The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-07-11
Napoleon III. and Carlotta.
tExchanRe.i .i


 When Maximillian and the Princes, Carlotta landed at Vera Cruz in 1864 they only numbered three hundred anc tity thousand adherants among a popu. lation of seven millions. It was little
 likely that the ne~ goverpment should meet with sympathy. The constitution was overthrown, the national institution destroyed, the country devasted with fire and sword, and thousands of inhabitants shot down in cold blood for merely ro. sisting tho invaders. The Emperor Max. imilian was perhaps as much the victim of his own ambition ss of intriguing spectators. For years, according to his own showing, he had dre amed of etnpire. In his memoirs he writes how agreea- ble it must be to stand amid bowed heads, and to feel oue's self supreme as the sun in the Armament" To the last, edged on by his clerical advisers and by terrorism, he tried to obtain his hollow dignity of emperor, and to the last he looked for support from Napoleon III. The Mexican affair, however, turning out losing game, Maximillian was left to his fate. The archduke had married a Bel gian princess, granddaughter ot Louis Philippe, lady of high spirit, ambitious, yet, we must believe, imbued with TO- mantle notions of her husbands mission. The unhappy princess, seeing at last that her husbands only chance of help lay in Napoleon III, sailed for Europe, Ian ded at St. Nozaire on the 8ih of August, and that same night started for Paris. ca the morning of the o:h she arrived at the Grand Hotel. The court was at S. Cloud, and on demanding an interview of the emperor, she was informed that his majesty was ill and couid not sec her. The two expresses, however, exchanged visits and, arrived at St Cloud, the En- press Carlotta insisted on being received into the imperial closet. Then ensxed, we are told, scene which must have haunted Louis Napoleon to his dying day. When to prayers, tears, aud agonized supslications On her part, his only reply was coldly reiterated Ut 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 fren- zled utterances. Rising from her ahjecs position as supplicant, she drew herself up to her full height, and with kind of inspiration prophesied to the tyrant the destruction of hi: dynasty, and cursed him to his face. "Ahp she cried, "l know you :! Avenge yourself on the oi your benefactor, Louis Philippe, who rescued you from the scaf fold and from want" The emperor turned pale, and she went on, @You hope, do you not, to get possession by means of your police, of all the letters and papers that witness your pledges to nay husbandP They are in a place of safety" Alter predicting his downfall, she added, tears choking her utteraace !" May the curse of God rest on you as on Cainp and then quilted the palace. Four years later, on the declaration of war with Prussia, Napoleon ILL, not to show himself in the streets of Paris, departed from the palace of St. Cloud, wherein this interview with the Empress Carlotta had taken place. By sn irony os fate, he entered the railway at the little station in the park, called .he Gare der Peter (the station of Fetes). |