San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1924-03-19
LOVERS
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4 LOVERS .;l;3:ssaf;s. =
| There is famous fiction to the effec
that "all the world loves a lover" I
does 49,. in way. 1t loves to reac
about lovers and retel in their iov.
and sorrows, VIGOROUSLY. 1t loves tc
smile upon them blandly if they are
doeile and conventional lovers and ther
hustle them along towards becoming
settled married folks who have eotter
over all that stuff" 1t loves also tc
destroy them if they happen to love
contrary to the rules laid down by the
community in which they happen to live
Only the other day there died in Wies-
baden, Germany, woman of sixtv-siy
whose story is a tragic example of the
worlds power to destroy. She was the
Princess Louise of Belgium. the eldest
of the three daughters of Leopold III.
that king whose extortions and cruelties
in the Congo Free State in gathering
rubber from the natives became the
shame of the civilized world.
In the matter of getting money and
becoming the richest of monarchs he
allowed himself much leeway, but the
conventions of life, inexorably, had to be
observed. One of these conventions
was that his daughters should be. mar
ried to persons suitable in rank and for
tune to be the husbands of princesses.
with little regard to anything else. To
this end he married his daughter Louise.
then girl of seventeen, to her cousin,
the Prince Philip of Sake obourg-
Gotha, fourteen years her senior and a
notorious rake.
The marriage turned out disastrously
He was brutal and profligate husband
and the Princess bestowed her affections
upon dashing young army officer,
Count Mattachich, who had once RESI-
cued her in runaway accident. The
Princes honor was now at stake.
He fought duel with the young officer.
receiving wound in the arm after three
futile pistol shots had been exchanged
Court authority then stepped in. The
Princess Louise was placed in an in
sane asylum and charges of forgery
against her lover caused his expulsion
from the army. They were to be crushed
and destroyed, both of them, and the
Princess Louise was transferred to an
asylum in SaXony in order to be mac
cessible to her lover But he followed
her, and with his assistance, she made
her escape. The Prince, her husband,
then secured>a divorce, but the princess
was outlawed. The scandal of her clone
ment barred her from the high circles
to which she was born and the rest of
her life was continuous and bitter
struggle.
Always in financial difficulties and
sometimes suffering dire poverty. the
princess. short time before her death.
was at last to enjoy comparative ease.
the Belgian courts having accorded her
certain proportion of King Leopold's
fortune. On several occasions when she
was almost destitute, the members of the
Belgian royal family offered financial
aid, but always ON the condition that the
princess would have nothing more to do
with Count Mattachch. This she al
ways refused, saying it was impossible
to abandon the only being in the world
who stood by her in the days of her
despair.
The unfortunate princess survived
Count Mattachich only few months.
With him she had wandered from one
European court to another since he had
tracked her to the asylum and assisted
her escape.
Yes. the world cloves a lover" with the
kind of love that will read the princess
story, compassionately 49,. now that
she is dead