The Princeton union., 1879-09-10
NAPOLEON Ill. AND EUGENIE.

NAPOLEON Ill. AND EUGENE.
A Spanish Countess Made Empress Of France
ina Day.
Now that public attention is directed
to Chiselhurst, and the sympathy Of the
world goes out to the widowed and child
less woman, whose very life may at any
moment weld to the latest burden of sor-
now, special interest attaches to all that
relates to the life and history of the ex-,
Empress. Eugene Marie de Guzman was
born at Grenada, in Spain, May S, 1895
and is second daughter of the Count
Montijo and Of Marie Manuela Kirkpat-
ric. At an early age she displayed an
intelligence equal to her great beauty,
the style of the latter being very remarx-
able; for with Andalusian folm, features
and the soft eyes peculiar to Spain, it
united coronat of golden hair not often
seen in that Southern cline. These and
some other characteristics she doubtless
inherited from the Nothern ancestry of
her still beautiful mother. Her educa-
ton was varied, and colored by localities
in which it was received. Accustomed
as she became in her earliest years to the
music and the mystic poetry of Spain
as much so as to the blue skies, the
orange and the citron groves, the vivid
coloring of flowers and Of costume in that
romantic land, she was sent to acquire
knowledge first to Toulous, and atterward
to Bristo.. With England she therefore
soon became acquainted, as likewise
with many of the. English people. To-
ward France, however, that France for
which her father had voluntarily fought
and suffered, the thoughts of the young
Eugene were often turned with keenest
interest, and over that lair land, in her
imagination, the Eagle of Napoleon, un-
der whose banner her father had marched
to victory, was ever ready, despite all
changes of dynasty, to fly from tower to
tower, until resting with folded wings on
the nights of Notre Dame in Paris.
In 1889 her father died at Madrid, and
now, no less than ever before, was she
likely to forget the legends Of French
glory by which he had charmed her child
hood. 1t must Consequently have been a
sort of nascent pride and earnest sympa-
thy that she heard first OF the attempt of
Prince Louis Napoleon on Strasbourg,
and aftcrward I'm 1S4O near Bologne.
Women adore heroism, and though men
may sneer at the attempt Of a banished
prince to enter the land of his birth
by the aid of only half hundred men,
and by the light of tnat star Of his des-
tiny in which he had implicit belief, there
was something heroic in the evsntful voy-
age of this prince across the British Chan
mel, in the steamboat called the Edlnburg
Castle, and all the more so because he had
already been made to pay the penalty of
Punishment to America for his sudden
entry into Strasbourg. From America he
had come back, al the risk of his own life,
in the hope of soothing the last days of
his adored and adoring mother, Queen
Hortense, and latterly, in England, he
had not shrunk from the consequences Of
that act of filial duty, which had helped
to entail upon him consequences, includ-
ing poverty, from which the heart of a
less brave man would have recoiled. So
it was no wonder if the fair Eugene. born
Of heroic race land early smltten with the
legends of the first Napoleon's glory, did
feel that which many men might deem a
romantic interest in the luckless landing of
Prince Louis Napoleon at Bologne. Sol
diers on the French coast were excitedly
ready to hail him with rapture; other
brave men also; but he was captured and
imprisoned in the fortress of Ham, and
this with such rigor that it seemed very
doubtful whether the beautiful Spaniard,
destined one day to become his wife,
would ever meet him in this world, for
as yet they we're personally strangers to
each other.
From the first moment, however that
the Emperor had beheld Mile. de Montijo,
Countesse dc Teba, after the Revolution
of 1848 had given him power over the
land from which he so long was an exile,
his fate was fixed; and whether at the
Presidential festivities, given at the pal
ace of the Elysee, under the auspices OF
his accomplished cousin, the Princes
Mathilde, or at st. Cloud, or elsewhere
the lonely and graceful Spanish lady was
observed by him as the only one most
worthy to be placed ON the throne OF
France. Accompanied by some Of hel
relatives she had visited that country
When first she arrived there she found
the accent of the French language some
what o. posed to that of her own melod1.
Gus and more southern tongue; but al
last a day came When the illustrions hos,
OF st. Cloud, where she was on visit
with many other guests, said to her: III
it love that has taught you French2" And
she is reported to have answered: "No
sire; it is the French that has taught me
love-" In company such as then assem-.
bled at St. Cloud-the once tavorite
abode of Queen Marie Antoinette, and
aftern ard of the Empress Josephinc-it
is often difficult to trace the real origin
of anecdotes such as this, but there car
be no doubt whatever that in the month
of January, 1853, the Emperor Mapoleo1
ILL.,, having convoleea an assembly Of thu
chief Legislative representatives at thu
Tuilleries, thus announced his approach
ing marriage with Mile. de Montljo: "Sh'