The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-05-25
UNHAPPY QUEENS.
UNEASY HEADS THAT WE'RE NOT
BORN FOR ROYAL CROWNS.

Eight European Sovereigns Not of Royal
Birth-Each One of Them Has Been an
Object OF Sympathy and Pity Rather
Than of Envy-Stories of Their Lives.
Although there exists popular impress
sion to the effect that thrones in these
modern times are beyond the reach Of
those who do not happen to be of imperial
or royal birth, yet the fact remains that
during the present century there have been
no less than eight women who, notwith-
standing the absence of the blood of mon
archs in their veins, have been raised from
among the people to sovereign rank.
1t is worthy of note, however, that the
crowns won by the eight women of non
royal birth to whom have referred above
have proved to be of an exceedingly thOrny
character Indeed, each of these fair SOW
ereigns remains on record as an object OF
sympathy and of pity rather than of envy.
Their elevation above the heads of the peo-
pie to whom they belonged has been ac-
companied by an amount of unhappiness,
misery and bitterness far beyond the share
that falls to the lot of the ordinary won-
an, and the celebrity which surrounds
their names is due not so much to the
brilliancy as to the sadness of their lot.
Empress Josephine owes her place in the
niche of history to the heartless treatment
to which she was subjected by her hus-
band and she is embered-not as the
brilliant and frivolous consort of the mon
arch who, for twelve years, was the might
lest in Christendom, but as the pitiable
victim of his selfish ambition and of his
cruelty.
MOTHER OF NAPOLEON.
Equally sad was the fate of beautiful
Hortense, mother of Napoleon III, who,
from the day she became queen of Holland
until the time of her death in poverty,
Abandonment and exile, was disappoint-
ed, sorrowing and heartbroken woman.
The gilded apple of royalty, which had
been placed in her hands in 1904, had
turned into Dead sea fruit. She had seen
her eldest son die, her second son killed
and her third son fugitive, forced to seek
a haven of refuge in the United States.
The very name she bore was prescribed,
all her relatives were either in Punishment
or dead, while her poverty was so great
that she was forced to appeal to King
Louis Philippe, the bitterest enemy of Der
house and the most relentless prosecutor
of her surviving son. Nor was the fate of
Queen Caroline Murat, whose husband
was first imprisoned and then executed by
She order of the Bourbon king of Naples,
any happier.
Julia and Desiree Clary, the two daugh-
tiers of the Marseilles broker, who became
respectively queen of Spain and queen of
Sweden, were both noted for their dOmes-
tic sorrows, and for the neglect and indig-
n Ii, 70, oh how
subjected by their husbands.
Exile widowhood and the tragical death
of her only son in South Africa have en-
dowed Eugene de Montijo, the grand
daughter of the Scotch merchant Kirk
patrick, with a majesty which, though
sorrowful, is far superior to any which she
ever possessed in the days of her greatest
magnifcence at the Tuileries. The aspect
of the once beautiful, brilliant and su-
premely elegant, but now broken, infrm
and prematurely aged consort of Napoleon
III is sufficient to excite commiseration
even III the hearts of the bitterest enemies
of the Bonaparte REFINE.
Yet another of csc heroines of royal
romance is Natalie de Kechko, the more
or less legally divorced queen of King
Milan of Servia. Her life until now has
even been more strange, more extraordi-
nary and more full of exciting incident
than those of the other three ladies above
mentioned. Were it described in novel
it would be set down as eXtravagant, I'M
real and impossible; but far from such be-
ing the case it constitutes one of the most
romantic pages of the contemporary his
tory of Europe.
QUEEN NATALIE.
Queen Natalie spent most of her child
hood at Florence, where she attended one
of the schools, number of young Ameri-
can girls being among her schoolmates.
On completing her education she lived
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