FOUR VIEWS OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2104, 11 April 1889, Page 2

FOUR VIEWS OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE.

Four times have I seen the Empress I&ugente. Tna fi«t ir*s a few months after hei marriage, when abe occupied, with her husband, tha Imperial box at the Oocaedie Franoalae, exquisite to be* hold m white silk and pearls, tho famous pearls that had formed the Emperor's bridal gift. I shall not soon forget the slender, swaying throat rising from the statue-like shoulders with the graae of a Illy stalk, the golden-lighted tresses, the large almond-shaped blue eyes, with that mysterious sadness m their depths that one sees m the portraits of Charles 1., shading their ezare brilliancy and not to be obased away even by the sunny sweetness of the smiling month. Ten years later I attain beheld the Empress, this time m full court dress, at a gala representation at the opera, blazing with diamonds, with that peerless gem, the Regent Burmountlng the olasslo-shaped diadem that she never wore since at the penalty of an Agonising headache, so great was its weight, Her delicate, flower-like beauty had developed and expanded Into that of a well-ripened fruit, the rounded arms and finely-moulded shoulders dimpling out of glowing draperies of rich red silk, She sat like a statue, or like some gem-bodeoked Indian Idol, so motionless that her diamonds flamed ; they did not flash or sparkle. [Next I beheld her eoowled upon by the Parisian orowd at the review m 1870, a tired-looking elderly woman, with the dainty charms of her youth and the glowing r races of her prime replaced by all the artifices known to the Inventors of French oosmatics. And then a year or two ago', I passed on the Plaoe Vendome a sorrowful lady clad In deep -mourning, with silvery hair and an Infirm gait, who was In the aot of getting Into her carriage aiding herself .with a cane as she did so. There was no mistaking the sad sweetness of the expression, or the still Inimitably graceful carriage of the head and shoulders; It was the ex-Empreas passing through Paris on her way to one of the Oontlnental watering places. Her health Is good, with the exception of the rheumatic a ff action that has troubled her /or years, and that Impels her to seek annually the counsels and care of one of the great phynlolaua of Amsterdam. She Is wealthy, and In growlog old she has grown penurious, so that her heirs the ohtldren of her sister, the Duchess of Alba, will probably Inherit one day an lmmeme fortune.

Like a ghost of the vanished empire that gave her grandeur, and to which she imparted graoe and oh*rm, she flits from one health-giving place of public resort to another, alone on earth with her memories and sorrows. She has survived all those whom she loved — husband, son, mother, and lister. Dead too, are her hopes and her ambitions; these have vanished like her world-renowned beauty, like her queen* ship, like her long-hoped for and joyously hailed maternity. Often m the watohes ef the night a storm of grief will soatter the oalmnesa of her resignation to the winds, and she will sit for hours weeping before the portrait of the late Prinoe Imperial. — Lucy H. Hooper, In' the Philadelphia Prees.