Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-02
A RUSSIAN ADVENTURES.
witched Prince Louis of Hesse- Darn
stadt.

/ The Career of the Woman Who Has Be-
witched Prince Louis of Hesse-Darm-
stadt
The curiosity of the most decorous Is
piqued to know something of the woman
able to bewiteh the dull Prince Louis of
Hesse-Darmstadt, says letter to She
| Cincinnati Commercials Gazette. About
seven years ago Partisan society was daz-
/ zled by the entrance into its brilliant cir
| cles of new beauty, who promised to
eclipse any yet known in the fashionable
| coterie of the worlds social capital.
Prince Captzka, wealthy Russian no
bleman, had only been married three
months when he and his young wife made
their entree into Partisan hau ton. The
/ Princes bride was charming. Fancy
tall, slight figure, every line of which
might have been copied from some Greek
/ sculpture, a face, combining inlts delicate
/ features the high-souled beauty of Helen
! of Troy, together with all the diablerie of
| Cleopatra when she charmed the great
cOnqueror of Egypt, who left his galleys
| at Achim that he might lay his laurel
wreath at the feet of the star-eyed EgYp-
/ tian Queen, who, although discrOwned,
! still reigned supreme. Her hair was Of
/ the tawny brown that Titan loved, and
! she had eyes of that soft topaz hue of
| which poets have sung ever since the
! day when the warrior poet and hero of
| Greece portrayed in faultless verse the
one perfect woman whose grace and beau
ty were worthy of the love and crown of
imperial love. With such gifts as those,
small wonder that she soon had all of gay
Paris at her feet. She set the fashion in
bOnnets. and invented a new robe, La
Gabrielle, and was painted as a goddess
of the Olden time, who had returned to
earth to show men the kind of beauty
that flourished when the world was
young. Even the women acknowledged
her peerless beauty. The Princess Demi-
dOtf. with kingly blood in her veins, de-
clared La Russo to be the lOveliest woman
of her day, and Princess de Mouchy, the
fairest of the B0naparte race, though
born in our own New jersey, said that
the lovely Russian was well worthy of
the alteration of the dead days of
romance and beauty. The fair butterfly
fitted its wings and had its brief day of
conquest, but it soon had an end. They
are none too straight-iaced in Paris
touching the requirements or duties of
wives to their husbands, as all the world
knows, but they do draw the line some-
where. There was whispered gossip at
first, and then it became b0lder and more
definite. Even the friskiest Of the young
matrOns, 8. no regard their marital ties
none too strongly, withdrew, one by one,
their cOuntenance and sanction from the
fascinating Russian, and finally the end
came, not unexpectedly to those who had
read as they ran. The Prince charged his
wife with fractures of the seventh com
mandment, and prayed the patriarch Of
the Greek church to unlOOse the bond mat
rimonial that had been so triumphantly
l..aE T.E4F..
done, and the fair star went out from the
charmed circle where she had lately been
Its first ornament in silence and tears.
just then she met Louis, Grand Duke
Of HeSse-Darmstadt. He was in mourn
ing for his faithful domestic wife, who had
been a model of all the homely virtues,
though she was Queens daughter. The
dull, phlegmatic German Princeling had
never seen such a woman before. His
sluggish blood was aflame. He was fairly
bewitched. Thinking no doubt that she
would gladly accept 'an establishment"
he offered her his protection. And then he
was taught lesson he will be likely to
long remember. With lambent ewes and
tongue sharper than Damascus steel, she
answered him ia words that went
through his pan0ply of stupidity and hurt
like stab. This only made him the more
in love with the witch of the North. His
daughter, Victoria Albel ia, whose honey
moon as the bride of Prince Louis, of Bat
tenberg, is not yet on the wane, saw that
something was very wrong with her rath-
er stupid father, and, wOmanlike, set
about discovering the cause Of the pater-
nal unhaDpiness. She was not long in
finding it out. One day she came upon a
photograph, in a drawer which Prince
Louis usually kept locked, that told her
the story. Greatly distressed, she at
once wrote to her grandmother, the
Queen of England, and told her what she
had suspected. Her Majesty was very
anxious to hurry up the marriage she
had set about. But her "faithful COM
mOns' could not and would not be hur-
ried in their work. Still, Prince Louis was
induced to make formal proposition for
the hand of Princess Beatrice, subject, of
course, to the legislative action of ParIia-
ment. Meantime the Grand Duke became
more and more infatuated with this new
Circe, and finally offered to contract u
mOrganatic marriage with the fascinat-
ing peri he had found wandering outside
the social paradise. This was different
matter, and the volatile young beauty
carefully considered 1t. Perhaps she was
somewhat touched by the devotion he had
shown and the sacrifice he must make to
do it. He would enrage the royal family
of England beyond the possibility of for
giveness, for he would have cast the bit
IeFesI sIiSnI possible upon IrlnceSS OF
the blood, his own children's aunt. He
would estrange beyond recall the affec-
tions of his br0ther-in-law, the Crown
Prince Of Germany, and his wife, the
Princess Royal OF England, apd all the
mighty relatives of the imperial family of
Germany. But there is no more foOlhardy
man than one of this stamp when he is
fairly set agoing. So fortnight ago, as
soon as the wedding chimes of his daugh-
ter were over, he welded the fair and
rather frail Russian, with all the solemn
rites of the church, and has taken her for
better and for wOrse-prObably a good
deal more of the latter than the former.
There is no need now to hurry through
the act legalizing the marriage of a man
with his deceased wife'S sister, and Princes
Bee" has had reprieve. Heaven forbid
she should ever succeed to the penury and
drudgery, even in a palace, from which
the fair Alice, the sweetest English
Princess, died.