The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-02-29
KING OSCARS SONS CHOICE.
What He Gives Up to Marry in His
Own Way.
From "a Nem York 1YnLe

PARIS, Feb. "A love romance in a
royal family is a bit of gossip too dainty to
be neglected by mundane chroniclers, and
so it is that the press has echoed and re
echoed the charming idyl of which the court
of Sweden has been the theater, with the
Duke of Gothland and Miss Munck as hero
and heroine, and which is to end prosaically
III quiet bourgeois wedding Not at all
pleased was King Oscar when he learned
how matters stood, and he would not
hear of it at any price until
Queen Sophia reminded her august
spouse that if he was crowned mon
arch he was only the grandson of Berna-
dotte, who was not much i'll the way of
blue blood, and that he would do wisely in
not making silly objections TO the match
because the bride-elect has not sixteen
quarterings on her escutcheon. Queen
Sophia did have some right to he fastidious
for was she not a princess of Nassau, with
a pedigree as long as that of an English
race horse! But, ON the other hand, she is
one of those thoroughbred German trdus
with homely tastes who mend their own
stockings. and make their own preserves
and is not bit eXtravagant nor airSh, but
quite the contrary. 1t is not she who VIII
ever impoverish the national treasury
in festivals and astragals, but
after the fashion of the late first lady" of
| France, Mime Grevy, she goes i'll for the
closest economy in everything. | cannot
say that Queen Sophia has suppressed cham
payne or recommended chamomile leaves as
a substitute for the Chinese herb at court
receptions, which Nine. Grevy is rumored
to have done, but do know the story of a
pair of gloves which is good pendant for
that bonnet bought for little Margaret"
at the Louvre and taken back, after being
worn, the day succeeding Mile. Labiche's
wedding, which told to your readers just
| before the crash came at the Elysee.
Learn then that the coronation of
the Queen is always celebrated
at the National Museum with a certain
amount Of pomp and parade, to which her
majesty most reluctantly consented, but
nothing could bend her will to yield on one
point of the ceremonial, 1. e., in the matter
of the pair of gold embroidered gloves
which tradition imposed as a part of the
gala costume. Your majesty should give
them to her first lady of honor, it is one of
her traditional perquisities," said the
Grand Chamberlain. II shall do
nothing of the kind" replied her
majesty; they're not a bit soiled,
and | can wear them another time And
she did keep and wear them until they were
soiled, and remarkably so. Barring her
penuri1usness, which has become proverb-
ial, Queen Sophia is an excellent woman,
and a most devoted mother. Her health is
very bad, and yet, notwithstanding a very
painful operation to which she was obliged
to submit last year, she did not hesitate to
make the Journey from Stockholm to Con-
stantinople to nurse one of her children
who was i'll there with typhoid fever; and
with such an advocate the Duke of Goth
| land was sure to carry his point.
| The future husband of Miss Munck, Prince
Oscar, is the second son of the Scandinavian
sovereigns, and was 2S years of age on Nov.
Is, 1887 He was well known and a great
| favorite in Partisan society few years ago
and especially frequenter of the drawing
rooms of the Princess of Sagan, the Princess
Brancovans, and Nine. Heine. Like all his
| brethren, he is Of colossal stature. You may
remember what the Princess Metternich
said of them, as of the father of Queen Ma
| talie of Serbia, LES plus simon, les mieux
eleves hommes de pEuropem And very I'M
pretending and unairish withal, with little
to live upon save their pay of Second Lieu
tenants, yet the first to laugh at the economy
enforced on them by their meagre budgets
| Eight years ago when he was passing the
winter at Nice, the Duke of GOthland
lodged as we'll as he could the subscription
| lists for all the more or less phlIanthrophlc
solemnities organized there, and once,
when cornered by the commissary of some
charitable undertaking, he gave louis to
the solicitor, adding, with smile: Its
|
the Cross of st. Olaf by way of compensa-
tionr' To marry the lady of his love
Prince Oscar renounces all the preroga-
tives and privileges attached to his rank
and must hencefOrth style himself simply
Prince Bernadotte, title, however, which,
in my humble opinion, is at least
worth that of Duke of GOthland.
Miss Munck, you perhaps know, was lady
of honor to the wife of the heir apparent,
a Princess of Baden, and granddaughter of
the Emperor of Germany. She was what
they would call in England professional
| beauty" and had already refused great
| many advantageous offers, having made up
her mind to marry the young man of her
choice, who is couple of years her junior.
Quite comprehensive too were her aspira-
tions for the queens of beauty at Northern
courts enjoy prerogatives that they are I'M
willing to abdicate except for very prac-
| tical equivalent. They are personal sover-
eigns, unquestioned autocrats in everything
so long as their reign lasts, but, like every
thing else, that reign IS ephemeral, and
among the many called the number or
chosen ones is limited
All these favorites of fashion have not
been as lucky as Miss Munck. Take, for
| instance, that demoiselle d'honneur of the
Czarina Marie, that Hessian girl who felt
so sure that some day she would become the
Grand Duchess Alexis. Terribly hard hit
| was Alexis, so much IN love that, unable TO
overcome the opposition of his imperial
father, he left Muscovy and went to the
| United States where, she joining him, they
were privately married Unfortunately the
| clandestinity of their union was an all
sufficient reason for its subsequent annul-
ment, and the pseudo-Grand Duchess lives
to dav in strict retirement somewhere out
of the way in Germany, while Alexis,
restored to family favor, firts
elsewhere. Still, Miss Munck's
case is not unprecedented; the Grand Duke
of Badens brother, Prince Charles, married
plain Fraulein Won Beust; the Archduke
| Henry, Nile. Hoffman; Prince Gustav de
! Sake Weimar, Mile. Marcocchia; the reign
ing Duke of Meiningen Mile. Franz;
the Comte de Bari, half brother Of the
last King of Naples, Francis H., so well
known in Paris, where he resides, Mile.
Marconnay, who was a member of the
ballet corps at the French National Acad-
envy OF Music Victor Emmanuel took 70
his morganatic spouse the notorious Rosina,
whom he created Countess of Mirahori,
though she was only daughter Of the
Drum Major Of the Regiment Of Savoy,
and his cousin, Prince Carignan, took for
better and for worse the daughter of a Turin
csc tradesman by whom he has four chill
dren: Princess Charles of Hesse was a Mile
de Csrote: Princess Jules of Schleswig
Holstein, sister-in-law Of the King of Den