The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-03-09
Napoleon Ill. and CarlOtts.

When Macmillan and the Princess
Carlotta landed at Vera Cruz in 1864,
they only numbered three hundred and
fifty thousand adherents among popu-
lation of seven millions. 1t was little
likely that the new government should
meet with sympathy. The constitution
was overthrow, the national institutions
destroyed, the country devastated with
fire and sword, and thousands OF inhabi-
tants shot down in cold blood for merely
resisting the invaders. The Emperor
Macmillan was perhaps as much the
victim of his own ambition as of intrigu-
ing speculation. For years, according
to his own showing, he had dreamed of
empire. In his memoirs he writes
show agreeable it must be to
stand amid bowed heads and to
feel ones self supreme as the sun
in the armament" TO the last, edged
on by his clerical advisers and by terror
ism, he tried to obtain his hollow dig
nifty of Emperor, and to the last he
looked for support from Napoleon III.
The Mexican affair, however, turning
out losing game, Macmillan was left
to his fate. The Archduke had married
Belgian Princess, granddaughter OF
Louis Philippe. lady OF high spirit,
ambitious, yet, we must believe, imbued
with romatic notions of her husband
mission. The unhappy Princess, seeing
at last that her husbands only chance OF
help lay in Napoleon Ill, sailed for
Europe, landed at st. Nazaire on the Sth
of August, and that same night started
for Paris. On the morning of the 9th
she arrived at the Grand Hotel. The
Court was at st. Cloud, and on demand
ing an interview of the Emperor, she
was informed that His Majesty was i'll
and could not see her. The two EN-
presses, however, exchanged visits, and,
arriving at st. Cloud, the Empress Char
lotte insisted on being received into the
imperial closet. Then ensued, we are
told, a scene which must have haunted
Louis Napoleon to his dying day. When
to prayers, tears, and agonized supplica-
tions on her part, his only reply
was coldly reiterated 1T is
useless to insist, madame; not
a crown, not soldier" the
Princess whom such cruel anxieties had
already brought to the verge OF madness,
gave way to frenzied utterances. Rising
from her abject position as suppliant,
she drew herself up to her full height,
and with kind of inspiration prophesied
to the tyrant the destruction of his
dynasty, and cursed him to his fate.
'An!" she cried, 81 know you! Avenge
yourself on the granddaughter of your
benefactor, Louis Philippe, who rescued
YOU from the scaffold and from want"
The Emperor turned pale, and she went
on: "You hope, do you not, to get pos
session, by means of your police, OF all
the letters and papers that witness your
pledges to my husband? They are in a
place of safety" After predicting his
downfall, she added, tears choking her
utterance: "May the curse OF God rest
on you as on Cain!" and then Quilted the
palace. Four years later, on the DECLARE
ton of war with Prus STA, Napoleon I'LL,
not venturing to show himself in the
streets of Paris, departed from the Palace
of st. Cloud, wherein this interview with
the Empress Charlotte had taken place.
BY an irony of fate. he entered the rail
way at the little station in the park,
called the "Gare des Fetes" the Station
of Fetes.)