The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-01-10

such q notion had been permissible. 80 ne
cooiiy cast her aside and married the lovely
and refined Amelia of Anha!t, the discarded
morga attic wife te AZ expected co be con-
tenueu with liberal pension for herself and
her children. But Freda was not q woman
CT that kind
Duke Ernest and the duchess were driv-
ing out one day, attended BY his usual
guard of two mounted men, WI e1, at an un-
freouented corner where busaeS o0scursd
the roadside, a woman suddenly appeared.
With action as quick as thought she threw
babe in the carriage.
Take your childp' cried the woman-tor
it was Freda. HE is the right heir OF SAKE
Altenburg" The duchess tainted The
duke endeavored to soothe Freda, while at
the same time devoting attention to the
sharer of his throne, and there was a scene
which attracted considerable number OF
ou-lookers before the beautiful Vede re-
tired, stubbornly refusing, however, to take
with her the little boy. Freda went back
to her native land and was not heard OF
asain in Germany. The child was brought
up in a fitting manner at the expense of the
duke, and is now a respected officer in the
German army.
Every Russian emperor for generations
the present one excepted-and a goodly
number of the grand dukes, have had NOR
ganatic wives. As the car is also at the
head of the Greek church it is little queer
| 30 read of two families claiming him as
father, but it is well known that the late
car had, besides the recognized i9Derlal
household, a morganatic re anon to tie rim
cess Dolgeroukl. One OF her So IS at
present serving as a private in the I'm
perial guards and doing sentry at the
| palace of his brother, the autocrat Of
| all the Russias The Princess Dol 4orouh
| vainly pleaded with the czac to give his
brother an officers rank, but the emperor
would not consent. He has not much ik-
| ing for the princess, and only the dying
| aud imperative command of his late father
saves her from exile Whatever else his
| faults, the present car takes proper view
! of the sauctity Of marriage. He is devoted
to his wife and regards bis fathers rela-
tions to the Princess Dolgorouki as having
| been far from credltable.
The Grand Duke n O lolas, favorite uncle
| of the czar, has two m Jrganatic wives, one
a Circassian, who had been captured by the
Russians during an uprising in the Cauca-
| sus, and whose beauty, and perhaps also her
| misfortunes, her father having been killed
in the war, attracted Nicholas, then in COM
mand Of the Russian forces. The Circas-
sian wife was but little heard Of She lived
quietly on an estate in Volhynia belonging
to the grand duke, and where he spent
much of his time. Whether she
had children Is not certain. She
|
similar union with a lady named
Olga, of poor but noble origin. 1t was
Olga of wnom the story is tod that when
the grand duke was on campaign against
the insurgent Poles, hearing that he was
wounded and in some danger, she made her
way in the guise of a peasant by near
route through the insurgent district to the
Rus ian camp, and uursed her lord back to
| health again. Nicholas was truly attached
to her; and had she been Of higher rank
| originally he might have succeeded in OBJ
| tainiug for her the imperial recognition. As
it was she died Of broken heart, conscious
that she could never he accepted as the
known wife OF her princely husband,
In England a morganatic marriage by
any member of the royal house at this late
| day would arouse criticism that royalty
dare not face. Yet, as before stated, the
English royal family is confronted by men
and women of their own blood, and of legit-
innate origin, who, but for the act of parl a.
ment relating to royal marriages, would be
as much princes and princeSses as the sons
ana daughters Of Wet ria. On the CONT
nent the custom still holds as strongly as
ever, and kings go on committing pol ygamy
for which any of their subjects would be
doomed to prison. The "Almanach de
Gotha" makes no record of these polyga-
nous royal marriages.
II is only when the facts are peculiarly
fiagrant that they roach th0 public ear.
Undoubtedly some of these unions have
hardly been known beyond the parties
themselves aud the immediate relatives of
the wife, The latter has powerful motives
to induce her secrecy, d in one we'll known
instance, that of Mrs. Fitz- Herbert, the first
wife of George ". of England, she was
even induced to surrender the evidence OF
her honor and the charte Of her good name
in the form of the papers which proved
her marriage. And yet she was 9
lady of unusual intelligence and much
superior standard to that of most women
with whom princes have contracted NOR.
ganatic alliances. The inner history Of
kings. as indicated by the circumstances Of
their daily lives which occasionally croE
out, shows that their crowns have thorns as
well as velvet, and that the horns often
sink deeper than careless world suspects
, The story of royal morganatic marriages il
a story of soul Tragedies, of broken homes
. and bleeding hearts, all sacrificed to thu
! pomp and glitter f empi g; and the suffer.
. ing has not always been confined to the de
serted wife.