Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1910-02-18
The Baroness VAUGHAN

Naturally, the personality history, and
future of Baroness Vaughan petite
amie'' and morganatic wife of the late
King of the Belgians, constitute a sub
iect which. for many reasons, is par
ticularly interesting to PariSianS. Her
movements Immediately after her return
to France were invested with as much
mystery as possible. Notwithstanding
the assiduity with which the story of
her religious marriage with Leopold has
been printed and reprinted, public opin-
ion here has not seemed to accord to
her much greater respect than was
shown her in Brussels on her departure.
the difference being that the French
have not the motive or the fancled mo-
tive to prompt them to anything like
positive hostility, such as that which
led to the casting OF stones in her dI-
rection at q Belgian railway station.
She does not stand before the French
public in sympathetic light, such as
that in which Leopold, with all his
recognized demerits, not excepting his
meanness in money matters, was regard
ed Paris was the city he preferred
above all others, in spite of his pro-
testations of patriotic love for Belgium,
and the Parisans were fattered by this
fact and had every sort of Indulgence
for his faults, even for that ever dom
inant commercial instinct which made
of him anything but a truly royal fig
ure.
The struggle which confronts Baroness
Vaughan for the retention of the many
millions Leopold Iayished upon her
avakens here only cold and critical
comment Baroness Vaughan even ap-
pears for Paris journalists and their
readers a far less attractive person than
did Mme' Steinheil, probably because
there is not in her case any excuse of
temperament of passion for the charac-
teriStic features of her career.
At the same time facts in her history
which seem to demonstrate that in
egoism at least she was fully match for
her august lover have been dug up
afresh and the public has received them
with much eagerness.
The thirteenth child of family be-
longing to the lower class of ia petite
bourgeoise," though arrived at a dazzling
degree of fortune, Blanche Caroline
Delacroix never, so far as is known, eX-
hibited the least intention of alternating
their LOT and all of them speak of her
with unmistakable GOODNESS. Her eldest
sister. Nine. Laure Lefebre, 80 years
old. was until recently a commission mer-
chant at the central markets of Paris.
Another. Nine. Maria Laluitt, keeps
fruit and vegetable stand in Gobelins
market Still another sister of the
baroness is Nine. Juliette Verger, who
formerly was flower girl and who now
is the wife of waiter in a cafe in the
Place de Clythy. The only surviving
brother of the baroness is a waiter in
another cafe not far from the Place Re
publique. He alone of the family has
something kindly to say of the morga-
matte widow of the Belgian King, whom
he called. half jocularly, his brother-in-
law. He declares his intention of exer-
cisins the office of natural protector to
the baroness as the masculine head of
he family. Of course such an office is
not without its attractions, in view of the
Fact that at least S20.00O,000 is at stake
in the legal battle about to be waged over
the late Kings property.