Omaha daily bee., 1884-10-31
AN AMERICAN PRINCESS.
From Circus to Camp and Thence to
Court-Again Married and
Separated.
Ben Perley Poore.

, iNANpg ~
Agnes Leclerq, who was quite a prom
nent personsgs at Washington during
the war, was a native of Baltimore, where
she was born on Christmas day, 1910
AS she grew into a handsome dashinf
woman, she developed great ability as 9
rider, and finally went to Philadelphia
where she took a course of lessons in
horsemanship in the National circus. In
a few months she made a successful debut
in the firing, and married a rope dancer.
With him she professionally visited New
Orleans and other Southern %lcities, and
in the autumn of 1858 she located in New
York. Married life, did not, however,
suit her, 30 she left her husbrnd and
went to Cuba, where she remained long
enough to obtain a divorce. She came
to Washington just sitter the war broke
out, and led a gay and festive life, half
of the young officers being in her train of
admirers.
In 1862 she made her game. To the
astonishment of everybody she married
the Prince Felix Constantine Alexander
John Nepourncene Salm-Salm, second
son of Prince William Forentine Salm.
Salm. He was a genuine prince, a good
deal down at the heel, and the ambition
of the %circus-rider was tolerably well sat
isfied. She had the influence to secure
a brigade command for her husband, and
without distinguishing himself by any
thing In particular, he fought along
quietly until the war was at an end. She
then tried hard to obtain for the prince a
c~olonel's commission in the peace estab-
l:abn,apt and hol tha a,,.~1 - ua.-.
Wilson and other prominent men, but
General Grant was sternly opposed to
him.
Then the prince and princess went down
to Mexico and offered their sword-,it was
quite a partnership atf.ir-to poor Maxa-
milan. The first and Last emperor of
Mexico was disposed to fight shy at first
of this brace of princely adventures, but
the princess won him without much trou-
BILE, and the prince soon made the
emperor's first aid. ds-camp. To do them
justice they stood by the sinking impe-
rialship right pluckily, and the prince
came uncommonly near being shot along
side o t his masler. The princess, how
ever, begged him of, and after he had
been a year behind the bars she begged
him out of prison and carried him off in
triumph to Europe. She patched up a
peace with the elder Prince Salm. Salm,
and made it valid by a clause providing
for the payment of her husbands Prus-
sian debts. Having cleared the decks by
this clever move, she had the prince APP
pointed to a command in the Prussian
army, and when the war broke out in
1870, he was, thanks to her, a major in
the grenadier guard, and in an excellent
position to win the bubble of reputation
at the mouth of the cannon of France.
Poor fellow! No doubt his intentions
were excellent toward making the best
of the opportunities that his wife had
secuaed for him, but he was shot
almost at the beginning of the wal at
Gravelotte.
The widowed princess, who had mean.
while studied medicine, sought consola-
ton in the field, and was made a medical
director of camp hospitals, with a regular
rating or the surgeon generals staff.
Until the wal was over she played the
part of a Observation-Disclosures Florence
Nightingale in a way hat won for her
the love of manya poor soldier, sorely
wounded and in a grievous pain, VINO
fell under her tender care.
The war ended, she settled down at
Annholt, where the Salm-Salm people
have their headquarters and tried to be
staid and un-Bohemian. AS was to be
expected she found it very hard work,
and by way of s~teadying herself she
married a Mr.. Charles Heneage, an at
tache of the English legation at Berlin.
They did not get along well. 1t was a
case of an eagle in a doves nest. Hene-
age was a very good sort of a fellow in
his way but after living with such a
splendid Bohemian as was the dead
prince, the ex-princess could not find
much comfort in living with a seemingly
social ~law.abiding citizen as was this
underling of the foreign Office. Of
course they had rows, and things came
to a climax when the spirited Mr..
Charley sued her so called lord and
master for the l 900 a year that he had
settled upon her, but that he had failed
to pay. They separated, but Mr. Vice
Chancellor-decided the suit in her
favor and the money was then duly and
regularly paid until her death.
NJ |