The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-09-06
FAME OF MATH|LDE
Career of a Princess Related
to Bonaparte.
LIES NEAR UNTO DEATH
After SO Years of Plotting
About to Die.
Sterling Heilig. writing from Paris 10

Sterling Heilig, writing from Paris TO
/ the Chicago Record-Herald. says:
Fast express trains from all parts of
/ Europe recently carried to Paris very
strangely assorted set Of personages. Fro n
/ his garrison at Tifils came Major General
/ Louis Napoleon of the Russian army;
| from her chateu in the north of Italy
came the pious Princess Clotilde, daugh-
ter of Victor Emanuel Gt was the first
! time she had set foot in Paris since 1870;
from the yacht of the Count Primoli in
the Adriatic FASTENED the aged ex-Em
press Eugene; from Brussels came the
confidential secretary of Prince Victor.
the exiled Bonaparte pretender. and from
many another part came the representa-
tives of more exalted names.
They all met at the bedside of an aged
woman with broken femur bone, the IA
NOUS Princess Mathilde, daughter of Jer-
ONE Bonaparte. who before his union with
! her mother, the Princess Catharine OF
! Wurten1burg, had married Miss Elizabeth
Patterson of Baltimore. When a woman
of So years falls and breaks her fernur
! there is little hope of final recovery.
Though now reported doing WELL the Prin
cess Mathilde may have passed away be-
fore these lines are printed.
So they fastened to her. bedside, world
ly plotters, sanity dwellers in retirement,
her most ancient enemy, and all those
who have felt their cause upheld for the
last sixty years, both in failure and sue
cess, with varied motives. She has last
counsels to give, secrets to reveal, a great
fortune to divide, and a soul TO savei
Clotilde, at least, came for this last
Here is an ancient dame who, as an in
FAINT, received gold mug and coral Bit
ing ring from his illustrious uncle, Ma
poleon l., shortly before his death at st.
helena. The great emperor had never
been willing to recognize her fathers pre-
vious marriage with Miss Patterson, and
as a reward for Jerome's obedience in
quitting her the emperor had married him
to the Wurtemburgian princess and set
him on her throne. Born in exile at Tri-
este, Mathilde daughter OF that bigamous
desertion of the American wife. grew to b
a beautiful young woman, who at mar
riageable age was on the point of being
poleon, who afterward became Napoleon
Ill
He who was to become Napoleon III,
was at that Period a needy adventurer,
mixing himself up with Italian secret So
cieties, in and out of political prisons, or
taking refuge in England or the United
States. where at Bor6entowns n. j.. he
was so poor that he could not pay for a
farmers pig he shot by accident while
cunning for rabbits
When Mathilde was 20 years of age, In
the year 1910, she was married to the
eccentric and immensely rich Prince Ana
tole Demidoff. AS she was a Catholic,
this marriage offended the Car Nicho-
las, who cut Demidoff from all connection
with Russia. Great stories are told of
the half-savage character of this Tartar
Cossack prince, who was nevertheless 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 the Prince of San Donanto made the
great art collection so well known under
that name in Florence
Mathilde was now free. She had already
fortune of her own, part from her Wur-
temburg mother and part from old Jer-
ONE, her father who, though a money
spender, had also been money gatherer.
When Demidoff died, more came from
him; though this is a matter that has al
ways been wrapped in mystery. 1t is suf-
icient that Mathlde has always been
known as an extremely wealthy lady.
Immediately after her divorce she be-
gan ostensibly patronizing art and letters
in Paris-while in reality plotting with all
her heart and great ability for the return
of the Napoleonic family TO power. AS a
patron of art and letters her salon has
been famous ever since. In 1S49 when all
her plans succeeded so wonderfully and
the revolution brought her cousin, Louis
Napoleon. to the position of prince presi-
dent, she presided in his household, and
she continued to do this during the first
years of his empire.
Yet at this time. when she had fully
justified all her ambitions for the family.
it is said that she had the bitterness TO
vainly regret not having married he;
cousin Louis when he was a POOR adven-
turer: now she was prevented from think
ing Of such a union by the grim fact Of
her divorce from Demidoff.
Mathilde ruled in her cousins court IN
Til Napoleon the Third espoused Eugene.
From the first she was the determined
enemy of the Spaniard. as the young
empress was called-in imitation of the
nickname of the Austrian that had uE-
der similar circumstances been given 10
Marie Antoinette. Her party was always
In opposition TO the party OF the en-
press and this continued until the fall
of the empire after the Franco russisn
war
When Napoleon III. fell a prisoner al
Sedan. Eugene, in Paris. still represented
the established government, and had il
not been for the long continued work
Of this party against her she might have
been allowed to continue. 10 negotiate for
the liberation OF the. emperor and for
much more favorable peace than that
afterward obtained by the new and unor-
gained republic
The empire fell Mathilde's beloved
cousin. Napoleon III, died in exile and
( Eugene. after seeing her son fall his
heir the rrince impe al. killed in South
Africa. lived. a hopeless widow. with no