San Andreas independent., 1859-08-27

Ex-kING JEROME BoNAPARTE.-1t has sell
dom fallen TO the lot of man to see such ANA
Zlng vicissitudes of fortune, affecting himself
and family, as has been witnessed by the per-
sonage whose name heads this article. The
dreams of romance have been excelled by the
! actualites realities of his life. He is the only
surviving brother of the illustrious Napoleon,
and was born in 1884. So long has the latter
been an historical character that at first it ap-
pears almost impossible that the great con-
queror, who, after running the most remark
able career of twenty years that the world
ever saw, terminates it by his death nearly
forty years ago, on the rock of ST. Helena,
should have brother now occupying high
position in the French Government.
Of all his family, he alone is permitted to
witness both their remarkable rise in prosper
ity and fortune, and their subsequent down.
fall, and their equally wonderful return to the
hight of power and influence. His recollec-
ton goes back to the time when the family Of
Bonaparte was not known beyond the range
of n few friends and when its members of pri-
vate life were compelled to struggle in obscu-
rity with penury and misfortune. He can res
cellect his mother, widow with large fam
lily of children upon her hands, and when it
required a stern conflict to obtain for them the
necessary means of subsistence. He was in
early manhood when the genius of his brother
first burst upon the world and opened to his
relatives the visions of power and splendor
that never, even in the widest flights of i'm
agnation, had they previously entertained
He saw his brothers and sisters placed by the
magic wand of Napoleon, upon nearly all the
thrones of Europe, and decked with diadems
and coronets.
For the first time in the history of Europe
was the extraordinary spectacle observed of q
family of private citizons parceling thrones
and crowns among themselves, as if they had
| been the mereSt baubles. Jerome was thirty
one years old when the dark clouds of mis-
fortune and disaster gathered black and heavy
over the fortunes of his family, and when the
! storm came that swept them from their nights
of grandeur and glory, into the depth of hu-
initiation and debasement. He saw the staff
| of the Bonaparte destiny, so often apostrophi-
sed by Napoleon, sink beneath the clouds ap-
parently never to rise again. For nearlysforty
years, the blackness of night enveloped it,
Not one of the original family saw this iohg
! night to close, save Jerome : as, before it
again emerged from the political horizon, they
were ali deceased. Jerome has had the re-
markable felicity to see the fortunes of his
family re-established under a new Napoleonfc
dynasty.
One of the chiefs ofthe old empire heholds
q similar position in the new. He directs the
counsel of the Regent Empress Eugenie as he
had previously done those of Maria Louise.
great historical monument of the past is this
old Jerome, who personally has witnessed the
most remarkable family history that the world
has ever seen. 1t is not yet finished. He has
not yet attained the most extreme old age, and
it is possible that he may see events affecting
his family quite as startling and remarkable
as those which have hitherto characterized
his career.-Cincinndti Inquirer