The morning call., 1894-07-08
A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.
The Strange Story of a Beauty Ol
the German Court.


a strange story is that of life which
went out in Germany in the spring of
1863 The river Welsseritz runs through
the pretty little valley of Plsuensche
Grund, within easy walking distance of
Dresden. At one end of the valley, on
marshy ground, its garden walls running
close 10 the river and even along its front,
there stood at the time mentioned q house
Of remarkable aspect and still more re-
markabe associations. Heavy black shut
ters closed every wind ow. Black, too,
were the bars, The doors. thelmolding> and
the cornices, and black also were the walls
about the grounds, although they had been
allowed TO be oveTgTOW with a wild taDgle
of brambles and creeping vines. The
house was guarded by men Of repelling
mien, who paIrolled the grounds by night,
while numerous feTce-lOoking hounds
hung about the doors ard made their home
in the lower passageway.
In the upper floor of this gruesOme
structure an old woman lived alone and
had lived for thirty years. Even in her
isolation from the world the Grain kiel-
mansegge, who was Sc when size died,
preserved the remains of a once dazzling
beauty, but her face was hard and the
eyes bright, restless, unpleasantly acute,
though speaking OF q mind still alert anu
faculties unimpalred. Regularly once a
week the door OF her room opened quietly,
and man with his face securely masked
entered unbdden. He bowed low before
her, and without speaking word advanced
close to her cuair. lightly moved the wrap
pings about her neck, looked a moment,
Ulen, bOwing again low, silently with
drew. What be saw was a haugman's
rope fastened around her neck, IS ends
carefully concealed within her dress. and
the man was the public exeeutioner from
Dresden.
Whether the MOOSE and the exacutioner
were a self-imposed penauce. inf cJed in
Ihe vain hope Of at ~ for some crime
committed long ago, CT whether in refine
ment of cruelty she had been constrained
by her judges thus to live on. bearing he
badge of infamy, can only be surmised.
No daylight had rem trated TO her room
since she entered it in 1882. Piles of manu-.
script written in French were scattered
about, and on the table near which sat,
and upon which she gaZed long and pas
sionately, were two miniatures, beauti-
fully painted upon ivory and richly framed.
The one revealed the delicate FEATURES of
NAPOLEON BOnaparte as he was at the
height of his glory; the other was that Of
his young child, the ill-fated King of
Rome. She was wont, so il is said, TO gaze
on these pictures and to repeat over and
over again to herself the words "E ollie de
ma vie"
There is much that is unknown about
this woman, but this is surely known. that
Napoleon had been not only the "star of
her lfe," but its bane. She had conceived
for him an overmastering passion and live d
only in him and for him.
There was peculiar binship between
her nature and the 10 ell ectual, moral un-
scrupulousness ana magn ficent audacILy
of Napoleon BOnaparCe. How far he was
really fascinated with her can never be
told. but she seems to have yielded to an
infatuatiOn for him which never lessened
till her life's close. 1t drove from her heart
all other thoughts. stifled even the mother
love for her own children, if she ever had
felt ii, and her whole subsequent life was
a lament and tear for him.
Once only is she known to have left the
Plauen Palais. a few months before her
death, clad in her familiar gray gown and
while cap, she was driven into Dresden to
the gallery Of fashionable photographer.
when l am gone you will reap rich har-
vest from my picture" she told him after
the sitting. The piles Of manuscript in
her room was written by herself and they
tell the fuIl story OF her life, but what that
story is we may not be sure until another
twenty years have passed and the full half
century is reached during which the seals
OF her manuscript were to remain un-
broken.