The Opelousas courier., 1896-01-11
NAPOLEON AFTER SEDAN.

Ha0 an lnCeTV1eW with kjl8uldTCk III u
Weaver's Cottage.
The third Napoleon, chief Of a mush'
room empire founded on force and
fraud, and doomed to be crushed out as
swiftly and suddenly as it had arisen,
was never a sovereign worthy Of re.
spect, and did not deserve sympathy
in his fall. Nevertheless, in reading
such pictures of his overthrow as that
given not long since in Archibald
Forbes article, After Sedan" it is i'm
possible not to pity the shamed and
suffering man, already in the grip OF
the disease which killed him, disap.
pointed in every hope, and breaking
into helpless tears at the moment Of
encountering his conqueror, the en-
peror of Germany.
The German emperor showed him
little later with his other powerful
enemy, Bismarck, that bluff and de-
termined man Of action, while out
wardly deferential. was less tender of
the captive's feelings. They held their
interview in a weaver's cottage Dear
the battlefield, and the weaver's wild
ow, Nine. F%ournaise, related to Mr..
Forbes her recollections of the event.
Bismarck, roughly dressed, passed
through her room to join the fallen
empekbri in a room beyond. They talked
awhile in low tones. Then the Ger
man left the room abruptly, and ran
Gathering hwn the breakneck stairs
regardless of her warnings that he
would trip. His face was stern. She
waited a few moments and then enter
ing the room, found the emperor with
elbows on the table. She asked if
there was any service she could render
him. He answered:
only to pull down the blinds"
She did so, and then stole away. An
hour later Bismarck returned in full
uniform, saw the emperor again, and
after a short talk, accompanied him
down the rickety stairs and out at the
door, ushering him with some show OF
Difference. On the threshold the en-
peror gave his hostess four napoleons,
saying as he did so, in a broken voice:
"This hospitality of yours is, per-
haps, the last which l shall eve re-
ceive in France"
Nine. F~ournaise, though sympathetic
and patriotic. was poor, and she con
fessed quite frankly to Mr.. Forbes the
profits she had made by the sale of
relics of the historic meeting. To Bis
marck himself she sold. after some
sharp bargaining, the table at which
the two had sat; to Gen. Sheridan, who
had been a spectator Of the battle of
Sedan, one of the chairs. and to Sir
Beauchamp Walker, an Englishman,
another.
These were the true and actual
relics; but she also confessed to sell
ing, mostly to Americans, relay after
relay of straw-bottomed chairs of the
same pattern, and supposed by these
purchasers to be the veritable ones in
which the fallen emperor and Bis
marck had sat! She had, however,
some conscience in the matter of such
sales, although she drew the line at
sentiment, not principle.
When Mr.. Forbes asked, laughingly,
If she had not also sold and resold the
four napoleons, she exclaimed, greatly
shocked:
'Oh, mon Dieu, no, never, never!
Did he not give them to me with his
own hand? See, the original four are
there in that locked ease on the man.
tel with the glass top. Yes. l have
had great offers for them. Over and
over again I could have had five hun
bred francs for the four pieces, but no
money would tempt me to sell them"
Passing yet again by Sedan several
years after, Archibald Forbes inquired
once more for Nine. Fournaise. But
the weaver's cottage was empty and
locked fast, and it's late owner lay In
the church yard, her place of rest and
her funeral expenses paid for, as on
her deathbed she had directed, by the
precious four napoleons given her in
acknowledgment of the last hospitali-
ty he should ever receive in his own
country by the outcast emperor of
France.-Youth's Companion.