The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-03-03
QUEEN YICT0RIA'S CEMETERY"


has interviewed between King Frederick
Williams visit to Windsor in 1912 and
the stay there last week by his grand
nephew.
A very important state visit and GER
tainly one pregnant with great political
consequences was that of Emperor No
poleon III. and Empress Eugene to Queen
Victoria at Windsor castle at the time
of the Cri1near~ war. It may be said to
have constituted the first actual recOgni-
ton OF the emperor and, above all, Of the
empress, by any Of the reigning families
Of Europe. Napoleon had until that time
been regarded as a mere successful con-
spirator, who, prior to his seizure Of the
French throne. had been a disreputable
chevalier d'industric; While the empress
was looked upon as an ~adven turess whose
antecedents the most scandalous stories
were current. Indeed the wars of 1855
and of 1859, which resulted so disastrously
to both Russia and Austria, We're largely
brought about by the contemptuous man
ner in which the courts of St. Petersburg
and Vienna rejected all advances made to
them by Napoleon and Empress Eugenie.,
Queen Victoria then as now was renowned
for her strictness on the score of charac-
ter of all the women whom she consented
to admit to her presence, and her. action,
therefore, in inviting not merely Napo-
leon, but likewise his consort, to Windsor,
where she treated them with the utmost
distinction and regard, went so far to
improve the status and prestige of the
Imperial couple, both at the continental
courts and even in France, that neither
Of them ever forgot the kindness of Vic
tOria in the matter. Indeed, as long as he
remained on the throne the emperor con-
tinued the warm and loyal friend of the
English people. So that by her act of
graciousness to Napoleon and Eugene at
a moment when they were the object of
scorn on the part of every other reigning
house and court In Europe, Queen Vic
toria managed to secure for her country
seventeen years of loyal and valuable
friendship Of one of the greatest powers
of the old world.
Napoleon was not the only French mon
arch whom the queen had the opportuni-
ty Of. welcoming at Windsor. In her WIS.,
itorS' book is likewise to be found the
name of King Louis PHILIPPE, who visited
her once while still ruler of France and
then several times after he had been de-
throned and was in exile.
The name Of the present pope, while
still papal nuncio to the Brussels court,
as well as those of no less than four
cars OF Russia are to be found in Victo-
rla's autograph book. The first is that of
emperor Nicholas l.. who suddenly ar
rived without warning In England to visit
the queen in 1914. To this Gay the object
OF his trip remains more or less of a state
ne came for the purpose Of discovering
now the ground lay in connection with
his designs upon Constantinople, and that
ne Quilted Windsor more or less disap-
po1nted*by the failure of his mission. The
impression which he created upon the
queen does not seem to have been alto
gether agreeable. At any rate, her pub
hshed diary leads to that inference. His
son and successor came to Windsor thirty
years later, shortly after the marriage of
MS only daughter to Queen Victoria's Sec
ond son. Alexander III. was a. FREQUENT
visitor to Windsor and likewise to Osborne
before he assembled the throne, while the
present autocrat Of Russia, a grandson by
marriage of the queen, has visited her
once at Balmoral since he became en-
peror' but spent whole months at
Windsor while he was counting the lovelv
princess now his wife. It Is to the affec-
tomato relations then established between
young Nicholas and the venerable queen
that is largely due the maintenance of
peace between Russia and Great Britain
two countries which find themselves in
rivalry and opposition in nearly every
quarter of the globe.
One of the most dramatic things about
this book of the queen is the fact that
SO many OF the personages who have
signed their names therein have met their
deaths through violence. Indeed, many
are the grim tragedies that are called to
ing them at haphazard, there is that, to
the queen, least welcome of all the guests
whom she ever entertained at Windsor,
namely, Nasr-Eddeen-Sh the ruler Of
Persia, who was shot down only a. few
years ago by religious fanatic. Then
there the late Sultan Abdul Aziz, who
stayed at the castle in 1867, and who
was done to death nine years later in his
palace at Constantinople with a pair of
long, sharp, concave bladed Orintal scis-
sors. Car Alexander II. had the entire
| lower portion of his body blown to pieces
by Nihilist bombs in 1881, while En-
press Elizabeth of Austria was stabbed
to the heart at Geneva but little more
| than a year ago. She had often visited
! the queen, and, in spite of everything
| asserted to the contrary, was on terms
| of warm friendship and continuous cor
respondence with her. The young Prince
| Imperial of France was killed by tho
| Zulus in South Africa while wearing the
| queens livery as one of the officers of
her army. He was one of her special
| favortes and might have become her
| son-in-law had he lived. King Pedro of
Portugal succumbed to poison so shortly
after returning to Lisbon from a visit to
Windsor castle that doubt has always
remained as to whether the poison was
| not actually administered to him while
| still in England by some Portuguese con-
| spirators. King Louis of Bavaria, whose
death by drowning has never been salts
| factorily explained to this day, figures in
the book, and so does his cousin, the i'll
fated Grown Prince Rudolph of Austria,
| who blew out his brains at Meyerling on
discovering that Baroness Marie Vetsera
had poisoned herself. He had, visited
Windsor only two years previously, at
the time of the queens jubilee. His uncle,
Archduke Macmillan, who suffered death
by shooting at Queretaro, after reigning
as Emperor of Mexico, spent a week at
Windsor in 1857, and In her diary the
queen speaks most highly of him, say
| ing: I'VE have become great friends
HIS consort who is the queens first
| cousin, has for thirty years been under
| restraint a lunatic. ... .-
| The Duchess Of Alencon, of whom the
queen was particularly fond, and who,
when staying at Bushy park lent to her
| father-inSaaw, the Duke of ,Nemours, by
her majesty, used often to go over to
Wlndsor, was burned to death in the
! terrible Charity bazaar confiagration at
Paris. Prince Baldwin of Belgium, an
other near kinsman her majesty and
a signer of the book, lost his life by a
revolver bullet in an adventure Of ques-
| ttonable character in q mansion Of the
Avenue Louise, at Brussels, while at least
two OF the queens former guests at Wind.
sor-namely, Archduke John of Austria
and the late Landgrave of Hesse-have
vanished at sea without leaving any clew
| as to their fate IL = 81 81 Er
Many more names could be cited that
call forth equally tragic memories, but
these will suffice to explain why the
(, queens grandchildren should have nick
named this unique volume "Grandmam-
| mas metery."--Ex-Attache, In New
York Tribune.
OPPORTUNITY.