Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-09-24
The London Saturday Review ON
Mme. Patterson BOnaparte.

Her biographer says that e" she pos
sessed the practical economy of Frank
lin" She was very mean and very
stingy, and delighted in filling her
letters with lamentations over the !
sums she has to pay on her travels.
She had, as we have said, announced |
her intention of spending $1,000 year
She never, however, contrived, it
would seem, to screw her courage to
the sticking place. By her careful
management she so increased her
property that in the last years Of her
life it yielded her an income of nearly
100000 year. The mistress of this
splendid income lived in boarding
house, and, forgetful of her boast,
spent every year something like
$1,000" She did, however, at times
indulge in a magnificent generosity
not unworthy of the sister-in- law Of
an emperor. "In the last few years of
her life she was accustomed to give at
Christmas a present of one hundred
dollars each to two or three favorite
relations" Assuming that her income
amounted to exactly one hundred
thousand dollars, that her expenditure
was two thousand a year, and that her
favorite relations were three, it will be
noticed by the reader who is given to
calculating that by these generous
presents she reduced her savings for
the year from ninety. eight thousand
dollars to nineU-seyen thousand seven
hundred. She invested her money"
we read, 'in various ways, because, as
she said, it was not wise to put all
your eggs in one basket. " These
three hundred dollars by which she
had reduced her savings she perhaps
considered to be all that it was pru-
dent to invest in that particular bas-
ket in which is stored up the treasure
which neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt.
By her letters she shows that, with
all her cleverness, she was at heart a
vulgar minded woman, resolved to
push her way up somehow or other
into the highest circles. She met
| Napoleon's brother and at once seized
| her chance. She knew we'll enough
| that she was playing hazardous
game, but she trusted to her beauty
and her cleverness to carry her
| Through She felt sure that she would
| master Napoleon himself could she
see him; but he would never let her
set foot in France. He insisted that
his brother should be divorced, and
Jerome had not strength of mind tC
resist. His conduct, no doubt, was
pitiful enough; but when we read
this narrative it is easy to see that he
had, when youth of nineteen, been
married to woman who was little
better than an adventures.
1t would have been difficult, even
in a brief sketch, to succeed in giving
an interesting account of woman
who was so utterl y mean and pltiful.
In a dozen pages her whole story
might have been easily told. Mr.
Didier, however, has chosen to FIJI q
volume, and, of necessity, has pro-
duced a very dull and tiresome book.
1t contains the names of great many
people of high rank and great wealth
and fashion, among others the STEP
son Of the duke of Kent Gather OF
Queen Victoria)." Mrs. Patterson,
we are told, though Protestant her
self had "a great respect for the Ro-
man Catholic belief as the religion Of
princes and kings" On some such
principle as this there may be not a
few readers who will have a great
respect for Mrs. Patterson's Life and
Letters.