The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1897-06-11
HAUNTED BY HER MUMMY.
rhe story of the Corpse Of Queen
Victoria's MOthcr-in-Layv.

rhe story of the Corpse of Queen
Victoria's MOthcr-in-Law.
Queen Victoria's mother-in-law is the
only princess of the blood in modern
times whose corpse may be said to have
constituted piece of drawing-room
furniture for ten or Is years after her
death. Preserved in the form of m UNI
my, her dead body was dragged about
over Europe. The casket in which the
embalmed remains were contained was
fashioned like a grand piano. 1t was
always kept locked, although it 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
cestors, until the house in which her
husband resided had been broken into
at night by men 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 the
once exquisitely beautiful reigning
duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
In order to understand how the moth
er-in-law of Queen Victoria came to be
subjected to treatment of this kind it
is necessary to explain that the duchess,
who had brought the duchy of Gotha,
TO which she was the sole heiress, as
dowry to her husband, the duke of Sake
Coburg, was shamefully used by the
latter. The duke, notorious drunkard
and prohigate and renowned for the
brutality of his manners, practically de-
serted her about three years after the
birth of her son Albert (afterwald
prince consort of Great Brittany and
established in her place in his palace
Polish favorite named Schimbowska,
with whom he lived.
Indeed, she was the duchess in all
hut name. The imperial bundestag or
federation of sovereign princes of the
German empire felt impelled to inter-
fere. But 1T was of no avail and finally
the situation became so intolerable that
the young duchess fled, being assisted
in her escape by young officer, Baron
Won Hanstein. Although it does net
appear that the baron had ever been adj
mitted to the intimacy of the duchess
further than to help her leave the coun-
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.
Rno1iziuo how r,,uch tho 1,or.on 1,o1
sacrificed for her the duchess married
him a year or two after recovering her
freedom and obtained for him the title
of count of Poelzig. AS she had, as
sisted by the bundestag, recovered pos
session of the revenue of the duchy of
Gotha, she was able to live in a1flucnce
and spent the remainder of her life at
st. Wendell on the Rhine in Switzerland.
When she died at Paris she left to her
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 if he spent 24
hours away from her embalmed remains
he would forfeit his inheritance. So the
unfortunate count was obliged to carry
the mummy of the duchess around with
him for nearly Is years, even after his
marriage to another woman, to whom
he could never reveal the secret of the
piano containing the corpse and who
constantly regarded the uncanny in
strument as sort of Bluebeard cham
Der.
Three days after the burglary of his
mansion at Paris the count received a
communication saying that the re-
mains of his wife had been laid to rest
in the family vault at Gotha and that if
he made no attempt to recover them or
to discover the identity of the burglars
the annuity which he had been drawing
until then under the terms of his wife's
will would be continued for the re-
mainder of his life.
Delighted to be rid of the mummicd
duchess on such terms, the count cheer
fully acquicsced. lie survived his step
son, the prince consort of Great Brit
ain, number of years. 1t is generally
believed that the seizure of the corpse
at Paris was at the instance of the
prince consort and the queen (the
princes elder brother being too much
of cynic to care much whether his
mothers body was above or under
ground). 1t is probably the only occa-
sion upon which Queen Victoria has
ever been suspected of being concerned
in either body snatching or burglary.
N. Y. World.