Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1888-04-07 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

PRINCESS CLEMENTINE AND BULGARIA.  The Daily News correspondent at Paris has bad an interesting interview with the Princess Clementine, the mother of Prince Ferdinand, who is now visiting that city. In chatting about Bulgaria she denied that she went there except to participate in the happiness of her son, and to do what she could to help him in a task which has become to him a labour of love, and in which he has her entire sympathy. When she was at Sofia she learned that the Bulgarians were a simple, unsophisticated, people, who set the highest store upon the affections of the heart and on the home virtues. No people hold the maternal character in more veneration. She was told that as the mother of the sovereign she would be everywhere received with true friendliness and respect. She had no idea how intelligent and how civilised the people were until she went among them. They were a peaceable, law-abiding population, open-minded, open-hearted, and very industrious and thrifty. She denied that she was at Paris on a financial mission, and disclaimed all direct concern in Bulgarian finance, or indeed any concern other than that which arose from her near relationship to the Prince, and the great interest which she took in his task, and in the country. At the same time, she quickly observed, "I think a loan would be of benefit to Bulgaria. You have no idea of its resources, which are practically undeveloped. It has been, so to speak, lying fallow for centuries, and some capital judiciously applied could not fail to bring its natural wealth into circulation. Tbe capacities of the territory are wonderful, and the people do not ask more than to labour soberly and honestly." I asked the Princess whether the internal situation was good. She replied that nothing could be better. Lies had been told in the papers about riots in Tzaribord, one of the frontier towns. She was there when the fighting was said to be going on, and declared that the public peace was then undisturbed, and was not broken there, or elsewhere, either before or since. Alluding to the foreign situation, the Princess remarked that of that she could say nothing which every one did not already know. At the close of the conversation she said she was happy to notice her son's increasing popularity in the country which had adopted him, and which is to him as a Fatherland "The Princess Clementine," the correspondent adds, "wears a black Marie Stuart widow's cap. She is very like the Duc d'Aumale, and has a quick, though by no means brusque manner. She has an intelligent countenance, which lights up in conversation. There is more rapid decision expressed in her general bearing and speech than in any other member of the Orleans family whom I have seen. Her voice has Italian softness, and with her courtesy is evidently a gift of nature."  A man named Metayer, who in !esti November murdered an old man and robbed him of 50,000 francs, has been guillotined at Evreux. Before the steel fell Metayer addressed the prowd,,eaying that his destiny had brought him to the scaffold. He then asked for his mother's prayers. A long interval elapsed before the executioner touched the fatal spring. The delay caused a groan from the crowd, in the midst of which the knife slid down and the tnurderer's head fell into the basket.