The Portland daily press., 1881-03-21
The Mobiles of the First Empire.
London Telegraph

lHoiuou IOiOSidpu.J
Some dim remembrance of her former state
seems to have clung to the late miserly Prin-
cesse de la Moskova, since she kept half
dozen male and female servants. With these
domestics, and sometimes with the addition of
the concierge" she played her nightly game
of besique at a halfpenny the ''fiche," or coun-
ter; it being, however, understood that any
player rising on two successive evenings win
ner from the tables was to be inexorably turned
out OF DOORS The annual income of this more
than eccentric lady was estimated at about
thirty thousand pounds sterling. We call her
more than eccentric, since Madame Laffitte
her mother, had been SO unfortunate as to suf-
fer mental alienation, and the future Princesse
de la Moskova was born in a lunatic asylum
Otherwise the early days of Mademoiselle
Albine Laffitte were as splendidly golden as
those of Hoods fancied "Miss Killmansegg.
Born in 1908, she was old enough to remember
in all its magnifcence the Court of Napoleon
1. and Maria Louisa.
The title so long borne by the deceased Prin-
cesse de la Moskova will devolve on M Edgar
Ney, the last surviving son of the ill-fated
Marshal1who was shot in the garden of the
olAbJ-nN0 YEARS ago. 1u6 u6W
Prince de Ia Moskova-should he come to don
the shadowy ranks an elderly and childless
gentleman; and at his death the Principality
of La Moskova may altogether expire, unless it
be assumed by the late Princess's nephew,
General, the Duke of Elchingen.
Republican France is, in all probability, su-
Dremely Indifferent to the gradual evanish-
ment of the honorlfic dignites created for his
satraps and counsellors by Napoleon the Great.
The 1uEaS and and nf fba
Empire were "parvenus' of the sparvenus"
They sprang from nothing, and to nothing
they are returning. Even in the case of the
penurious PrinceSse de la Moskova there is no
drying up of blue blood. Her father, before
his actual success as fnancier, was an Au-
vergnat peasant; and her husbands father, the
hero of the Moskova, "the bravest of the
brave;' had been originally a mechanic at
Sarre-Louis. If we turn over Napoleon's roll
of peers we shall be surprised to find how few
among the descendants of that bright band of
warriors and sages have made any mark in
public life. In the person of the devoted ad-
herent of the Empress Eugene we are, indeed,
reminded of the existence of Maret, Duke of
Bassano; but the once glorious title of Lannes,
Duke OF Montebello, is now chiefly suggestive
of champagne brand. The Junots, Dukes of
Abrantes, seem to be wholly submerged; and the
widow OF the original Marshal, VINO, as q ser
geant, sanded with the earth thrown up by d
cannon ball the dispatch which he was writing
on gun, at the dictation of Bonaparte, Gen.
eral of Artillery, at Toulon, was reduced in
her old age to the direst indigence.
A Clarke, Duke of Feltre, was dimly heard
OF at the last General Elections in France; and
there may be somewhere in French society
representative of Davoust Prince of Echmuhl; !;
but the Talleyrand-Perigords have long since
ceased to call themselves Princes of Beneven-
tom; and there is no Murat who is Grand
Duke of Berg. The existing descendant of
Marshal Bernadotte may say proudly, "Plus
ultra" There is no need for him to call HIM
self Prince of Ponte Corvo. He is the king of
Sweden. There may occur from time to time
just faint and fickering symptom of the ex-
istence of the Touches, Dukes of Otranto, and
Of the Savarys, Dukes of Royigo; but for half
a century no active part has been taken in
French politics by the descendants of the
noted Police Ministers Of the First Napoleon.
And what has become of the Soults, Dukes of
Dalmatia; of the Massenas Princes of Essling
| of the Regniers, Dukes of Padua; of the S1.
chefs, Dukes of Albufera; of the dukes of Reg
gio and Treviso and Dantzic? They all seem