Evening star., 1903-08-22
PRINCESS MATH|LDE
Career Of the Daughter Of
Jerome Bonaparte.
POLITICAL SCHEMER
HER EFFORTS TO RESTORE THE
FAMILY TO POWER.
Prince Victor and Prince Louis as
Claimants to the
Throne.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
PARIS, August Z. 1903.
Fast express trains from all parts of Eu-
rope carried recently to Paris strangely
assorted set of personages.
From his garrison at Tifis there came
fastening the Major General Louis Napo-
leon of the Russian army. From her
chateau in the north of Italy came the plous
Princess Clotilde, daughter of Victor En-
manuel ct was the first time she had set
foot in Paris since 1S70) From the yacht
of Count Primol in the Adriatic. fastened
the aged ex-Empress Eugene. From Brus-
sells came the confidential secretary OF
Prince Victor, the exiled Bonaparte pre-
tender. And from many another point
came hurrying the representatives of moro
exalted names.
They all met at the bedside of an aged
lady with broken femur bone. the famous
Princess Mathilde. daughter of Jerome
Bonaparte, who, previously to his union
with her mother the Princess Catherine OF
Wurtembourg, had married Miss Elizabeth
Patterson Of Baltimore. When a lady of
her advanced age of eighty-three years
falls and breaks her femur there Is little
hope of final recovery. Though now re-
ported doing well, the Princess Mathilde
may have passed away before these lines
are printed. So they FASTENED to her bed
SiuS WOTluly plotleIS, Sdl1tly uWeilelS III
retirement, her most ancient enemy, and
all those who have felt their cause upheld
for the past sixty years, both in failure and
success. with varied motives She has last
counseis to give. secrets to reveal a great
fortune to divide and a soul to
save! Clotilde. at least. came for this last.
Her Early Life.
Here is an ancient dame who, as an in
FAINT, received a gold mug and coral biting
yip fro, bar
1, shortly before his death at st. Helena
The great emperor had never been willing
to recognize her fathers previous marriage
with Miss Patterson. and as reward for
Jerome's obedience in quitting her the en-
peror had married him to the Wurtem-
bourgian princess and set him on her
throne. Born in exile at Trieste Mathide,
daughter of that bigamous desertion of the
American wife, grew to be a beautiful
young woman, who. at marriageable age,
was on the point of being botrothed to her
first cousin, Louis Napoleon, who afterward
became Napoleon III.
He who was to become Napoleon III was
at that period a needy adventurer mixing
himself up with italian secret societies. in
and out of political prisons. or taking
refuge in England or the United States
where. at Bordentown, N. J., he was so poor
that he could not pay for farmers pig he
shot by accident while cunning for rabbits!
w men Mdtnide was twenty years of age
therefore, in the year 1910. she was mar
ried to the eccentric and immensely rich
Prince Anatole Demidoff. AS the lady was
Catholic, this marriage offended the CZar
Nicholas, who cut off Demidoff from all
connection with Russia. Great stories are
told of the half-savage character of this
Tartar-Cossack prince, who was neverthe-
less one of the greatest patrons of art of
the nineteenth century. He and Mathilde
managed to live together for five years
after which there was a separation and
divorce. Demidoff bought an Italian title
and as the Prince of San Donate made the
great art collection so well known under
that name in Florence to all American tour
lists and colonists
Her Great Wealth.
Mathilde was now free. She had already
a fortune Of her own. part from her Wur-
tembourg mother and part from old Jerome,
her father. who, though a money spender,
had also been money gatherer. When
Demidof died more came from him; though
this is matter that has always been wrap
ped in mystery. 1t is sufficient that Ma