THE RECENT SCANDAL

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 823, 11 February 1903, Page 3

THE RECENT SCANDAL

SOME MORE PARTICULARS.; VIENNA, Dec, 28. Neither Dresden, Munich, Vicn, na, Paris, Brussels, Rome, nor Berlin lias plainly stated the one solitary reason why Louise Antoinette thrusts aside the titles “Archduchess,” “Imperial Highness,” “ Crown Princess,” and that higher title “Queen,” and that crown that soon must have been hers. A woman, she fell in love. .She devotedly loves a man eight years iier junior—a romantic, artistic idealist, whose black iiair curls over his Adonis-like forehead, who divinely plays the piano and zither. J-'oi this love’s sake, she lied from her husband, whom she loathes,whom she calls “the beast,” whom her sympathetic big brother thrashed,who does not count for muchi as will soon he seen. j .She abandoned her five children—the youngest, Mary Alice, scarcely more than a year old—all dutifully born-., as becomes a. Crown Princess, in ten years. Their desertion she already acutely feels, for already she has sought to excuse herself. I “By remaining with my husband, I J could help my children not at all, | and it was torture for me to see I them being ruined by, the hypocrisies I of the Court.” I But the most remarkable thing ol I ah is that for love’s sake she, a I Crown Princess, imperial Highness, I lias pul from her a crown, a throne | on which she would sit as her hus- I hand’s consort. .Seventy years have | denuded King George’s head ; he is I feeble ; he suffers with influenza. Ere- j delink Augustus, the Crown Prince, I must, in the course of nature soon I succeed him j Princess Louise hopes, believes that I in Andre Giron sjie lias found the | crcwn of her love. So, gladly she renounces all rights I and title to the golden bauble. I Her antithesis is the young woman I ,Who weds an unattractive peer of I eighty aad marries him in a hurry. PLAIN MISS OBEN, ’As 'll to mock the royals and im- I perials and ail the highnesses, big I and little, Louise Antoinette now I calls herself “Miss Oben,” in plain I English. I . Al. tilt! people of Europe are sin- r cerely surprised that a crown prin- IJ cons should have discovered that she I cad lovC like any other woman ; so I with head erect, Miss Oben, leaning I on hei lover’s arm, walks abroad be- I lore the people of Geneva. I j This is because she believes she will 1 , be Mrs Giron when Frederick Augus- | j tus divorces her—or she divorces him, j as she 'is trying to do now. I Always democratic, the Crown I Princess has studied the people ol I Europe. .She feels that they will at- I tacli to her nothing of shame—that it j has been beaten into them for centur- I i ius that a high mightiness can do I Whau she pleases as long as she does I not displease a higher mightiness. 1 And the Crown Princess cares' not I Whom she displeases. She is dis- It' gusfccd with royalty as personified in I her liege lord. She has said : It is easier for a prince to be a I beast than it is for a swineherd, and J more natural.” j Stic is disgusted With herself as be- j IV ing a crown princess. She abhors I d courts —the great court of Austria, d with its punctilios ; Lhe little court I t of Saxony, where her own mistress of J J the robes was the chief of the spies I n on her—the court of which she said : V “ The only difference between the I c royal court and hell is that there is I no escape from hell." I CLEVER AMATEUR ACTRESS. a Crown Princess Louise proved her- I p self remarkably clever at amateur lii theatricals, which mild dissipation I the court of Saxony openly permits | itself. One night in childless King I Albert's time (he died last June and I Ills brother George succeeded him) the I 11 Crown Princess in a comedietta act- I ed to the life the part of a maid scr- I vant. The royal audietipc was frigid I as the pole. At *-last' 4 '|)ld Albert I spoke: l ’ fc “ Even among ourselves a Princess g ; mus. not kuow so exactly the manner 1 of a ma'id.” I w A cablegram from Geneva a day, or I g two ago said : 1 w “ The Crown Princess refuses to I employ a maid, and .prefers to wait 1 on herself.” I .j The simple fact of the whole mat- | ter is that the Crown Princess prefers to he plain, democratic Miss Oben, and as such to love the man of her I heart. I a Cupid has long made the Hapsburgs 1 a a shining mark. I THE WEDDING IN 1891. The Crown Princess is the eldest I daughter of Frederick IV., Grand Ij, Duke of Tuscany, head ol the non- I regnanL branch of the house of Flaps- I burg. His title Grand Duko ol Tus- J canyi 'is an empty one, for Tuscany I has been absorbed in Sardinia,, and Sardinia has teen lost in united t, Italy, Flowever, the marriage of p Lcui.se Antoinette to Frederic Au- ~ gustus on November 21, 1891, was a glittering ceremony, which was perlormed by the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, and graced and honored by the prsence ol the Emperor of h Austria. Francis Joseph, an Imperial p highness who from the many blows that fate has dealt him should be g the saddest man in.all Europe. K All Europe quoted this match as one of love. Louise Antoinette, then q a girl of twenty-one, was, and is, one f of the prettiest, most vivacious of . imperial young women. { Although burdened with the name j of Frederick Augustus Jean, Louis, Charles, Gustave, Gregoire, Philip, her bridegroom was a robust, goodlo ok ini' fellow of twenty-six years. ■ lie comes of an ancient lineage—if 1 blue blood amounts to anything. His ; line goes back to the tenth century. The royal house of Saxony, known a-; the Albertine line, descends from Albert of Courageux, Duke of Saxopv, who died in 1500. ’it rcallv seemed to be a love match Neither parly to it was rich, even as second-rate Princes go, even prospectively. There was no question of policy in the marriage, lor Austria anil Saxony were already allied by the Crown Prince Frederick’s sister to Archduke OHo, Francis Joseph’s nephew. LIKE MARIE ANTOINETTE,

How long after their love match this royal couple wore happy they only know. But it was not many years before there happened to this Austrian Princess Louise Antoinette at Dresden just what happened to another Austrian Princess, Marie Antoinette, at Versailles. Being an aristocrat, Mario Antoinette lost her head by the guillotine. Being democratic, Louise Antoinette seoms to have preserved even her reputation in the eyes of the bourgeois of Drosden. But tho Saxon court and the courtiers hated her because she was light-hearted ; exaggerated her foibles; if she was bad, painted her ton times blacker to her husThe cablegram proves all that. Ho sought forgetfulnoss, perhaps, or tried to drown his woundod pride in deopor draughts of boor—tho beer of the royal brewory at Dresden is admirable. Ho wont on hunting expeditions oftenor and oftenor. Ho became so far forgetful as to bo openly devoted to Charlotte Baste, a very * beautiful aotress in the Dresden Theatre Boyal. EOYAL CLAWING MATCH.

The most frightful scenes followed ; all the cablegrams have described them. He tore their children from her, he beat her, they clawed each other as they fought. He again and again locked her up in her own rooms in their palace until her brother, Leopold, an eccentric, hurried to Dresden and threatened to shoot him. To pacify her, so far as their children wore concerned, her husband let her go to Paris a few months ago to engage a tutor i 0 Sbtfmet Andre Giron, well bred, hand-

some, fascinating. To-day 11 Miss Obon and Mr Giron are at the Hotel d’Angleterre, Geneva. There, too, are Archduke Leopold, who in due time could be Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the lovely Wilbeltniaa Adam-

I ovics, his sweetheart for six years. I ARCHDUKE’S ROMANCE. I Archduke Leopold Ferdinand odm I threatened to shoot his brother-in-law, I and lately thrashed and booted him. The I Archduko certainly has distinguished himI self in no other way. The cablegrams say I admiringly he has given up his rights, surI rendered his decorations, including the J “ Golden Fieece,” and wishes to bo known I only as plain Leopold Wolfsing. J Unfortunately for Mr Woifsing, the j Vienna newspapers have published details I that go to prove the charming Miss AdoI movies to be unworthy of any true man’s j love. Many better men than Wolfsing I have risked their lives for the “ Golden I Fieece,” many worse men perhaps have I risked their suuls for it. But the “ rights” j Mr Wolfsing surrenders are trivial —tho I rights to the Tuscan and the Austrian I successions. I Tho lirst is purely formal. Only an epidemic among the Archdukes, which ho must escape, could place Mr Wolfsing on the Austrian throne. Some deadly diseaso must quickly carry | off FraDcis Joseph’s nephews, Archdukes Franz Ferdinand Otho and Ferdinand Charles, and their children, and the Emperor’s unmarried brother, Archduke Ludwig. Of tho women and men of this triple romance of royalty only the Crown Princess Louise Antoinette truly lovos and bolioves in her inmost heart shu is truly loved.