The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-10-02
HAUNTED BY HER MUMMY.
The story of the Corpse OF Queen
VictorIn's MOther-in-LHw.


The story of the Corpse OF Queen
VictorIn's MOther-in-LRw.
Queen Nictoria's mother-in-law is the
only princess of the blood in modern
times whose corpse may be said to have
constituted u piece of drawing-room
furniture for ten or Is years after her
death. Preserved in the form of a num-
my, her dead body was dragged about
over Europe. The casket ill which the
embalmed remains were contained was
fashioned like a grand piano 1t was
always kept locked, although 1T occu-
pied the most prominent place in the
drawing-room of the sorrowing widow
er. The remains OF the unfortunate
lady were not finally laid to rest in the
ducal vault at Gotha, beside her an
| c~estors, until the house in which her
husband resided had been broken into
at night by m.n disguised as burglars,
who. after chloroforming the owner
his wife and the members of his house
hold, burst open the piano case and car
ried off its contents, the corpse of tha
once exquisitely beautiful reigning
duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
In order to understand how the moth
er-in-laNg of Queen Victoria came to be
subiected to treatment of this kind 1t
is necessary to explain that the duchess,
who had brought the duchy of Gotha,
TO which she was the sole heiress, as q
dowry to her husband, the duke of SAKE
Coburg. was shamefully used by the
litter. The duke, a notorious
and Drofligate and renowned for the
brutality of his manners, practically de-
serted her about three years after the
birth of her son Albert (afterwazd
prince consort of Great Brittany and
established in her place in his palace
a Polish fayorite named Schimbowska,
with whom he lived.
Indeed, she was the duchess in all
hut name. The imperial bundestag OF
federation Of sovereign princes OF the
German empire felt imPelled to inter
fere. But il was OF no avail and finally
the situation became SO intolerable that
the young duchess fed, being assisted
in her escape by a young officer, Baron
Won Hanstein. Although it does not
appear that the baron had ever been ad-
mitted to the intimacy of the duchess
further han to help her leave the u
try, which any man in his position
would have done, yet the duke at once
brought suit for divorce against the
duchess, naming the young officer as CO.
> respondent. At the same time he dis
missed the young man from the army
; and exiled him..
. Realizing O much the baron had
sacrificed for her the duches married
, him n year or two after recovering her
1 freedom and obtained for him the title
! of count of Poelzig. As she had, as
sisted by the bundestag, recovered pos
session of the evenue of the ddchy OF
q Gotna, she was able to live in ~af1uence
4 and spent the remainder of her life at
q St. Wendell on the Rhine in Switzerland.
. When she died at Paris she left to her
2 husband, Count Poelzig, a large income.
Being jealous and passionately devoted
to the count, she dreaded his marrying
again. So she made her bequest to him
! conditional on. his never parting from
her corpse, not even for a night. She
stipulated further that il he spent "a
, hours away from her embalmed remains
he would forfeit his inheritance. So the
unfortunate count was obliged to carry
the m of the duchess around with
. him for nearly Is years, even after his
marriage to another woman, to whom
u he could never reveal the secret of the
piano containing the corpse and who
{ constantly regarded the uncanny in
strument as q sort of Bluebeard cham
3 Der.
e Three days after the burglary OF his
q mansion at Paris the count received G
communication saying that the re
I mains of his wife had been laid to resi-
b in the family vault at Gotha and that Il
he made no attempt to them Of
to discover the identity Of the burglars
the annuity which he had b~eendrawine
until then under the terms of his wife'i
will would be continued for the re
n mainder of his life.
Delighted to be rid of the mummiet
duchess on such terms, the count cheer
d fully acquiesced. He survived his step
1t son. the prince consort of Great Brit
ain, O number of years. 1t is general,
e believed hat the seizure of the corps
e at Paris was al the instance Of th'
prince consort and the queen 9TH.
Y princes elder brother being too mucl
Of a cynic to care much whether hi
mothers body was above or undeI
ground). 1t is probably the only occa
Ir sion upo which Queen Victoria haI
d ever been suspected of being concernes
in either body snatching or burglary
" N. Y. World.