Washington Journal., 1943-01-01

49,
/ never saw it again.
One hungry day | stole the little key from
the drawer in Mothers desk, opened my trea-
sure box and ate up the chocolate crown,
which by that time had turned gray and
tasted moldy. Still it was better than nothing.
When my Mother discovered the loss, she
gave me a reproachful look and called me
ga greedy boy.
Every now and then afterwards, talk in the
family fell on Queen Maria Sofia of Naples.
It was mentioned that she was a spirited
horsewoman like her sister, Empress Eliza
beth of Austria. Someone said she lived in a
castle near Possenhofen on Lake WGrm.
There she had tanned a headstrong stallion
by riding him full tilt into the icy waters Of
the lake.
AS she had tanned the horse, so they said,
she had tanned her husband, Francesca, the
last King of the Sicilies, whom his subjects
derisively called III re Bombino''. That was
because his grenadier guards had thrown
hand bombs among his rebellious people riot
ing for Garibaldi on Via Toledo in Naples.
Others at our house told stories of the
Queens bravery, when she and her husband
with his Swiss Guards during the war for a
United Italy we're besieged and bombed in the
fortress Gaeta near Naples. They said she
had saved the life Of the commander Of the
Swiss Guards by dragging him out from the
UuIIulS lulIlO VI q uOuoC Ii NNCbu3 W ~
lay with a shattered leg.
1t was recalled that Queen Maria Sofia,
under the protection Of a black flag, rode
horseback along the ramparts OF Gaeta and
that the gunnersp on the blockading w~arships
CALAMITY stopped their fire when her black
flag came in sight. In the end her husbands
enemy, King Victor Emmanuel Of Sardinia,
I'll Re GdlGntuOmo' accorded her and her
husband with all the survivors of their Swiss
N.ox1c 4uoo 1onor fr.vs FROM 1sI1InaH Gnnta
Nv parents remembered that in Paris,
shortly before l was born, they had lived
near the Villa Vouillemont off La Place de la
Concorde, where the dethroned King and
Queen of Naples dwelt after they were driven
from their Palazzo Farnese in Rome.
At our dinner table there was occasional
talk Of Queen Maria Sofas bravery in battle
and of her fondness for horses and dogs. In
Paris she drove tandem teams, as she had
done in Rome. A Bavarian cavalry officer,
who often came to our house, spoke of Queen
Maria Sofas racing stable at Bougivil near
the Rothschild estate at Beauregard, France.
One of her mares, named MalmaisOn, had
won the Grand Prix Of Paris. On the turf,
SC he said, the former Queen called herself
Countess Isola".
AS a big boy | remember hearing Maria
Sofa mentioned again, when her sister, the
Duchess of Alencon, one time fancee of King
LOulS IL VI DdFdlld, 1OOC uCl OulAuS OIC
horrible burning Of a charity bazaar in Paris.
A Long Interval
Then many years passed, far way from
Europe for me, when [ never heard another
word about the former Queen of Naples. In
deed | never was reminded OF her until some
forty-four years afterward. That was in
1919, when | happened to be a war CORE
spondent in Europe and the Red Revolution
reached Munich.
Dick Little, a correspondent of the "Chi-
cago Daily News, and | undertook to go to
Munich from Berlin. Our plan was to go
by rail so far as Regensburg on the Danube
and there to try to get an airplane to fly us
into besieged Munich.
Finding no airplane at Regensburg, we
bribed an engine driver to take us In his cab
on a trial trip toward Munich, SO far as the
rails might not yet have been torn up by the
rebels. He did so and brought his engine
to the end of its run in open fields east Of
Dachau. From there we might tramp into
Munich, provided we got through the advance
lines of the White Guards and, after crossing
the open stretch of "No Mans Land'',
through the picket lines of the Reds. / thought
it feasible, since | was provided with two
military passports, one from the General
Staff in Berlin, the other from one Holtz, a
Communist guerilla leader in Thuringia.
IuChIly III US uOul, my PoooPolo 10, WuCH
shown separately, leach, where it might be
expected to be honored), took us through the
opposing lines Of riflemen and machine gun
ners. So we got into Munich after several
hours tramping.
We found the city in a state of war, under
shell fire from field artillery and occasional
airplanes dropping bombs, while scattered
artillery shots we're fired by rebel batteries
from vantage points in the city. Some rebels
were shooting with rifles from the housetops.