The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-06-05

Dut ne nau 'au an lHegitimate son in America,
ne had beep arrested in an evil resort in PARIS
he had been promiscuous in his love affairs he
mad an upattractive personality. bad skin. moor
eyes po9 carriage. Yet he was attractive to
women fno did not think he ever would be- an
empero.
lie "as fascinated by Eugene and made love
to he in an informal, easy-going manner. But
ne ueu nard TO marry some princess of an es-
tablshed dynasty. No woman of royal rank
w9hd accept the adventurer. Had anyone sig
naed her willingness to do so Eugene had never
/een empress of the French
I 1t is said that he at first offered her a NOR.
ganatlc marriage. This she refused. and also
refused to see him again. Chance drove Napo-
icon into the marriage. His uncle, Jerome. for.
mer King of Westphalia, circulated a rumor that
ne was incapable of marriage. Bismarck. IL ia
said, believed the story. To disprove It NapoIeon
asked Eugene de Montijo to share his throne.
Ihey were married January 80, 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: II hope that she will revive the
virtues of Josephine" Cynical Paris roared. II
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 1t:
"The portrait and virtues of the empress-aIl
for two sous"
None the less Eugenie's influence was great
She urged her husband to undertake many Ell.
terprises that proved dangerous to his empire
out for twenty years France was successful in
peace and in war. The court ~glittered. Every
form OF pleasure was encouraged. The empress
shone with the supreme radiance of womanly
fascination. Paris was the center of interna-
tional society. Whatever Eugene did was done
by the women Of all the world. She wore the
ridiculous crinoline and huge, fantastic chignou.
Inc world wore them, too. She had Haussman
remodel and rebuild Paris. The great boule-
Yards and avenues of today are the work of the
little old woman who now moves among the
wounded in England.
In 1855 an heir was born, the little louis.
whose end was 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 a~cademician, Prosper Merimee.
hired by Eugene to do It. When Eugene had tn
write herself, her letters were no better than
those of a semiliterate peasant girl. Asked about
1t Merimee said: God gave her the choice be-
tween beauty and brains and she chose beauty"
Eugene loved bohemianism and laxity and
Paris became efeminate. Handsome faces. a
small gift of epigram, a romantic past, were the
credentials to the court of the empress. A grad.
ual decay honeycombed society and the army and
the foundations Of Sedan were laid.
Eugene was not popular with princesses who
houted her birth or with French women who
felt that when Napoleon made up his mind To
marry a woman of less than royal rank he