Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-05-15
ALMOST AN EMPRESS.

Economically interviewer with that OF the
third Napoleon half century and more
ago?
OF the early years of this woman, who
might, if she had played her cards better,
have been an empress and have helped to
shape the destinies OF Europe, nothing
seems to be known; they Nero probably
as obscure as they are mysterious. In
the death registers of La Celle, Saint
Cloud. near Paris, you may read this en-
try: Elizabeth Anne Haryett, called
Miss Howard. Countess de Beauregard,
born in England in 1925" but as to who
| her parents were, and under what condi
tions she spent her childhood and youth,
history seems as silent as the Sphinx.
The curtain rises on this dramatic fig
ure about the year 1910, when Miss
| EIaryett Tor Hargett, as some say was
! in the first radiant bloom OF her young
beauty Fair and sweet she was as any
rose of English maidenhood, with fig
IRE of exquisite grace and statellness
and face and head such as would have
delighted and baffied the greatest of
Greek sculptors. Wealth was hers as
we'll as a rare beauty, and she had many
of the great and high-born galiants OF
England to do her homage and to swell
/ her retinue. The Duke of Beaufort was
her slave; and SO We're Count d'Orsay,
the famous dandy, the Earls OF Chester
| field and Malmesbury, and mary anoth-
er wearer of coronet.
| But she had no admirer more ardent
! than ''sallow, brooding Frenchman,s
who had nothing but his homage to lay
at her dainty feet. He was a portly
man of less than middle height, whose
legs were out of all proportion to his
| long body; with sallow complexioned
1 face, large nose, and thick mustache
covering full lips" He had, in fact.
nothing to redeem his face from the
1 plain and commonplace except his eyes,
gray, magnetic, impressive, which sub
dued the hayward young beauty as none
Others could, and which rarely lost their
settled gloom except in her presence.
Few believed in the shabby French
mans wild dreams; many scoffed at
them; but not so Miss Howard, who
quickly fell under the spell OF his en-
| thusiasm Some time, she felt, the no.
body of today would be one of the great
ones of the earth, emperor of power
! full nation; and her eyes glowed as she
| listened to his dreams and his projects.
4
not she be an empress and share his
throne; for he loved her passionately-
of that there could be no doubt The
thought was intoxicating, even to one
whose charms had already made her a
queen. She was rich and he was poor.
Then he should share her riches in his
day of poverty, and her gold should pave
the way to his glorious destiny.
/ Ara oil lr1nxr tba CT ru af that Ill fat ad
coup; how Napoleon with fifty follow
ers descended on the French coast at
! BouIogne, only to be driven back igno-
miniously to exile again. Napoleon had
| trained an eagle 1.-THE emblem of the
empire) to perch on his shoulder, and
thus to attract the wavering to his ban-
ner; but no sooner had the firing begun
than the bird took to fight Tan exam
pie followed by his soldiers), and was
reeaptured few days later in the act of
deyouring sausages in butchers shop!
Six years of imprisonment was the price
Napoleon paid for this mad venture, but
through it all Miss Howard never wa
vered in her loyalty and in her faith in
his great destiny.
/ When, in 1S46, the prisoner escaped
and sought an asylum again in England,
she proved his one true friend. sharing
her remaining resources with him, and
keeping not only body but hope alive.
! When, in 1S4S, Louis Philippe was de-
throned and Napoleon returned once
more to Paris, she followed him, and
watched over and cared for him as none
other would have done. To her little
house in the Rue du Cirque, Napoleon
repaired for comfort and encourage
ment, and never failed TO find both And
now the tide of his fortunes quickly
turned In June the returned exile was
elected member of the Assembly; in the
/ following December he was raised by a
dramatic turn of Fortunes wheel to the
presidency of the republic.
But even as President. Napoleon's
struggle for life was by no means at an
end He required money, lots of money,
| to strengthen his position and to fur
Their his more ambitious projects. And
once more his lady love came to his res
cue and paid his debts when the banks
protested his promissory notes; though
how, after her already great sacrifices.
she obtained the necessary money it is
impossible even to speculate.
But with his changed fortunes Napo.
leans affection began to waver. He soon
| fell under the spell of Mile. dc Montiio's
raNIshlng beauty. The lovely Spaniard
who now came into his life was prob
ably the fairest woman in all Europe
"She had features of classic regularity,
a dazzlingly fair complexion, heightened
by the FURNISHED gold of her hair, and
by eyes whose deep blue darkened to
violet under the shade of their long
lashes. Her shapely head was delicately
poised on diyinely nodded shoulders, and
her tall and plant figure was superb in
| its grace"
Such was the radiantly lovely crea
ture who began to play havoc with the
Presidents none too constant heart and
TO fill the breast of Miss Howard with