Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1881 — A Story of Empress Eugenie. [ARTICLE]

A Story of Empress Eugenie.

Like clever fellows they are, says the Philadelphia Times, the orleanists always managed to keep the different members of the Bonaparte family embroiled. Their chief effort was to keep the empress embittered against PlonPlon and Plon-Plou against her. It is only fair to admit that the orleanists never made any mistake about Napoleon 111 and his cousin Plon-Plon. He was always rated as the more Drilliant of the two men. His speeches in the Senate proved this long after the orleanists had given this as their opinion. It was to keep the empire from having the hearty support of a man so strong that every means Was taken to sow dissensions between the empress and her husband’s kinsman. Between the empress Eugenie- and Plon-Plon there has always been a mortal hatred. Almost from the first the prince strove to alienate the emperor’s affections from the lovely Spaniard. But her rigid virtue, her matchless cleverness, her boundless dominion over her husband, made this next to impossible. Once, however, he succeeded in shaking the-emperor’s confidence. All feminine Paris, or rather court circles was

in a tumult about a superb young Italian member of the embassy in Paris. This young man was observed to be indifferent to all the alluring of the married female rake 3of the court. He appeared at the festivities pensive, moody, languishing. His dark liquid eyes followed the vision of loveliness that Eugenie then presented. It was at once whispered that he was amorous of the empress. PlonrPion soon heard the story. He was powerful in the Italian embassy. He set one of the young count’s comrades on the watch. This comrade soon discovered a letter written to the empress beggiDg for an Interview. From that moment the youth was never lost from sight for a moment. Belays of spies kept him in sight by day and night. At last the schemers were rewarded. One of Eugenie’s lackeys visited the young man. He brightened;up as if a new man. The empress had given him a rendezvous. Plon-Plon went immediately to the emperor. Napoleon, incredulous but agitated, consented to visit the empress’ wing of the palace.

The Tuileries were in those days a net-work of secret passages. The prince and his cousin were in a few moments behind the arras in Eugenie’s boudoir. They had not long to wait when the - farther door was opened. One of the empress’s pages announced the Count de ViUetri. The young man came forward, radiant. Falling on his knees before the sovereign he kissed her hand. He then trembling proceeded to tell her that she had restored him to life, for he had made up his mind to commit suicide if she had refused his

request. The empress, in a tone denoting anything but passion or agitation, proceeded to inform the youth that he was bold and imprudent; that he should have bowed to a decision which she feared must be final; that the emperor had set his heart upon the matter, and that she feared that she could not change the affair. 1 The youth protested that a word from her would give him the object of hi 3 life. The fast “ was that £ the

young man was in love with a beautiful Spaniard, who wad, in a certain sense, a ward of Napoleon, and a relative of the empress. A great marriage upon which Napoleon had set his heart, had been arranged for her, and the young Itallian’s suit had been treated as romantic and absurd. But Eugenie, who had an irreels table weakness for love-matches, had left the girl to see or suspect that she didn’t oppose the youth’s pretensions, and it was o see the sovereign herself and plead his case that the youth bad implored per miss-

lon- WipaleoH ifiiawtnotl i at once, and retired. Then, sending wr pa.e to announce r kls pteeenye, entered the rbqm before the -lo r oould even rise from his knees.- . - The emperor was at toaut the . idnuest of men, knTapprbaching the you'ig man playfully he demanded: MWfslL,. Monster le Count, what doee all, this mean?*’ Plon-Plbn wm# *d#b prtsentf for it wan he who told the story to. hie crony, the late Emile de Girardin. The empress, somewhat-troubled, told the story. At the end Napoleon j r pulsed, good-naturedly, to interest > in-. self in the affair, and the count' rebijed ecstatic. Then the emperor, turumg to his oousin, said, in V his wife: “My coushu-let this be a lesson. There is nothing so deceptive' as appearances save the truth.” 1 Whether the empress comprehended: the epigram or not the discomfited Plon-Plon did not say, but she give, him abundant ground, afterward to understand that there was no - Jove lost between 'them. Curiously <pough, none of the emperor’s intimates liked the empress: The Duke, de Moray*, Napoleon’s half-brother, peyer let slip an opportunity to satirize her. It was his favorite sarcasm to call her a let gitimtat, alluding to her passionate adoration of the toemory of Marie Antpinette, whose fate she always had, a premonition she was to share. She narrowly missed had it not been - for the courage and ingenuity of Evans, the American dentist,there is no doubt but the Paris mob would have torn her to shreds after the awful ‘news tom. Sedan, -y ; . _ .: y ? -