenie. So Nar poleon, who enjoyed smoking cigarettes with the reprobate father of the present pretender, Victor, was forced to visit him secretly. One day, some time after the marriage, he came, sat down, and said: “Prince, does your wife make you scenes T "No,” replied the husband. of Clotilde. the daughter of Victor EmmanueL “There Is no living with Eugenie,” sighed Napoleon. “The moment I give audience with another woman I risk a violent quarrel." “Crack her on the side of the face the next time she makes you a scene,” suggested PlonPlon. “Don't think of It," exclaimed the emperor. “You don’t know Eugenie; she would open a window of the Tuileries and cry *Police!’" To the end women took advantage of this breezy independence, natural exuberance, and ineradicable unconventionality of Eugenie to lay traps for her. Hers was a continuous performance of the Lady walking amid the rout of Comus. Among others, Mme. de Metternich. wife of the Austrian ambassador, seemed to have vowed Eugenie’s destruction. Once, at Fontainebleau, she almost led her Into going to the races In short skirts. * ' "My dear Pauline," someone asked her, “would you counsel your own sovereign to get herself up In short skirts?" "That Is different,” replied the Metternich, "my empress Is a royal princess, a real empress, while yours, my dear. Is , . . Mademoiselle de Montljo!" Was she only Mademoiselle de Montljo? Did she not keep her word: "So may Ibe worthy!" to the Empire and to Franco? Twenty years later. In her dealings with Bismarck after the Franco Prussian war, Eugenie bad practically concluded a treaty while refusing to concede “an inch of French territory." The Republicans, taking the deal out of her hands, agreed to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.

LOVES HIM STILL

* . •• v MAM.. ft ti hnaKonH ” W»t Bot make tor. to them? • - V ■■ He’s losing his figure—but I love ,uu ' • - H§' 1 The sort of women men can't stand are the kind nobody wants. There's nothing like flirtation to. keep a woman young. . . .ft. « " £ If a woman can’t have the man she wants, there’s a lot of satisfaction in making it hot for him. A woman ought to have a few pairs of silk stockings—she owes' it to posterity. “Is anything the matter with the biscuits?” “No, not at all. They are intereating." “Yes—my husband once removed.” What can we do to make our wives dissatisfied with ns? Foot! They’d suspect something in a minute. How funny men are! They spend their courting days telling ns how unworthy they are—and their married life proving it “That cake will last a long time.” “Sure! We’ll be a long time dead.”

REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR

A woman expects romance out of love and gets housekeeping. An extra easy way to get married is not to be able to afford it. A man might much better lose his latchkey than forget bis excuse. A man gets either despised for hia adversity or bated for his prosperity. •mmm The trouble with family picnics is they last so much longer than funerals. Even a« woman school teacher is gl&d to have a man try to teach her the alphabet. Getting along with a wife on any terms is much more comfortable than trying to boss her. The more a man can lie down town about how well his-furnace works the more he can cuss it at home. The reason some women can be so affectionate with their husbands is it sets a good example to the children. The way a man explains to his wife how a sinking fund works for public bonds it might as well be a flying machine.

BY THE WAYSIDE.

As we grow older we unlearn many things. - ///■' A girl seldom attempts to extinguish the spark of love And one-half the world wonders why the other half lives. If misery loves company It’s up to everybody to get married. The experience you buy Is seldom up to the sample submitted. A youth who has to scratch for his living sows very few wild oats. Many a man starves today while feeding on the hopes of tomorrow. If the average man has any Virtues he feels like apologising for them. *■ ___ Only his employer ever appreciates the worth of a successful hill collector. There’s nothing like the knife of candor for severing the bonds of friendship. Too much distance between husband and wife may remit In other enchantments. Only a wise man knows how little he actually knows at that which may be known.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS

It s easier to make a break Ulan it is to mend it. A wise man is merely less of a fool than the average. All things the hostler doesn't want comes to him who waits. - The racing drama isn't the only ►kind that is full of horse play. The only kind of red hair a woman likes to have is not the real thing. It a man hasn't any sense some woman is sure to think he is send* mental. __ Even with a 98-cent watch the leader of an orchestra may he able to keep good time. A man may be right when he claims that distance lends enchantment to the view—or he mag be away off.