Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 184, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1915 — LITTLE DESIREE [ARTICLE]

LITTLE DESIREE

Girl Whom Napoleon Loved and Jilted Afterward Became Mother of Royal Line.

Napoleon, greatest of modern conquerors, made himself an emperor, and made his brothers and two of Ms marshals kings. When his empire fell, these subordinate sovereigns were shaken from their thrones —all except one. The throne of Sweden, and that alone, is still occupied by the dynasty founded in Napoleon’s day and by his aid. Strangely enough—romantically, if you will—this is the royal line •whose first king. Charles John, was Napoleon’s marshal. Bernadotte; and ■whose first queen, Desiree, was Napoleon’s earliest sweetheart. She was. indeed, his betrothed, from whom he sought and obtained his release only when he had fallen under the spell of the fascinating widow, Josephine de Beauharnais, with whose sophisticated charms young Desiree Clary, not yet fifteen, could not compete. A recent French writer, Jean Martelot, in a little study of Queen Desiree, has related the story of her three notable suitors and her marriage. Her father and brother were prosperous silk merchants of Marseilles. There were four daughters, two married; rtwo, both very pretty, unmarried and

at home —little Desiree, accompanying a sister-in-law —whose husband, in the confusion of those troublous times, had been arrested —to the office of the representative. M. Albitte, to ask his intercession, was by accident left forgotten in an anteroom, where she fell asleep. After she was queen she told her chamberlain the story. Wakened by the sudden closing of a door, she found herself alone in the dusk, and a strange man looking at her in surprise. Much frightened, she explained her situation, and her anxiety about her brother, whom she thought in immediate danger of the guillotine. He reassured her, and offered to escort her to het home. They became good friends on the way and she invited him to call, that her mother might thank him for his kindness. adding that she should like to be able to tell her friends the name of the gentleman who had protected her. “Very well; you may tell them that my name is Joseph Bonaparte,” said he. That is the way the Clarys and the Bonapartes became acquainted. Joseph called and soon became, an Intimate friend of the family; at the end of a few weeks he had proposed to Desiree that he should marry her as soon as she was sixteen, and she had consented. Soon he brought his

brother Napoleon to call and he, too, became a frequent visitor. “His arrival," Queen Desiree related. “made a change in our plans for the future. We had not known him long when he said to us, Tn all wellmanaged households either the husband or the wife must be the one to yield. You, Joseph, have no decision of character, and neither has Desiree, while Julie and I know very well what we want. You will do much better, then, to marry Julie. As for Desiree, she shall be my wife.’ And that was the way I came to be betrothed to Napoleon.” Joseph did marry Julie Clary; but after Napoleon’s defection, Desiree, from among many suitors, chose, not unwisely, the rising young soldier, Bernadotte. “I wish Desiree happiness if she marries Bernadotte,” wrote Napoleon from Egypt. “She deserves it.” She was playing an overture from the opera when the news came that she was queen. “I never touched my harpsichord afterward,” she confessed, “for I thought that a queen should not play badly.” She lived to a good old age and saw the third generation of Bernadottes upon the throne of Sweden. — Youth’s Companion.

Chile is irrigating more than 2,300,000 acres of land, and has nearly as many more available for irrigation.