The Democratic advocate., 1882-02-18
Blue or Red Blood.

We shall have urincesses plenty ia Am~rlcA
in tiHie II the present strrafa al good and rich
American giras continues ~ sweep ap titlcd
husbands acruSs the Atlantic, sometimes rich,
ha, generally well helped cat by the money
bags of the npuhliesa yoang women. An
earlier princess than any Of these, aud not
Peeahouias either. thoagh of the pgiou. has
jaa llcen recalled % pnblic meail9n ~ the
burning of her Old hone-she nld Murst house
at Tallahassee, Florida. Il Faises the ques
ton, ia going over the incidents II Madame
Betty MurAt' career, wherc the nobility and
the real title came 10. Madame Betty IS dead
aud laid away from Florida orange blossoms.
bat her wedding and her subsequent history
are vet alive in native chronicles of Virginia,
Tallahassee and the hate Imperial Coart q
France. Aehilic Murat. whom Miss Betty
Byrd Willis. Of Nirginia, fell IN love With and
married. was the son Of that hotel waiter OF
barber who became somewhat famous IN his
day as the most brilliant cavalry chief uf
Europe and king Of Naples BY the grace Of
Bonaparte the First. King Joachim wss
himself the son Of aninnkeepeT, 50 the Fise oi
the Mnrnts was one of thasc Kaleidoscope
effects that Napoleon was fond Of making uut
OF bits Of ordinary clay that hsd good color IN
them, his own sort, in fact, he was - sure
Of Nurat fortune that be married him fu
Caroline Bonsparse. aIier ihe other iashlca
that this great matchmaker had q distributing
husbands aud wives among his sisters aad
brothers and everybody within reach But
long before our American princess, Miss Betty
Willis, grew Rp 70 be aclle. puoF hing Joa
chin had been shot ia Naples. a. = rebel and
n pretender, by order Of the then triumphant
and restored B0urbuns. and hi. sou Arhille,
after some Austrian schooling, driitcd Ia this
country and took up Florida law. He was
Just as capable a Yankee, Is turned osst, a. 4
he had not been for seven years the hear ae
parent 20 an Italian throne, and be soon made
himself competent lawyer, well known in
New Orleans and engaged as counsel ia some
important suits on record in the courts Of that
city. His eourtship Of Miss Betty came Oh in
Florida aud there they made their home. He
died IN lS47, before the turn Of events came
that lifted the Press Murat into n Splendor
that she did not care for.
When the turn Of the wheel made Louis
Napoleon Emperor, he began to east about
him for family Of relatives to give impor-
tance to this imperial throne. He gathered
up all the Bonapartes that could be found, and
among them the American seions. He reeog-
Z led, IN q casual way, Betsey Bonaparte, of
Baltimore, but he sent 10 Florida after the
danghter-in-aw Of Queen Caroline of Naples,
Nine Betty Murat She wax bioaghtto Paris
and introduced as the Princess Aehille- But
she had no children push as ''nabobs and
counts in the stock gambling and sutler spec
ulations of the Imperial court, and she did not
seem to have much Of an allowance to keepap
the splendor, and besides was sufficiently an
American TO prefer Tallahassee to the Tuiller-
les AT all events, she came back, at what
period Of the Emperor fortunes IS not stated.
and ended her days in Florida. She was
prouder, il is said, of her American rank and
of her Achilles distinction as Florida eiti-
zen, than Of all the gliding that the electro
typers Of the Second Empire could put ON TO
her door-plate as Princess. Her old home IN
Jefferson county was an Oyergrown wilderness
when she came back To it, and she built her
self little cottage in Tallahassee; but she had
herself carried back to the old plantation
house, and to the room where her lawyer hus-
band had died, when her cwn turn came to
pass away from titles and earthly scenes.
Around another old house of Madame Bet
tvs events were happening that rivalled the
campaigns of her father-in-law Joachim. The
hill overlooking Fredericksburg was the site
I Of the old Willis mansion, where Washingtons,
and Lees and Custises were entertained. The
old house was burned down many years ago,
( but on the site OF it Gen. Robert +. Lee
planted his batteries and fired his shots at the
I Federal armies in 1868. The Confederate
+ dead, who fell behind Lees batteries, were
buried IN the Ola Wins graNeYard' Which sun
was intact behind its brick walls, though the
( house was in ruins, and all around them, in
I the Union Cemetery, lie thousands Of boys in
( blue, who died in the several storming attacks
i on the hill. So this American princess con-
4 nected in her own person with the stormiest
scenes in the old world and the new, yet pass
ed her own days in peace, and neither the
/ carnage upon .Lee's hill' nor the surrender
1 at Sedan has as much to do with her fortune
+ as the sun Of Austerlitz that made, or the
/ iaLs;gg at Aneona that spoiled her father-in-
I law Kingdom. The latter and the final day
/ at Pizzo, when Joachim was shDt, with nm
bandaged eyes, certainly sent citizen Achille
to this country, finally to become an American
lawyer and orange grower and the husband of
his philadelphia ledger.