The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-06-08
THE FIHST EMPIRE.
am Eccentric Character OF the Reign
of tine FArs6 Napoleon.
[London Telegraph

Some dim remembrance Of her former
state seems to have chung to the late misery
Princesse de la MoskoVa, since she kept halt
d dozen male and female servants. With
these domestics, and sometimes with the ad-
dition Of the :'concierge," she played her
nightly game of besique, at halfpenny the
''dche," or counter; it being understood,
however, that any player rising on two sue
cessiye evenings q winner from the tables
was to be memorable turned out of doors.
The annual income of this more than eccen-
trio lady was estimated at about e3O,OO0.
We call her more than eccentric, since Mime.
Lafite, her mother, had been so unfortunate
as to suffer mental alienation, and the future
Princesse de la MoskoYa was born in a luna
tic asylum. Otherwise the early days Of
Mile. Alb5ne Lafite were as splendidly gold
en- as those of Hoods fancied s'Miss Kill
mansegg." Born in 1903, she was old
enough to remember in all its nagnif1cence
the Court of Napoleon I and Maria Louisa.
The title SO long borne by the deceased
Princesse dc Ia MoskoVa will deyolve on NJ.
Edgar Ney, the last surviving son Of the ill
fated Marshal, who was shot in the garden
of the Luxembourg sixty-fye years ago.
The new Prince de Ia MoskoVa-should he
come to don the shadoWy ranks an elderly
and childless gentlemen, and at his death the
Principally or La Moskova may altogether
expire, unless it be assumed by the late
Princess nephew, General, the Duke of
E%ckingen.
Republican France is, in al probability,
suprelnely indifferent to the gradual eyanlsn-
ment Of the honoritlc digniues created for
his counselors by Napoleon the Great.
The dukes and counts and barons OF the first
Empire were ''p%aryenus" Of the ''parVenus.'
They sprang from nothing, and to nothing
they are returning. Even in the case Of the
penurious Princess de la Moskova there is no
drying up of blue blood. Her father
before his actual success as q fnancier, was
an Auyergnat peasant; and her husbands
father, the hero Of the MoskoVa, s'the bravest
of the brave" had been originally b mechan-
io at Sarre-Louis. II 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 q mark in public life. In the
person Of the devoted adherents of the En-
press Eugene, we are, indeed, reminded of
the existence of Muret, Duke Of Bassana
but the once glorious title Of Lannes, Duke
of Monticello, is now chiefly suggestive Of
champagne brand. The Junots, Dukes Of
Abrantes, seem to be wholly submerged
and the widow of the original Marshal, who,
as a sergeant, sanded with the earth thrown
up by a cannon ball the dispatch which he
was writing on q gun, at the direction OF
Bonaparte, general of artillery, at Toulon,
was reduced in her old age to the direst
indulgence.
A. Clarke, Duke Of Feltre, was dimly
heard of at the last general election / France,
and there may be somewhere IN French So
ciety a representative of Davoust, FRINGE of
Eckmuhl; but the Talleyrand-P erigords have
long since ceased to call themselves Princes
of Beneventum, and there is no Murat who
is Grand Duke of Borg. The existing des-
proudly 'sPlus ultra" There is no need for
He is King of Sweden. There may occur
from time to time just a faint and Pickering
symptom of the existence of the Pouches,
Duke Of Otranto, and of the Savarys, Dukes
of Rovigo but for half q century no active
part has been taken in French politics by
the descendants OF the noted police minis
ters of the first Napoleon. And what has
become of the Soults, Dukes of Dalamatia
of the Macdonalds, Dukes Of Tarentum Of
the Massenas, Princes Of Essling Of the
Regniers. Dukes Of Padua; Of the Suchets,
Dukes Of Albufera Of the Dukes of Reggie,
and Treviso, and Dantzic? They all seem
now as shadowy beings as Arthur's Knights
Of the Round Table and the Paladins Of
Charlemagne.
--uMD+ 44@aAAN awm
Dazzling Stockings.