The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-02-10
TRAGIC YEARS
OF MACMILLAN
ARE RECALLED

MeXlco.-A ShriYeled, gray-haired
little woman, almost blind and liv-
ing wholly alone, sits all day in
her chair before the window of her
tiny apartment in Mexico City and
dreams of the days of the Mexican
Empire when the Austrian Arch
duke Macmillan ruled the desti-
MES of the nation from 1864 to 1867.
She is Sonora Marie Othelia Jordan
de Degollado, scion of an old Vir-
GINA family and wife of the late
General Mariana Degollado, mem
Der of family famous in Mexican
history.
During the three tragic years of
Macmillan reign she was a lady
in-waiting to Empress Charlotte,
the "sad princess of Europe" and
to the correspondent she recently
recalled some interesting memories
of court days during the Mexican
empire.
Macmillan, the Inflated Aus
trian prince, who was set up as
head of the empire by Napoleon III
in 1864 and three years later was
shot as a usurper by order of the
Mexican President Juarez, was de-
scribed by Sonora Degollado as "a
beautiful character, sympathetic
and capable but too amiable to gov
ern a nation of malcontents"
Empress Charlotte, daughter of
Leopold /, King of the Belgians.
who is still living in Brussels, &C
cording to Sonora Degollado, was
AN ambitious genius who was al
ways striving to advance her hus-
band and whose mind became I'M
balanced when she found the path
blocked" Sonora Degollado has
never seen the empress since she
departed from Mexico City in July,
1866, to plead the cause of the en-
pire before the French monarch
and later to go to Rome to attempt
to secure the good Offices OF the
Pope. So far as she knows no di-
rect word has been received in Mex
leo from Charlotte in more than Is
years and that only an incoherent
note to the wife of a former high
Mexican official.
1.-THE empress left hurriedly on
her European trip" said Sonora
Degollado, who despite her S0-odd
y
memory, "and was accompanied
only by her personal maids. For
many days prior to her departure
there were evidences of her failing
reason and we were not surprised
to hear of her acute affliction sew
eral months later. l am positive
that there is absolutely no truth in
the reports that she was poisoned
before she left Mexico. And the
emperor. He was possessed of ev-
cry kind element of nature. He was
too good. He listened to treacher-
Gus advice and was shot. That day
was an evil one for Mexico"
Sonora Degollado was in Mexico
City when Macmillan was shot in
Queretaro and although she had an
opportunity to view the body be-
fore it was shipped to Vienna she
declined, pPeferring to remember
him as she knew him Within a
few days after the emperor's death,
she and her husband fed to Guate-
nala, where they lived for several
years until Porfirio Diaz became
president of Mexico.
Born in Norfolk, Va, Miss Ma
RE Jordan went to Washington
with her father during the early
days of the Civil War and there
met Mariana Dego1lado, who was
attached to the Mexican embassy.
They were married in Washington
and later came to Mexico where
here husbands father, General
Santos Degollado, was one of the
most prominent men of the day. A
street and plaza in Mexico City still
bears his name.