Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-08-06
The MOurner at Chiselhurst.

Dead in the tangled grass of field in
South Africa, his body stripped, and thrust
through with seventeen wounds-the fate
of the poor young Prince Imperial must
touch even hard hearts with pity. 1t is the
tragic ending of life which, though short,
had been marked by strange vicissitudes.
The purple to which Eugenies child was
born had been too recently dyed, and the
color had not set 1t soon faded and grew
rusty in the strong light and fierce winds
which beat against France. Founded on
usurpation and sustained by despotism, the
empire was menaced always by that shadowy
hand on the wall, which over banquet and
pageant, review and masquerade, kept
writing writing, the mystic " Mene meme,
tekel, upharsin," which presaged ruin and
pended by hair glimmered in the golden
halo above the baby's CRADLE Going on
toward youth, docile, gallant, lovable the
boy saw his fathers star extinguished in
gloom, and knew that he died in the bitter
ness of broken hopes and defeated plans.
Sharing his mothers exile, he was forced to
lay aside the tastes natural TO his age and
temperament and take part which seems
to have been uncongenial, TO satisfy her un-
conquered ambition. Thepawn on the board
where restless spirits played reckless game,
he longed to escape awhile from intrigue
and plot, and. like other young and adven-
turous men, see something of the life that
was going on outside Of the closet and the
drawing-room. His gentleness and amia-
bility endeared him. we are told, to comrades
and friends. There are many who think
they discern the hand Of Providence in his
removal, and who feel that the nation, so
often rent by strife and revolution, will
be safer now that the youth, unhappily
pledged to the schemes Of the Bonapartists,
is out of the way forever; yet even they
have sigh to spare at the manner of his
death. Lighthearted, cheery-faced lad, the
last OF his line, cut to pieces by savage
hands in Zulu ambuscade.
The only sou of his mother, and she a
widow Can rhetoric exceed the sorrow
which is condensed into that brief sentence2
Can language snrpass it ? 1t is the deepest
loneliness, the saddest heartache on EARTH
told in line That epitaph on any tomb
conveys to the most casual reader sense of
utter desolation. The widow whose only
son lies dead is the Mater Dolorosa Of the
world. This widowed one, who wraps around
her the sables of her annihilated Joys, has
special claims on womanly compassion. But
yesterday her beauty, her grace, her magni-
set her in the fore front, for all eyes to gaza
upon. She impressed her times. She swayed
a sceptre which entered, intangible but po-
tent, iuto every home over all the civilized
world. Frivolous, superficial arrogant she
may have been, and little wonder; but she
was more than these. No IN )ther ever more
sedulously watched over the infancy and
guarded the training of a son than did she.
Her maternal enthusiasm never waned she
bore misfortune with fortitude and dignity,
and knelt at the altars OF her church with a
constancy which, though bigoted in some
eyes, was in all confessed TO be sincere and
consistent. Romanist as she is, there are
Protestants who might well emulate some
of her virtues.
The brilliance and glory of her life went
out like a candle in puff of the night
breeze; but, clever, gifted and resolute, Eu-
genie set herself, for her sons sake, to keep
about her the glamour of court, to pre-
serve the traditions of power, and to con-
trive, toll. watch and wait for that coveted
opportunity which might restore her Napo-
leon to Paris and the throne. With womanly
persistence, she never dropped, in prayer or
plan, in society or alone, her thought of
going back, her purpose of seeing her child
crowned and acknowledged, and the imperial
occo oHcc ulOTt on uOOr ana DdLUlement.
Twenty years ago Lowell wrote an ode on
Villa Franca," strong and merciless, of
which this was the refrain:
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin
Lachesis twist, and Atropos severl
In the shadow, year out, year inl
The silent headsnan waits forever.
That silent, pitiless waiting, that turning
of Destiny's wheel, that clipping of the fatal
shears--how often their last severity falls
upon the bright, the beautiful and the be-
loved, who are forced to expiate the sins and
errors of those who were before them
"Kismetl' II we cry, with somewhat of con-
version 10 the Oriental's conviction of the
might OF destiny. Carlotta in her palace,
playing in her twilight of unreason with
imaginary kings and queens Eugenie in
her lonely house, with her broken heart
which has the sadder lot Heaven help,
and let all women who are mothers pray for,
the mourner at hiselhurst.-.Seiected.