New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-03-20
UOU1N BEHIND THE THRONE

The sang,iine people who imagine that rs
soon as women receive the suffrage and begin
to minge freely in the political life of nations,
the millennium is to dawn and the reign of
peace and goodwill to descend upon the
earth, find little support for their belief i'll
the present condition Of Europe. In almost
every country of the Continent the influence
of Quecns-c onSOrt and Of princcsses of the
royal family is thrown with power and
effect against all progress and salutary
reform. The life and soul of tho cause
of the Bourbons of Italy is the young
wife of King Bomba, without whose restless
zeal and energy the wretcbcd corpse she has
galvanized would soon return to dust. Her
sister, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, is
the official center of that baleful cabal of bigots
who have so often succeeded in breaking up
liberal cabinets, and in checking and counter
acting schemes of needed reform. The mother Of
the Emperor, the naughty and self-willed Arch
Duchess Sophia, fought desperately against the
law of popular education, and against the
law of civil marriage; and when the popular
enthusiasm over their passage eliminated i'll
the singing of the national hymn around the
statue of Joseph H. in the Palace Court, she
vented her fruitess rage by telegraphing TO
the Emperor in Pesth that the city was III in
surrection and her life in danger. 1t is as
serted that the late change in the Cabinet, by
which Count Beust was sent TO England and
Count AndrOssy put at the head Of the Gov
eminent, was due IN great measure to the in
trigues of the Camarilla, who never had been
able to endure this Protestant Saxon in the
palace
1t is to be hoped for the peace of the exiled
household at Chiselhurst that the late Emperor
of the French never charges his lovely wife
with her share of responsibility for the war
that ruined them. But the fact is beyond
question. Lebeuf and Gramont and poor
Olivier were as noses of wax before the
ardent and yindictive purpose of this vain
and ignorant lady, when she had once resolved
upon war. She thought there would be n
holiday promenade from Paris to Berlin, in
which her son would gain the conventional
laurels which belong to princes who picnic with
the soldiers, and would then insure his quiet
installation on the throne, when his time
came. 1t was impossible that she should
know anything of either army or of German
politics. She had formed for the Empress of
Austria one of those romantic friendships
which parvenues form for people born
in the purple, like that of Pompadour for
Maria Theresa, and she imagined that France
and Austria were natural allies. This impression
was confirmed by Metternich, who was too
devoted an admirer of Madame BOnaparte to
dream of cOntradicting her in anything. She
heard only compliments and pretty speeches
from the Marshals of France, Ouly flattering
expressions from the Ministers in Germany,
who all wanted promotion. So that her great
influence was thrown into the scale for war,
and completely overbore the timid vacillatiOn
of her nerveless husband.
In the Iberian Peninsula the influence of
women in the palace has always been very
great and often hurtful. But it has probably
never been greater or more injurious than
now. In Portugal, the daughter of Victor
Emanuel il the rallying point OF all the
reactionary elements. The ex-King, Dom Fer
dinand, has fallen completely under the con-
troll Of his morgauatic wife, the Countess OF