River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-01-08
THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.


Her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia
there viii always be a kingdom of Bo-
homia for story tellers-was travelling
in strict incognito and in humble fash
ion under the nome of the Countess DIES
Sept Chateaux. She was accompanied
by the old Baroness Georgenthal, her
companion and Gen. Horschowitz, her
equerry. In spite of furs and foot
warmers, it is very cold in the reserved
compartment; and when the Queen,
growing weary of her English novel
and worried by the Generals knitting
for the General knitted-wanted to
look out on the snow-coyered country,
she was obliged to rub the glass of her
carriage window for minute or two
with her handkerchief, the frost had
covered it so thiekly with glittering
tracery and delicate ferns of ice. 1t
was strange caprice, certainly, and
worthy of her Majesty's twenty years,
to set ont for Paris in midwinter to
join her mother, the Queen of MOravia,
who was to have visited her in Prague
the following spring. However, moth
ing would do but she must start on the
Journey, with the thermometer sixteen
degrees below freezing point. The baro-
ness had to shake up her old rheuma-
tism, and the General in despair had to
leave behind magnificent Counterpart
he was knitting for his daughter in law,
and to content himself with working a
simple pair Of worsted stockings by way
of occupation ON the road. 1t was
rough Journey. The whole of Europe
Law covered with snow, and they had
come half way across it, and all sorts
of difficulties and hindrances, by rail
WAYS that were disorganized by the
hard weather.
Now thew are getting near the end of
their journey. At nine o'clock they
dined at the buffet at Macon, and al
though this evening the foot warmers
are again hardly lukewarm, and outside
great snowAukes float about in the dark
ness. the baroness and the general
both slumEering in corner under furs
and railway rugs-are dreaming of their
arrival in Paris The good old lady is
full of tie advantages size will fn1
there for special religious exercises !;
and the old soldier. of certain wool
shop III the Rue Saint Honore, towhich
he means to pay an early visit. the only
shop at which he can match his green
Berlin wool skeins satisfactorily.
The queen is not asleep. Size sits
there buried in thought, with her eyes
wide open in the shadow, feverish and
shivering in her blue fox furs, with her
elbow leaning on the window-sill and
one hand clenched in the beautiful ruff
fed golden hair that has fallen loose
from her coquettish little travelling cap,
listening mechanically to the vague,
distant music that the tired ears Of the
travellers seem to hear in the iron gallop
of the express. She Is looking back
over her whole past life, this poor Young
queen, and thinking how miserable she
is.
She saw herself as she used to be,
when she was a little princess with red
hands and an uniformed figure, playing
with her twin sister. whom they had
married far away in the north-thc SIS
Ter she was SO fond of and who was so
like her, that when they were dressed
in the same way they had to pat RIB
hons Of different color in their hair that
they might not be mistaken one for the
other. That was before the revolution
that overturned her parents's throne.
She had loved the calm and sleepy at
mosphere Of the little court of OtmutZ,
where etiquette was tempered by such
easy going good nature. In those days
her father, good King Louis WHO
since then had died in exile of broken
heart-used to walk through the park
with her and her sister, in his court
dress every afternoon at o'clock,
to take cafe an lait in the Chinese pa
vilion, covered with ivy vines, looking
ont on the river and the far off circle of
hills red tinted in the autumn.
Then came her marriage and the
presentation ball one beautiful night in
July. when the murmer of the crowds
in the Illuminated gardens had come up
through the open windows. How she
had trembled when she was left alone a
moment IN the conversatory with the
Young king She loved him already
she had loved him from the first mo-
ment she had seen him, as he came for
ward. with the white plume III his cap,
so graceful and elegant IN his blue uni
form and diamonds, with the gold spurs
on lis small gray boots ringing at every
step. After the first waltz OttOkar had
taken her arm, and, stroking his long
black moustache the while, had led her
into the couse1 vatory and made her sit
down under palm tree. Then sitting
beside her he had taken her hand IN
that grand. easy way OF his, and looked
into her ewes and asked her, Princess,
will YOU 10 me the honor OF becoming
my wife," And she had blushed and
looked down, and holding her hand to
her heart to still its wild beating, had
answered him. yes. SIRE" while the
TZigones' violins suddenly crashed out
the first note of the "Tcheque March, :"
that sublime song of triumph and en-
thusiasm.
Alas how soon that happiness had
fed Six months of error and Illusion
scarcely six months sand then one day,
before her babT was born, she found
out bv a cruel chance that she had
been deceived. that the king did not
love her that he never had loved her,
and tiat the very day after ms mar
riage he had supped with Gazella, the
first dancer of the Prague Theatre,
a Iisht woman. And that was not all
She had found out-what every one
hut herself knew Ottokar's old iaison
Nith the Countess Pzilorann, by whom
he had three children, whom he had
never abandoned, in the midst of a
hundred caprices, and whom he had
actually dared to make first lady IN
waiting to his wife. The Queens love
was Killed on the spot-the delicate,
shy love She had never dared to confess
TO her husband. the love that she now
compared TO a tame bird she had killed
when She was little girl, squeezing il
suddenly in her hand when she had
been startled by the noise of a servant
breaking 4 vase.
She had son certainly, and She low
ed him. hat it was terrible sometimes.
when she WAS sitting by the gi.ded and
coronetel cradle Of her little sleeping
Wlalialas. to feel a cold shiver pass
over her heart at the sight OF the child,
the offspring of man who had SO wick
edlv ana cruelty outraged uer. Besides
she never had him to herself-uever all
TO herself. 1t was not at ali rs it hat
Ieen in her kind parents court -anC
that was another grief that had beer
driven out by a revolution. Here i
this ancient and naughty court Of Bohc
mia everything was done according tC
the laws of the strlctest etiquette.
whole ECct of ,rovarneSSpS and dry