Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-01-02
THE EMPRESS EUGENE.
a Sad-Heartcd Woman Who Has Out
lived All Those She Loved.

Four times have seen the Empress
/ Eugene, writes Paris correspondent.
/ The first was few months after her mar
riage, when she occupied, with her hus-
band, the Imperial box at at the Come.
die-f rancaise, exquisite TO behold in
white silk and pearls, the famous pearls
that had formed the Emperor's bridal
gift. / shall not soon forget the slender,
swaying throat rising from the statue
+ lovely shoulders with the grace of lily
stalk, the golden lighted tresses, the
large, almond-shaped blue eyes, with
that mysterious sadness in their depths
that one sees i'll the portraits of Charles
l., shading their azure brilliancy aud
not to be chased away even by the sun
NY sweetness of the smiling mouth. Ten
years later | again beheld the Empress,
this time in fun court dress at gala
representation the opera, blazing with
diamonds, with that peerless gem, the
regent surrounding the classic-shaped
diadem that she never wore since except
at the penalty of an agonizing headache,
so great was its weight. Her delicate,
tiower-like beauty had developed and
expanded into that of well-ripened
fruit, the rounded arms and finely
moulded shoulders dimpling out of glow
ing draperies of rich red silk. She sat
like statue or like some gem bedecked
Indian idol, so motionless that her din
monds famed; they did not flash or
sparkle. Next l beheld her scowled
upon by the Partisan crowd at the re-
view in 1870, sired-looking, elderly
woman, with the dainty charms of her
youth and the glowing graces of her
prime replaced by all the articles known
TO the inventors of French cosmetics.
And then, year or two ago, passed
on the Place Vendome, sorrowful lady,
clad in deep mourning, with silvery hair
and an infirm gait, who was in the act OF
getting into her carriage, aiding herself
with her cain as she did so. There was
no installing the sad sweetness of the ex-
preston of the inimitable graceful car
riage of the head and shoulders. 1t was
the ex-Empress passing through Paris
on her way to one of the Continental
watering places.
Her health is good with the exception
of the rheumatic affection that has trou-
bled her for years, and that impels her
to seek annually the councils and care of
one of the great physicians of Amster-
dam. She is wealthy and in growing
old she has grown penurious,s so that her
heirs, the children of her sister, the
Duchess of Alba, will probably inherit
some day an immense fortune.
Like ghost of the vanished empire
that gave her grandeur, and to which she
impaired grace and harm, she fits from
one health-giving place of public resort
to another, alone on earth with her
memories and her sorrows. She has
survived all those whom she loved
husband, son, mother and sister. Dead,
too, are her hopes and her ambitions;
they have vanished like her world re-
nowned beauty, like her queenship,
like her long hoped-for and joyously |
hailed maternity. Often in the
watches of the night storm of grief Will |
scatter the calmness of her resignation |
to the winds, and she will sit for hours |
weeping before the portraits of the late
Prince Imperial.