Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-07
interesting Account of the Royal Women
of Europe.


Interesting Account of the Royal Women
of Europe.
The London Daily Times says:
OF the three feigning Queens one, our own,
has fulfilled every rational anticipation of
twenty years ago, both as to her conduct and
her experience. There is one happy Queen,
though not exactly in the sense of always
parading in her crown and playing all day
long as children imagine. Another, the
Queen of Portugal, has died early, after
having suffered many anxieties from the
troubles always occurring in her retrogade
little kingdom and among her factious peo-
pie,
The lot of the Queen of Spain no one would
envy. Civil war and personal danger
throughout her childhood, and more than
ordinary royal misfortune in the deepest of
personal interests, were a dreary beginning
and it is needless to point out how little en-
joyment she has of repose of mind, of re-
spect and attachment from her subjects, or
of satisfaction from the world in general,
and her own people in particular. Turning
from the regning Queens to the Consorts,
what melancholy scene it is Some have
died youpg-as the Queen of Sardinia
snatched away before her husbands great
ness could be even dimly foreseen; the
young Queen of Portugal, almost before she
had taken her seat in her husbands king
dom and home; and the Queen of the Bel
gians, grieving to leave her husband to
second widowbood, in situation of polti-
cal difficulty, the more anxious for being
uncertain and obscure. We can not but
give thought here to her sister-in-law, for,
if banked of her supposed destiny, the late
Duchess ofOrleans was regarded as first the
wife and then the mother of a Sovereign of
France. .
There is no need to describe her disap-
pointmehts and sorrows any more than her
abilities and virtues. Not permitted to be
regal, she was truly royal lady in her day,
showing herself equally able to suffer and to
act. The late Empress of Russia lived long
after the world expected her to die worn out.
Needing a life Of tranquility and Iepose, she
sacrificed her health to the requisitious of
court life IN Russia, and never knew peace of
mind from the day of the accession Of the
Emperor Nicholas The Queen of Prussia is
surviving her husband in another way, and
is suffering more, perhaps, than her late
sister-in- law, in a different way. She sees
the King dead in mind while alive in body;
and she is understood to watch with angry
grief the overthrow ofthe barriers which he
set up for resistance to Liberalism in Prussia.
The Queens of Sweden and of Greece are
as opposite in their condition and their aims
rs their respective countries are in aspect
and prospect. The thoughtful and quiet
Scandinavian Queen studied the means of
popular reforms from the first moment when
it was likely that the King would be able to
carry them through; and if on some points
the-KiDg is more liberal than his people, it is
believed that he has sympathy at least from
bis wife.
The romantic little German girl, who had
a fond dream fulfilled in becoming Queen of
Greece, can not get the rest of her dream
fulfilled. She might do much, and win some
glorY by devoting her energies to the well
fare of Greece in a rational way; but she
rests her hopes on Russia and since the
Crimean War she has suffered from some
thing more than being disappointed of glory.
Her life is clouded by humiliation and Eu-
ropean disgrace. Her origin and lot remind
US of the melancholy group of three yolng
sisters from Bavaria, who have implicated
their lives with the fortunes of despotism, at
the moment when despotism can no longer
hold its ground,
The Empress of Austria, having shed lap
fuls of tears over the prospects of the empire
and domestic griefs OF keenest sort, is setting
out on her wanderings in search of health.
She hoped to be one Of the benefcent Queens
of Hungary and she thought she saw how
the Austrian dominion might be more closely
knit and truly re established; but now, at
three and twenty, she leaves home, having
seen one child die, and being sorely doubtful
of the destiny Of tue Others fearing for the
empire and for the safety of all she was most
proud of when becoming an Empress at sew
enteen. Pale and wasted, she moves all who
see her to tender pity. Her two sisters are
shut up at Gaets-one being the unhappy
wife of the last Bourbon King ofaNaples, and
the other of bis brother the Count of Trani.
Calamity has overtaken them early, aud,
having married as they did, nobody can help
them.
The Duchess Of Parma can not do better
than emulate the character and conduct of
the late Duchess of Orleans, unless, indeed,
she has magnanimity enough to surrender,
and 10 teach her son TO surrender, all idea
of recovering a Bourbon throne in Italy.
Such reasonableness would secure the re-
spect of society, and redeem, to a certain ex-
tent, the destiny which can not be reversed.
Here we are brought around again to the
bright point from which we set out. The
most superficial survey of the loyal ladies of
Europe will show how much of their woe is
Of direct political origin, and severe in pro-
portion 10 the despotism among which they
dwell. Sickness and early death may be an
ticipsted in due proportion, and must be
borne in that rank as in every other but
the welfare of royal, as other personages, de-
pends essentially on the harmony which
they establish between their own aims and
the freedom and happiness of society at
large.