Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1890-04-05
The Ex-Empress Eugene in Her English
HOnon


Home.
The ex-Empress Eugene will always be an in
teresting figure to English eyes, Lonely, widowed,
and in exile, her msfortunes awaken universal
sympathy, and the quiet, transformations manner
of her life commands general respect. Farnbor-
ough, where she took up her residence after leav-
ing Chsehurst, is at one end of the long ridge
known as the Hogs Back, which begins at Guild
ford. From the writer of "Random Recollec-
tions, etc., }" we learn that the house is but
sparsely inhabited; those who dwell therein have
accepted the melancholy austerties of its life.
The Due de Bassano, the courtier in prosperity,
the friend in exile; NJ. P. Petr the secretary of
the Empress Nine. LIE Breton and two or three
young girls, among whom is Mdlle. Corrisart-the
daughter of the most distinguished of the En-
peror's physicians-compose the little household
Nine. LIE Breton, we read, snever leaves her
mistress She goes with her to Amsterdam and
Naples, with her returns to Marlborough, where
the chairs of the two ladies stand side by side
and in the long silence the click of their knitting
needles seems but one sound. They are equally
tried in mind and in health, the one suffers from
rheumatism, and the other from cruel neuralgia;
both are lonely and getting old, and both have ex-
perienced the agony of losing an only son. X X
Nine. LIE Breton's existence is one of absolute
abnegation. She had become almost blind, when
successful operation partially restored her sight,
but hardly enough to enable her to resume her old
functions of lectrice without much fatigue She
does not speak or understand English and part-
cipates in none of the distractions which her resi-
dence in England, and so near London, could
offer Her habits and views have remained wholly
French. She never attends concert, play, ora
party The cold and fogs affect her painfully
and increase her neuralgia, but she does not COM
plain and the idea of leaving the Empress has
never occurred to her. If she can win her mis-
tress from her ugubrious thoughts by conversation
she deems herself we'll repaid for any personal in
convenience; she is proud when The dry and
heavy books, the only ones the Empress reads
now are set aside, and she draws her chair nearer
to the fire, ready for one of the long, desultory,
rambling talks, during which the two desoate
women recall the past with fond iteration, evoke
the brilliant mirage Of the Tuileres and Com
pegne, dropping unconsciously into the Spanish
tongue that Eugene loves-a prediction which,
in the first instance influenced her choice of Nine.
LIE Breton, as lady in northumberland they live
over once more the fugitive days of the second
empire.
The retirement and privacy of the Empress life
are not caused by want of means to take a more
prominent place, for she has an ample fortune,
though not an extraordinarily large one. She
spends without extravaganza or meanness, she is
pous and generous; the simplicity of her attire
makes her almost unacceptable when she passes
in crowd and many who have stood close to her
DC che chose a hook at the Catholic booksellers
Burns & Oates, in London, have not guessed that
the tall, pale, gray-haired woman, with drawn eye
lids and sad mouth in her heavy mourning, was
the once radiant Empress of the French.-Lam-
beth and Westminster Gazette,