The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-19
N1OW IF DASH|NC
 MAMMALIAN STILL THINKS HE LIVES
Sole Survivor Of Nineteenth Century Brings Memory Of
 Mexican Days

btNCoSELS, July IS.-Benlnd the shuttered windows of Chateau de Bouchout an s3-year-old woman, dying, insane. is living in the mem. ories of her glorious past.
 Mad since 1887, her broken mind does not know that she is old, an exile; her failing eyes do not see the flat green fields of Belgium, and the stone chateau that has been her prIson these many years.
 Empress Carlotta, widow of Elm peror Maximilian of Mexico, her nurses and doctors are the courtiers and gallants surrounding the go~- geous throne she once knew; she is still-to herself-the empress of Mexico. Somewhere, beyond the DOT tals of the room that shuts her in, young Maximilian, her emperor hus- band, she believes, is waiting, and will come to her.
 King Albert of Belgium, her neph- CIV. hurried to Der bedside wednes- day night when physicians reported that she might die at any moment. To her he was but another official of her court.
 Cries For Husband.
 Through the death watches she cried always for her husband, who, they had told her, had gone away"
 
 Carlotta, frail relic of nineteenth century dynasties long since faded into history, Since that burning dawn June 19, 1869, when rebel Mex lean troops shot Maximilian against wall in Mexico, her mind has lived only in the past. She has no knowl- edge of the days that followed, of her wanderings throughout Europe her virtual imprisonment as a luna tic, the days of the World war, thunders of which reached her win dows without her knowing their sig niftcance. To her the night that Mexico rose in rebellion is "yester- day" She is still empress, and her husband will return.
 Weeds Handsome Duke.
 The story of Carlotta, the Mad Empress" goes back beyond the memory of this generation. Born in Belgium in 1S40, she wed the hand some and dashing Archduke Maxi milan of Austria, and went with him to the gay court of Vienna, where her youth and beauty made her a leader in it's life.
 When Napoleon III of France, Napoleon the Little," dreamed of an empire in the new world and began his war on Mexico, he selected Maxi milan as the ruler of his new em- pire.
 Together they came to Mexico, and, surrounded by European courtiers, set up a gilded and regal regime. France backed the project with money and men.
 The Civil war was in progress in America. When it ended, however, the United States announced that 1t could not permit empirical adven- lures in the western hemisphere France saw the north equipped with standing army of 1000, 900 Civil war veterans, ready to fight. Ma poleon III, busy ON his own European war ventures, left Maximillian to work out his destiny as best he ight.
 Revolution Follows.
 Bloody revolution followed. Gen. eral Menito Juarez, victorious, cap tured Maximilian, and decreed that he must die. Maximilian was stood lp against wall in the Mexican Vil- age of Queretaro, and fell before the volley of a firing squad.
 Almost simultaneously the princess escaped to Europe, despite the fact that rebel warships followed in hot pursuit. She arrived in Paris alone, weeping and disconsolate. She hur- ried to Napoleon, and later to Rome, where she was received by Pope Plus IX.
 There she declared that poison food was being fed her, and insisted on drinking out or the rope S cup at meals. Physicians were summoned, whereat she refused to leave the vatican. Driven insane by worry, she insisted on spending the night there, establishing the record of having been the oH4y woman in his tory to do so.
 Later she was taken to Belgium and placed, under guard, in the cha teau. A small court was placed at her disposal, it's members being in- structed to humor her in her belief that she was still Empress of Mex ico. The grim regal farce has been con ntinued until this day.
 Princess Carlotta is immensely wealthy, her estate being estimated at $700 100000. This will fall to the royal family of Belgium on her death.