The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-09
ORIGIN OF THE SULTAN
GRANDMOTHER 4 FRENCH-AMER-
ICAN RELATED TO JOSEPHINE.
Bloody RuIer Full OF Low Cunning
and HeartIess Vindictiveness,
stopping at No Massacre.
New York Press.

triguer in the palaces by the Bosphorus. as
a Sultan who is suspected of the murder of
his uncle, as a man who to-day keeps his
brother a prisoner, as a ruler who had
gained the sobriquet of Lover of Blood
by his slaughter of ATmenians and Cretans,
he has been well known since his accession
to the throne. But lately he has come for
ward in a new role. When he defed the
great powers Of Europe by saying. Il may
be the last of Califs, but l will never be a
second Khedive,' he astonished diplomats
by his sudden display of energy.
He seems to be one of those descendants
of Gilman, who. had the centuries not adj
Vanced so rapidly, would more than have
held his own by slaughter and intrigue.
Most of his immediate predecessors have
been weak and incapable Of either extend
ing or maintaining that vast empire which
the sultans founded when the cross went
down before the crescent on the walls of
Byzantium. Fortunately for the world.
Abdul Hamid is several hundred years be-
hind the times wien such principles as his
went" He is a man now ffty-five years
old. He is the second son of Sultan Abdul
Mejid. When Abdul Mejid died his brother.
Abdul Aziz, ascended the throne, it being
the rule in the Turkish line of succession
that the oldest male member of the family
is the heir apparent. Abdul Aziz visited
western Europe and while there publicly
announced that he expected ultimately to
be assassinated by one of his nephews.
whether he was assassinated or not is a
question which never will be settled.
1t is only fair to Abdul Hamid to say that
while the street gossip of Constantinople is
ready to credit him with every other crime
it does not believe that he was privy to
the assassination of his uncle, and inclines
to the belief that Abdul Aziz died accord
ing TO the version given out from the pal
ace-that is, by opening the arteries in his
wrist with a pair of embroidery scissors
belonging to one of his two or three hum
dred wives.
When Abdul Aziz returned from Europe
he was met by salvos of artillery and was
taken from the ship to his palace in a
barge of white and gold more magnificent
than any barge since that in which Cleo
patra met Mare Antony upon the Cyndus.
once having returned to C~onstantinople,
Abdul Aziz fell into slothful ways, and,
IKE most or the modern suitans, threw
aside the edict of the Prophet which said:
Thou shalt drink no wine. He spent most
OF his days and nights in the narem.
ABDUL HANDS COUP.
One fine morning up came the grand
vizier and informed him that he was de-
posed, and his nephew, Murad V, reigned
~0 HN~0o' IN ANASh L -I III od dc OllOII.
Aziz died in the harem, where ne was i'm
prisoned. Murad V was deposed, and Alb
dull Hamid IL was proclaimed Calf. For
many years it has not been the custom Of
the Sultan of Turkey to contract regular
marriages. The royal harem is kept up as
a state institution and the inmates come
either by free will or purchase, mostly
from places beyond the limits of the Turk
ism empire. Though a large number of the
ladies Of the harem' are Jircassians,
there are at present and have been Tor
years a considerable number of European
women in the Sultan'S household.
In regard to this, there seems every rea-
SON, to believe that the present Sultan is
descended from an American girl of French
extraction, born in the West Indies. 1t
will be remembered as one of the curious
condolences of history that. when the En-
press Josephine was Mile. De la Pagerie.
in the Island of Martinique. she was one
day. with her companion, Mile. Bazillais,
sitting by the Seashore throwing stones at
a tree to find out whether her English
lover William would return to her or not.
If she hit the tree a certain number of
times he was to come back. If she missed,
then all was lost. and life for her there
after was to be as empty and hollow as a
broken cordial drop.
While Josephine was thus toying with
fate an ancient voodoo prophecies APP
peared and prophesied to the future En-
lover will not come back; you will live to
be Queen of France and you Will die in the
poorhouse.' To Mile. Bazillais she said:
You will become, too, the consort of a
great ruler" Years passed away (aS they
generally do) and Josephine became the
Countess de Beauharnais and cheered her
companions in prison while they were wait
ing for the mmon to the guillotine by
reciting to them the old negro woman,s
prophecy. 1t was then that one said:
Since you are to be Queen of FRANCE. you
might appoint your ladies of honor" And
then and there Josephine did appoint them.
bringing them in subsequent years In the
official nOSltlOnS then given, INTO the RllI-
tering halls of the Tuileries.
RELATED TO NAPOLEON III.
Mile. Bazillais disappeared. One rumor
said that she was captured by Turkish
pirates on her return from Martinique and
sold into slavery. AT any rate, in 1857, when
Abdul Aziz visited France, he is said TO
have claimed relationship with the third
Napoleon, saying that his grandmother was
a relative of the Beauharnais. Now, Mile.
BazilIais was a relative of the Empress
Josephine, and the Empress Josephine's
daughter, Queen Hortense, was the mother
of Napoleon III. At that time extensive in
designations were started to ascertain def
niteIv The fate of Mile. Bazillais, the friend
and relative of Josephine. but they were
unproductiVe of definite result. Abdul AZlZ
believed that she was his and
Napoleon believed in the relationship. The
present Sultan, however. has once or twice
denied that he has blood in him except
pure Turkish.
The palace where Abdul Hamid lives is
three or four miles outside of Constants
nople and is known as the Yildiz Kiosk.
Ii is situated on a hill overlooking the Bos-
phorus, surrounded by large parks.
guarded by high walls and great gates of
iron and garrisoned all the time by Abduls
most trusted troops. h grounds slope
gently down to the waters side, where on a
sort of wharf built out into the Bosphorus
stands a cheap-loOking mosque of plastered
stones much in need of plaster and fresh
paint. When we read the glittering ac-
counts of the Sultan going TO the mosque to
worship il is we'll to dismiss the picture
presented by the COnStantinOple dispatches,
and simply imagine a doubling of the i'm
perial guard around the palace and a swift
trip in a hastily driven carriage OF q Weaz-
ened old man (who looks something like jay
Could from his house on the hill to the
rather dilapidsted mosque at the foot of
his garden.
1t is only once a year that the Sultan
goes in state to worship; that is. when he
leaves Yildiz and make the journey of
nearly five miles over TO Stamhoul, guarded
All the time by a great army drawn up
through a city in which the people are kept
in side streets by the police and military
and Where the windows along the line of
march have closed shutters. Abdul Hamid
really lives in daily fear of assassination,
and when he comes to think that mis- court
consists of five thousand people. and that
the intriguers of the palace have deposed
his two immediate predecessors, 1t is not a
great wonder that he does so.
CURIOUS HUMAN MIXTURE.
He is a curious mixture of progressive
ideas. reactionary barbarism. low cunning
and broad philanthropy. He has great
ideas Of making Turkey approximate to the
powers of western Europe and America in
it's progress. and every now and then talks