The Savannah morning news., 1901-05-13
THE KINGS WRETCHED SISTER.
DOWAGER EMPRESS OF GERMANY
DYING ALONE IN GLOOMY
CASTLE.

Has Been Miserable since Child
hoOd--Bismarck Always Hated
"the English woman and stirred
Up Popular Hatred Against Her.
Emperor Williams Cruel Treat
ment of His MOther-HOw She
Made Her Husband Emperor for
Three Months in Spite of Bis
mnrck-Edward VII Declares Her
to BE the CIeVeFest Woman He
Has Ever Neither IndomItnbIe
viii Alone keeps Her Alivc-At
the Age of Six RebeIled Against
Her Mother, the Late Queen VIC
toria.
Copyright, 1901, by Stephen Austin
Paris, May 1l.--Eyery now and then one
sees in the morning papers a telegram,
dated from Berlin or from Frankfort-on-
the Main, announcing the speedily ap-
preaching death of the Dowager Empress
OF Germany. For many months the wife
Of "Frederick the Noble" and mother of
the present Kaiser, has been given up peri
odicaly by the doctors. Cancer is slowly
destroying her; any day it may touch a
vital part. She is as much under SEN
| tence of death as a condemned murderer,
but she has one resource that the muir
derer has not. She can, and does every
day, stave off her death by the exercise
/ Of her indomitable resolution. An English
! doctor who recently assisted for a brief
/ period the regular physicians TO Her I'M
| perial Majesty's court, said the other day
at medical congress in Paris:
THE Dowager Empress ought to have
died months ago; but even death cannot
! pierce at one stroke through the defense
of her granite will; he has to bore slowly
! to get at the citadel of that life"
This Empress with the formidable viii
is one of the most unhappy women in
the world. She clings desperately to life,
! but her heart was broken long ago, and
her last days are STEPPED in bitterness.
Her whole career has been brilliant mis-
| cry. Now that she is dying sloWly-a
! widow, an abandoned mother, and an eX-
sovereign detested by the people she. tried
| faithfully 10 serve-she may well have
said, is reported:
Il mean to live as long as l can; but
| when / die, no one will be sorry, least
! of all myself"
This iron will. which keeps her alive
now, has been directly and Indirectly the
| cause of all her misery. No doubt it
came to her from her mother, the late
! Quen of England Anyhow, it is certain
! that very early in life the present Dow
ager Empress Frederick of Germany, then
| princess Victoria, Princess Royal of
| England" came often into conflict with
| her mother. When she was only six
years old she dared to oppose the will
of her queen mother. Queen Victoria, the
| Prince Consort Albert, the Princess Royal
and the present King of England were
present in state at a review at Aldershot,
| the military camp near London A bril-
! liant cavalcade of officers galloped by the
1 side Of the stage-coach as Royal Guards.
1 The little Princess dropped her handker-
chief to the ground for the pride of see
ing field marshais and generals pulling
up their horses and dismounting to re-
store the object. The Queen observed the
! incident and sternly motioned to the Off
GERS not to crafty the tiny tyrant Then
she stopped the carriage and turned to the
| Princess:
Get out, my child, and pick up your
handkerchief" The little girl refused.
Mamma can't; I'd be ashamed"
The. Queen insisted the -Pripce .Consort
entreated. but the Princess pouted. ofush-
ed, and refused this time fatty
| Il won't"
Her Majesty had TO let the carriage
drive ahead. leaving the handkerchief on
the ground 1t Is said the rebellious
Princess had a hard time of it when home
| was reached.
In 1855 the Princess Royal was married
at the age of II to the ''Kron Prinz" of
Prussia, Frederick. the son and heir of
King wilhelm. 1t was a brilliant mar
rage But happy though it was for the
! Princess in the unfailing mutual love be-
| tween herself. and her Fritz" it was
made bitter by the intense hatred she ex-
| cited in Bismarck. From beginning to end
| the Iron Chancellor sought to thWart the
English woman" as he called her. IT was
a bitter blow to him that the heir of the
house of Hohenzolern should have made
a marital alliance with princess of his
| enemys country.
She has poisoned" said he, 1.-THE Ho-
henzolern blood at its source"
| And through the press. which he held
in the hollow of his hand he stirred
the whole people OF Russia against
the Crown Princess. She was represent
ed as a traitor on the steps of the throne,
an interloping foreigner bent on destroy
ing the Prussian nation by insidiously an
glicizing it. This was the more readily
| believed in that the Crown Princess was
| really trying to Introduce into Prussia
many liberal ideas prevalent in England.
Herself a woman of the very strong
est brain power and remarkably educat-
ed she sought to procure for women in
| PRUSSIA an enllRnteneO system oil eOuCd-
ton and some considerable degree of po-
litcal influence. She had set her face
against many antiquated survivals of feu-
DIAL privileges still lingering in Prussia
and practically proclaimed herself a dem
| ocrat.
THE English woman said Bismarck,
sis not only a rights-of-man woman;
she is also rights-of- woman woman,
which is worse. II is Red Revolution en-
| throned at Berlin"
! She was Kissed in the streets of Ber-
lin. stones were thrown at her carriage.
she could not appear at public function.
even the side of the Kuou-Prinz whom
the people adored, without risk of the
gravest insult A curious complaint OF
| hers has been recorded. From an early
age she had been a diligent student OF the
works OF John Stuart Min. the great
English republican philosopher and adj
vocate of "Woman's Rights" one year
in the hight of her unpopularty at Ber-
| lin she wrote to him and invited him TO
pay visit to herself and the Kron-Prinz.
| Mil declined. In a respectful letter he
explained that such meeting would do
| harm both to him and TO her; people
would charge him with selling his repub-
| ,ican principles for royal smiles and
would say OF her that she allowed phlos-
optical "faddisms' to lower the royal
| dignity.
Unhappy woman that am" she cried
to her secretary; "the Chancellor and my
future subjects hate me because they