The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-23
WHAT ISABELLA WAS.


 eigns in Exile in Paris
 Queer Isabella's death will deprive the French capital of one of the most picturesque and notable members of it's colony of "Rois en Exil," so wildly portrayed by A1phonse Daudet in his book of that name and which has fur nished an unfailing and always popu- lar theme to other novelists of less note, while it will relieve the Spanish treasury from an annuity of $15000O, which 1t has been paying to her with unfailing regularity ever since the res toration of her son, the late King AL fonso XII in 1S75-that is to say, for a period of nearly thirty years.
 No scion of royalty, with the possi- ble exception of the late King Milan of Servia, has ever furnished so much material to the "chronique scanda- leuse" of the courts of Europe as Isa- bella; and, while many of the stories related of her are caIumny pure and simple, there IS no doubt that by her extravaganees of conduct-one might almost add, her moral eccentricities- she helped to give an appearance of truth to even the vilest islanders that were originated previous to her depo- sition by her brother-in-law, the late Due de Montpensier, and his party and after the establishment of her residence in Paris by those venomous scribes who had failed in their attempts to extort money from her by means of blackmail.
 With all her faults, and they had been many, 1t must be confessed that she had always remained kind heart- l ed generous woman, whose innumer- able acts of charity will doubtless be credited to her in the great hereafter as against her shortcomings; and no matter how insane her freaks, she somehow or other always managed to maintain sort of unconscious majes- ty and royal dignity, which even in 1868 and 1869, when, owing to the pres ence of the infamous Marfori in her en- tourage, Napoleon III, on the score of propriety, felt himself forced to keep her aloof from his shady court after her arrival as an exile in France, so im- pressed Eugenie that during her inter- views with her the empress seemed to forget her own rank and acted and spoke as if she were still one of Isa- bella's maids of honor.
 Much indulgence should be accorded to Queen Isabella in writing the record of her career. For she labored all her life under the disadvantages of having grown up under the care, and with the example before her eyes, of Le5I mother, old Queen Christina, one O the Bour- | haY Of I>l ishamelessly depraved and wicked wo- man that ever occupied a European throne during the nineteenth century. The court of Madrid in those days was renowned for it's profiigacy. But Queen Christians behavior finally became more than even her courtiers and the people around her could afford to toler- late, and she was driven into exile along with her favorite, the ex-guardsman Munoz whom she had raised from the frank of a common soldier to the high est offices in the army and in the state, Isolely on account of his good looks
 No attempt was made to preserve the childhood or the young girlhood of Isa- bella free from demoralizing influences. In fact, there were those who consid- cred it be to their interests to en- deavor to corrupt her mind And then her unfortunate marriage to a man whom she neither loved nor respected, and was dwafed, not only in body, but also in mind, contributed also to render her reckless. It is unnecessary here to lrelate anew the shameful story of this marriage into which she was forced on her sixteenth birthday in the firm con- viction that it would remain childless and thus enable the crown to pass to her younger sister, married to the lFrench Duke de Montpensier. These Expectations were not, however, real lezed. Queen Isabella gave birth to a large number of children, several o1 which died in infancy, and on each oc- casion that she became a mother hel brother-in-law, the Duke de Montpen- lser. to whom she invariably showed herself both kind and generous, circu- lated stories to the effect that the child was not the, offspring of her husband Ibut of this or of that of her favorites
 Thus it was to the Duke of Montpen- sier that the Infanta Isabella, widow of the Count Girgenti owed the nick. Iname of the. herring girl" which
 clulig to her for many years after sht had grown up, and that originated il