Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-10-25

MILAN. NATALIE AND PRINCE ALEXANDER
metropolitan Theodorsius, the primate OF tie
Servian church, who has issued a pastoral
letter declaring the marriage no longer ex-
istent. King Milan, in a letter to the metro
politan written previous to the issue of the
pastoral, after pointing out that the ordinary
laws of the country could not be applied to
the SOVEREIGN, who stood ::above them, de-
manded that the metropolitan avert the
danger threatened for the Serviau state and
dynasty by dissolvlng his majesty's mar
Hage with Queen Natalie.
Several months ago Natalie became fu-
gitive from Belgrade fitting from place to
place and taking her son with her. The
scandals which have for years disgraced the
Servian court had come to crisis requiring
separation if not divorce The immediate
cause of her departure from the royal resid-
ence was not so much the open fact of her
own dissolute life as the discovery of plot,
In which she was the prime mover, to kidnap
King Milan and force his abdication. failing
in which he was to be murdered in cold
blood, as was his uncle and predecessor The
plot involved the proclamation of Alexander
as king, with Natalie as regent and the car
as suzerain. The revolution was to begin
simultaneously at Belgrade and other
strategic points on the 10Th of April last, and
so complete were the plans thought TO be
| that the Russian party could scarce conceal
their delight at the prospect Of an
end of Mian's reign. Their zeal out
| ran their discretion and gave the
snap away" Milan heard of the plot two
days before its contemplated execution, and
| scared almost to death, he hastily summoned
the Austrian ambassador and placed himself
| under Austrian protection The cabinet,
which was found to have tacitly sanctioned
the plot, was replaced by ministers OF Aus
trian proclivities, and the projected revolu-
| ton degenerated INTO few comparatively
| unimportant though sanguinary riots. Nata-
lie, of course, sought safety in flight and her
absence-even all her misdoings-wouldh have
given no pang to her royal spouse had she
| not stolen away the crown prince. the hope
of the state. For days and weeks past the
| foreign dispatches have made mention of
Milan's efforts to reclaim possession of bis
son and of Natalie's determination to keep
| him.
| The king has been extremely anxious to
secure full divorce from his wife, but the
holy synod of the Greek church turned
| orthodox Greek church extremely averse to
the annulmeut of marriages, but by reason
| Of her Russian birth and affiliations Natalie
possesses the warmest sympathieS of the
clergy, who, even in Servia, are Pan-SlaviSts
almost to a man They naturally, there
fore, could see no cause for divorce on the
| ground of Natalie's partisanShip, and had
divorce been asked las it probably was not
for canonical reasons the holy fathers might
have answered that bad as the queen doubt
less was. the king is VIGOROUSLY no better.
Husband and wife have been equally disso-
lutte and immoral to such a degree indeed as
to offend the slight remaining sense
of decency among the Servians-a people so
depraved that they have no synonym for
the English word chastity King hlilan's
drunken habits, his ignomnious cowsrdice
on the field of battle and in private life, to-
getber with his low and gross debauchery,
which on more than one occasion has led to
his figuring before foreign tribunals as the
defendant in unclean lawsuits, render him a
singClarly unovable character And yet,
considering that Natalie's love intrigues had
only the spice of romance to distinguish them
from those of her husband there is a COM
ical side to the scene at the Easter court
reception at Belgrade year ago, when the
queen lost her temper and publicly apostro-
phized the wife OF foreign envoy accredit-
ed to Seryia, accusing her in loud and indig-
nant tones of being the Dubarry to Milan's
| Inuts w