Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1878-09-05
DEATH OF DOWAGER. QUEEN.

Maria Christiana, Widotv of Ferdinand
TII., Of Spain, Comes to the Limit Of Her
Ddus.
Ex-Queen Christiana, who died Oh We'd
nesday evening at her villa near Sainte-
Adresse, was not the sort of old person for
whom the world will mourn. In point of
fact, she was scandalous old body who
would have done great deal better-to
quote the words of the late Mr.. O'Connor-
had she sheen dead and buried before she
was born.'' She was the daughter of Francis
l., king Of the Two Sicilies; was born at
Naples April 81, 1905, and on December II,
1929, was married to Ferdinand VII, king
of Spain. The issue of this marriage was
Isabella, some time queen of Spain, and
Louisa, married to the Due de Montpensier
and mother of the late Queen Mercedes.
Ferdinand died in 1882, and in October of
that, year Christiana was made regent, an
Office that she held during the ensuing seven
years. Forced by popular pressure to alb
dictate, she fled to France in 1910, and not
until 1945, when Isabella had reigned for
two years in her own right, did she return
to Spain. In 1854 she was again compelled
to- leave the country, and since then-al-
though she has occasionally visited Spain
her home has been in France. The two
conspicuous scandals of her life have been
her marriage of Fernando Munoz and her
infamous bargain with Louis Philippe in
regard to the famous Spanish marriages.
Munoz was a private soldier in the royal
guard with whom she fell in love within
three months after the death of the king,
her husband, and to whom she was privately
married almost Immediately. Eleven years
later, October, 1884,, the marriage was made
public and Munoz was created Duke OF
Rianzeres. To the credit of this man, so
highly exalted by a royal whim, it must be
said that he was wise in council, modest,
thoroughly manly, and that he graced his
dukedom fully as much as his dukedom
honored him. The marriage, on the queens
part, was love match, and it turned out
we'll. She bore him six children, three of
whom survive her, and when he died, in
1873, she sincerely mourned his loss. From
the standard of court etiquette her marriage
with this man was objectionable. She
but marrying him admitted of no excuse and
was beyond expiration. From the standard
of commonplace morality most people will
think that the queen deserves commentator
for Drawing public opinion for the sake of
that she played in the Spanish marriages
nothing may be said in her defense. She
ruined her daughters happiness, and to that
ruin, perhaps, may be traced a great portion
of the evils which in late years have fallen
upon Spain. Had Isabella been married
happily, her turbulent subjects would have
been spared the open scandals Of her life as
pretext for revolt. It is not too much to
say that in abetting the marriage of Isabella
to tho Duke d'Assis, Queen Christiana fell
into deadly sin. But tie old woman has
ended her days now, and her case has gone
up to higher than mortal court. It was
not romantic death. Some weeks ago she
tumbled down stairs in her house in Paris,
and from the fall she never recovered. She
was ordered down to her villa in the suburbs
of Sainte-Adresse, near Havre, in the hope
that the sea air would give her health and
strength. But it has not helped her. She
is dead.