The Nevada County picayune., 1915-07-02


 and he now proposed that this ,... should be secretly taken from its ents and substituted for the rcs4, KY infant.
 Incredible as 1t may saam you--as it still seems to me-,hs monstrous scheme was adopted s .a physician himself undertaking to ca 10 it out. He took away the tiny princass without being detected, gained adrs,s tance to the Keepers wife under ,ss pretext of being sent by the king ' offer his services. exchanged tho ;a fants, and brought back the pleha,s. child to be reared in the palace as ,s. heir to the Netherlands and r.nra- burg.
 Thus was this extraordinary nh, carried out with the most complete sn. cess. The early death of the unhan. little daughter of the royal hone. from a congenital cause, seemed ts condone the kings treachery tn h,. wife. and effectually stopped all fea, of discovery. The king and his tvo accomplices preserved their secra, till the moment when fit of rags las to the revelation of it to the nersos most concerned"
 And what did the prince of oran,a do. when the king informed him o, all this?" I asked, as the ambassado, made a long pause.
 That is the very question which put to him on the occasion when ba took me into his confidence. He ra. piled;
 My first feeling, on learning tba, had no title to the position that occupied, was one of sheer dismav But this feeling deepened into one of fierce resentment as I realized what these men, this king and bis ministers, had made of me. was living falsehood, the most colossal i'm. postor in the world, robbed of my very manhood, and unable thenceferth to look my fellow creatures in the face.
 If my adopted father had hoped to crush me by the disclosure of my true position, he must have been sadly disappointed My first impulse was to reject the lying role he had thrust upon me. and to publicly renounce my borrowed rank. The first hint of such an intention was enough to bring him to reason. For the first time some faint notion of the deadly injury he had done me appeared to penetrate his mind. In his humilla. tion, he condescended to implore me not to expose him in the eyes of Europe
 "T could not entirely resist these prayers. Had any other person than myself been the victim, I could not have withheld all sympathy from the scheme, which was intended to baffle the enemies of Holland. AS it was. the evil was now past mending. Miserable as my life had been in the oppressive atmosphere of a court, I had sense enough to know that 1t was too late in the day for me to accustom myself to the obscure poverty of a peasants life. l even forbore to ask the king for the names of my unknown parents.
 Yet I could not face the prospect of continuing to play a part which found so intolerable. l discussed the matter with my father-as have con tiued to call him-and in the end 1t was decided that I should live abroad in a semi-private manner, a substan- tial pension being assigned to me on the condition that the secret of my birth was strictly kept
 !" Such am, such is my career You perceive in me monster of the moral world. a creature to whom every virtu- ous and noble aspiration has been for. bidden before he was born, a wretch whose life is a prolonged crime. and who will render the only atonement to society which is in his power by hastening his progress to the grave"
 AS the ambassador repeated these pathetic words of the prince, his voice shook. It was indeed necessary to be- lieve that his recollections had caused him genuine emotion.
 T endeavored to soothe this young man, so miserably situated, but with out success. By this time dawn was approaching. and he decided to return to his own residence. where he pressed me to visit him. To gratify him I consented, but l did not fulfill my promise. With every sentiment Of pity for this impostor in spite of him. self I did not care to associate with him; and. besides. his circle. you understand, was not one of those in which one gains reputation by mixing And as shortly afterwards l entered rSon the series of foreign employ ments which have since filled my life. it so happened that we never met again"
 When did the prince die!" asked presently.
 T think it was in the year of 1884"