The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-01-06

IN THE EhPEH
the sort Of training the imperial princes
received. AS soon as the boy got old
enough he had one distinguished profess
sor 10 teach him ancient languages, an
other TO teach him philology, another to
drive philosophy. natural law, polite
ness and economics into his poor head.
Major Weiss instructed this little re-
cluse in the palace of Schonbrunn in
Notifications! And he had to pass exam
nations before the imperial family. He
is said to have passed them fairly we'll
When he was Is, Prince Diestrichstein
gravely taught him what his father,
Napoleon, had done in the way of his
tory
On July %. 1918. when he was seven
years old, his grandfather made him
Duke of Reichstadt. 1t was on this
same date, July 90, that he learned of
his fathers death, and also on the same
date that he breathed his last. The
child had some enthusiasm, but he was
passionate and distrustful and quick to
form estimates of character. With his
poor, starved existence, it is natural
enough that he Should enjoy horseback
riding. He loved to ride his horse in
the Prater, a beautiful park of 1000
acres, in Vienna. And the boy also
liked his military practice. His grand
father made him captain of the Impe-
peI-ial chasseure.
But the life of the young Duke Of
ReichStaCt WAS not the healthy one Of
boys of his age. Many a son of an
Austrian peasant had far more fun
than he. Some historians say he was
purposely thrown with the gay Duke
of Salerno in order that he might be
led into designations and thereby IN
dernine his constitution. The thought
is too dreadful to be easily credited.
| In 1881, the year his mother was
obliged TO abandon her ducny, he be-
/ gan to show too clearly that some
WEARING malady had possession of him.
He had profuse sweatings and con-
tracted a cough which often made him
spit blood. His mothers condition in
/ regard to her estates frightened him
and he interceded for her with Francis
II. But although he was i'll and sick Of
! life he would avoid taking the med
J icine the doctors prescribed, which he
! held in horror. They took the young
fellow away from his military eXer-
cises and operations, thus removing the
one great amusement of his life. No
wonder he begged his grandfather to
let him play soldier" again. In the
spring equinox of that year he exposed
| One day he went out for a. morning
horseback ride and in the afternoon
went out again for a drive in an open
carriage in the Prater. When he came
back after this he had a severe hemor-
rhage. This was too much. For the
first time the poor boy admitted his
sufferings. They decided to take him
to Italy. But it was too late. SO his
mother came to Schonbrunn one June
evening and the sight of her encour-
aged him, and he rallied a little. Then
his pains returned. The night of July
81, one of his attendants, Baron AIoll,
stayed up with him, he was so Ill.
Reichstadt suddenly sat up in bed and
with an accent of despair gave utter
ance TO the touching exclamation:
"Iche gehe unter. Meme mutter!
Meme lnutterr' that is, II give it up.
Oh. mother, mother" He fell into con-
vulsions and at o'clock the SON of
Napoleon had breathed the last of the
many melancholy signs which had es-
! capped from him in his short but weary
Where He Died.
He died in the room In which his
father had dictated the peace Of Aus
! tria. They gave him q. magnificent fu-
neral. His heart, poor broken hearth
was deposited in the great cathedral
! in Vienna, and his entrails were buried
in the church of the Augustins.
/ The son whom Napoleon SO loved and
on whom he based so many hopes not
only failed to realize any Of them but
even in his physical appearance instead
of reproducing the dark Italian fea-
lures of his father he exhibited the
blonde coloring of his mother. The
itall handsome boy had light hair and
soft blue eyes. So in his last illness,
| NAPOLEON with his eyes fixed on the
portrait of his son, exclaimed shortly
before his death: Mons fills. The
Hast words of that son were a weary
vail to his mother, Meme mutter,
Meme mutter" What a desperate
foiling of the great Napoleon's most
cherished hope!
| Death had come to be the chief as
piration of the unhappy little duke
who would at times passionately eX-
claim. "Oh, why don't they let me die
in peace"' When the Countess Cam
erata, daughter of the Princess Bacci-
ochi, wrote an account of his fathers
death to the young Napoleon, after the
revolution of 1880, and called on him
to aVenge the death Of his sire. is it
any wonder that the poor melancholy
young fellow declined the task? And
shortly before his death there was talk
of making him king of Belgium. There
was a howl of protest. Then the great
king, Death, removed all fear of caTbal
that this shadowy Napoleon could
arouse by taking him by his thin
wasted hand and leading him where
his father had gone before. The father
who had written: "Oh, may press
him to my heart, upon a. fairer shorev'
Beside the laryngeal phthisis which
lcarried off the Duke of Reichstadt he
was probably affected by a cancerous
trouble in the stomach, an hereditary