The age-herald., 1898-03-11
The Critical Illness of
 Crown Princess Stephanie

The cable has brought to this country accounts of the very serious illness or Princess Stephanie, daughter of the King of Belgium. She has received the last sac ramental rites of the Catholic church. ana the announcement of her death may come at any moment. When Stephanie sleers with her fathers, entombed with royal hon. ors one of the saddest lives will have come to an earthly end, and one of the most cratic minds will be stilled by the touch of death.
 Enraged and chagrined by neglect, dis appointment and abuse, Stephanie became irritable, fretful and unreliable to an alarming degree. When the eternal sleep comes, and her tired eyelids close upon tired eyes," her sorely tried family will not regret that the end of tumultuous, cratic career has come.
 Princess Stephanie is the second daugh- ter of the King and Queen of Belgium. Her eldest sister, Princess Louise, has brought great distress to her family with in the last year or two, by her absolute indifference to all the proprieties of life
 Stephanie, while still a child. was married to the Crown Prince of Austria, Rudolph, whose sudden and awful death at Mayer ling, a few years ago, will be readily re- called by newspaper readers.
 Stephanie, early after her marriage, dis covered that her husband cared litt'e or nothing for her; that he f1agrantly faunt- ed his fances for others, before all Eu- rope; that her august Austrian relatives were indifferent to her, and her troubles, and that her father and mother cou give her neither comfort or hope in her periods of distress, and suffering. The Austrians became embittered towards her. and accused her of driving her worthless reckless husband to drink and degreda- tion. The King of Belgium, her father, IS totally devoid of principle and moral re- sponsibility; the queen is foolish and fip- pant so in her sorrow and despair Prln- cess Stephine caught not gleam of light, not ray of hope.
 The worst instincts and traits inherited from unworthy parents began to assert themselves and Stephanie soon became cynical, heartless, flighty and very repre- hensible in many ways Archduke Francs s Ferdinand, who is heir to the Austrian throne was enamored of her and desired 10 marry her. She recprocated his affection, but statute of the house of Hapsburg forbids any archduke in line of succession to wed a widow, consequently the marrl- age could not occur. Stephanie has been of late years a conspicuous figure at Monte Carlo She incurred the displeasure or Queen Victoria because of unbecoming con duct and she has kept her royal relatives anxious and constantly concerned about her disregard of all conventionalities, and proprietes.
 The life of King Leopold of Belgium has been crowded with awful tragedies. one sorrow after another has followed fast and followed faster" and notwithstanding his miserable reputation, the world is com pellcd to sympathize with him when 1t is recalled that with his eldest daughter ire deemably disgraced his second daughter dying, his third daughter to such an ex- tent afflicted with melancholia that she has determined upon becoming num- bereft of his only son by death as mys- teriously sudden and almost as tragic as tihat of his favorite nephew, Prince Bald win, who was killed at Brussels by be- trayed husband, bereft, too, of his son-in- law, Crown Prince Rudolph, in the most appalling manner, and with his only sis- fer a maniac and his brother-in-law put to death by a file of soldiers in Mexico as an outlaw he is certainly one of the rulers of Europe who has been most harshly treated by @ relentless fate.