Judsonia weekly advance., 1915-06-02

But he had had ilIegtimate son in America he had been arrested in an evil resort in Paris, he had been promiseuous in his love affairs he had an uhattractlve personality, bad skin, poor eyes, poor carriage. Yet he was attractive to women who did not think he ever would be an emperor
 He was fascinated by Eugenie and made love to her in an informal, easy-going manner But he tried hard to marry princess of an es- tablished dynasty No woman of royal rank would accept the adventurer Had anyone sig n1t1ed her willingness to do so Eugene had never been empress of the French
 It is said that he at first offered her nor ganatic marriage. This she refused and also refused to see him again Chance drove Napo- leon into the marriage. His uncle Jerome for mer king of Westphaa, circulated rumor that he was incapable of marriage. Bismarck, it is said, believed the story. To disprove it Napoleon asked Eugenie de Montijo to share his throne They were married January 30, 1853, at Notre Dame, Paris and began a reign of seventeen years, in which good was intermingled with much evil
 Their positions were hard at first. Not being of royal blood royal families looked askance upon them. They circulated all sorts of stories about them. In his marriage proclamation the emperor said T hope that she will revive the virtues of Josephine" Cynical Paris roared It remembered the easy virtue of Josephine before and after her marriage to the great Corsican. A postcard bearing the picture of the empress had this sentence upon it.
 "The portrait and virtues of the empress-all for two sous"
 None the less Eugenie's influence was great She urged her husband to undertake many en- terprises that proved dangerous to his empire but for twenty years France successful in peace and in war. The court glittered Every form of pleasure encouraged The empress shone with the supreme radiance of womanly fascination. Paris the center of interna tional society. Whatever Eugenie did was done by the women of all the world She wore the ridiculous crinoline and huge, fantastic chignon The world wore them, too. She had Haussman remodel and rebuild Paris The great boule- wards and avenues of today the work of the little old woman who moves among the wounded in England
 In 1856 an heir was born, the little Louis, whose end to be so tragic She dabbled in politics and offended her husband She even led a party which opposed him in the chamber of deputies. He found out that the love letters which had charmed him had been written by the distinguished academician, Prosper Merimee, hired by Eugenie to do 1t. When Eugenie had to write herself, her letters were no better than those of sem1llterate peasant girl Asked about it Mermee said: God gave her the choice be- tween beauty and brains and she chose beauty"
 Eugenie loved bohemianism and laxity and Paris became efeminate Handsome faces a small gift of epigram romantic past were the credentials to the court of the empress. grad ual decay honeycombed society and the army and the foundations of Sedan were laid
 Eugenie was not popular with princesses who fouted her birth with French women who felt that when Napoleon made up his mind to marry woman of less than noyal rank he