Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1841-03-19
PARMA-MARIA LOUISA.


| PARMA-MARIA LOUISA.
From " The Laler in Italy," by the Countess Of
Btessington.
Silent, gloomy, and deserted, Parma
seems to offer striking picture of the alter
cd fortunes Of its mistress. There still
hangs around it the semblancc of grandeur,
but it is grandeur "fallen from its high cstate;'
and on bcholding its empty streets and de-
caying buildings, one cannot refrain from
plying her who was once empress of the
gayest and most brilliant capital in the world
for being condemned to reside here, and sup
port the mimic form of regal splendor shorn
Of all its dignity. The fate of Napoleon,
chained Prometheus-like on his ocean rock
had sublimity in it 1; but she who shared his
throne, whose brow was encircled by dia-
dem, before whom the proudest monarchs
bowed, to be reduced to hold state in this
poor town, Oh ! it is pitilul and Maria
Louisa must have less pride, or more phiIos-
ophy, than falls to the share Of her sex, to
be enabled to support it with such equanimi-
ty. We went over the ducal palace to-day,
which has nothing regal about il and on
greater number Of apartments than generally
apper,an to the residence of private indi-
vidual. Its appearance is mean and COM
mon-p'ace, div estcd Of dignity Of good
taste. The furniture is like that of a Fer
mier- General de Franco, alter long use, rich
tasteless, and faded. The carriage of Lord
and Lady Burghersh was at the entrance,
and the custo,ic who showed us over the
apartments reverted with no little complacen-
cy to the fact that " the ambassador Inglese
and the niece of the great Wellington, were
then sitting with Maria Louisa ~ In q lum-
Der room was shown us the toilette presented
TO the Empress of France, and the cradle
given to the King of Rome, by the city of
Paris |! AS i'll did this mean and vulgar
apartment seem fitted to shrine these costly
gifts, the wrecks Of an empire unparalleled
in history, as did the palace itself to be the
residence of her who had been mistress of
France There was the subject of a whole
epic poem, and more touching than most of
such productions are, in the contemplation of
these trophies of the former stare of Maria
Louisa. There was the toilette meant to
adorn the person Of her whom all France de-
lighted to honor. Once lodged in a gilded
chamber in the Thuillercs, with proud and
titled danes surrounding it to deck their
royal mistress, now, neglected and covered
with dust, it was put aside in a lumber-room
and exhibited by custOdc, who was little
conscious that, by this venal display of 1t,
he elected observations far from favorable 10
its owner. And there stood the cradle gwen
by the capital Of France to him whose birth
was hailed with such universal rejoicing -
the child whose coming into the world was
looked upon as the security Of that dynasty
doomed so soon afterwards to be over
thrown. That rich and gorgeous cradle, in
which Slumberee, unconscious of the fate
which awaited him, that fair boy over whom
Napoleon bent in rapture, forgetting the
flerceness of the warrior in the absorbing
tenderness of the fa,er-there it stood tar
nisfed and dimned, to be scru,inised by
strangers for the payment of a few francs !!
Ii the fallen empress, to crafty curiosity, or
to enrich her mental, could allow the gift
made to her in her palmy days to be thus
exhibited, surel y the heart of the mother
ought to have protected from dissertation the
infant couch Of her son; over which the
great, tho wondrous, and the since fallen IA
ther Of that ill-starred child, and often steo.
ped to impress the kiss of melting affection
on the fair cheek of his sleeping cherub -
Ought not this cradle to have been placed in
some chamber sacred to the memory of that
father whose heart yearned with such ten
derness towards the wife and child he knew
he should never see again l-tl,at husband
whose lips never uttered reproach at the de-
serion other who, Having slaredhis splcndor
could leave him when fortune forsook his
banners, to pine prisoner on a desert rock,
without even line to sooth bis grief, or to
tell that he was still remembered.
turned from these neglected trophies of
departed glory with no increased respect for
her, who, having offered them for sale, and
finding no purchaser, now permits them to
be shown to all who may desire to behold
such memcntos of the mutability of fortune,
and to moraize on the fallen greatness of
one whose name will ever remind posterty
of the most signal example of mortal instabii-
ity. No greater the ascent than the down.
fall!