EUGENIE'S SAD OLD AGE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2317, 30 December 1889, Page 2

EUGENIE'S SAD OLD AGE

♦ The ex-Empress Eugdnie, once the gay and dazzling sovereign lady toward whom the eyes of all Europe were turned, is said to be more than usua ly infirm this season, and spends a great portion of her time m silence and meditation, whether she is lodged m her own home pr is visiting at the mansion of some friend. When her fits of gloom come on she is capable qf remaining sleepless, speechless, without eat' ing, drinking, or noticing anyone around her for twcnty«four hours at a time. Persuasion and persistent attempts to bring her to a sense of her surroundings only make her case worse. It is as if she were communing with the phantoms of her dead past, and as if they held he" attention to the exclusion of all other things m the universe. When the fit ig over it may bs succeeded by one of devotion, such as only Spanish women can go through — devotion which seems to leave the very soul prostrate. The remnants of her wardrobe, which she was allowed to remove from Paris m 1876 and 1877, produced much of the fortune on which she lives to-day and the money whioh she expended on the splendid imperial mausoleum. Of furs alone, at the time of the Empire's downfall, she had £24,000 worth deposited with the Crown fur-keeper, and others worth a? rtvuoh. mare with intimate fviencls. \% has been, estimated that the Empress Eugenic pos« scssed at the time of the Empire's greatest I grandeur £l&>poo worth of furs.