A BLIND PRINCESS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 225, 10 February 1865, Page 1 (Supplement)

A BLIND PRINCESS.

The blind young Princess of was presented to the. Empress Eugenie of Schwallhach a few days ago, and the utmost interest and sympathy were excited by her story. The lady is well known, all over Germany ; her princely domain is visited every year by crowds of strangers. Tim beautiful portrait by Cornelius in one of the salons is examined with much interest, and every one departs little dreaming that the large and soft blue eyes seeming to look from the picture so full of sweetness and benevolence have in life no power to return the glances of sympathy and kindness direct towards them. The; story of the prineesss is perhaps the most touching romance of the nineteenth century. As a child she had been stolen from the gardens of the very chateau she mow inhabits. A careless nurse, bent on her own enjoyment, had suffered her master’s, child to stray towards the river, and when, in answer, to the frantic appeals and the search made in every direction, no signs of the infant’s presence could be discovered, it was concluded that she had fallen into the river and got drowned. despair of the mother was beyond all description ; but the idea of the child’s death, accepted by all besides, was rejected entirely by her. The river had been dragged, no trace of the corpse had been found, and so, after a few years time, when the death of the prince her husband had released ner from the obligation to remain in the chateau, she gave up the domain into the hands of her brother-in-law, and set out upon a strange pilgrimage all over the continent, fully convinced that she would find, one-day or other, the object of her search. The sums ofmoney spent in the pursuit, the time, the toil, the anxiety, absorbed upon every high road, need not he descrised. During the embasss of Prince Talleyrand, she came to London, and was received by Queen Adelaide with the utmost kindness and sympathy. Soon afterwards she went once more to the South, still bent on finding her lost child.. One day, the carriage climbing slowly up one of the steep hills in the neighbourhood of Lausanne, she was accosted hy a beggar-woman, holding by the hand a poor blind girl, for whom she was imploring alms. The girl looked gentle and sweet-tempered, resembling in no way the harsh vixen whom she called mother. The inmate of the carriage had fallen into a doze, and the. woman bade the girl sing to arouse the lady. The song was a vulgar ditty belonging to the district, with no romance to ensure attention, a.nd yet it woke the lady from her. trance; something in the voice reminded her of a daughter lost many years before, and she stopped the postillion while she questioned the girl as to her origin. The day and hour : were come at last; every word uttered by the maiden confirmed the suspicion of identity. . Memory was confused—it had vanished with her sight—but by. dint of threats and. promises the woman was made to confess that she had purchased the girl when quite an infant from a beggar-woman like herself, who owned to having deprived her of sight in order to excite compassion. The locality whence the child had been taken was proof sufficient of the truth. The princess returned home with her poor blind companion, and devoted her whole life to the prospect of cure as she had done before to that of discovery. But all attempts failed, and the mother then gave herself up entirely to the education of her helpless charge. In this she succeeded perfectly, and the princess now is considered one of the most accomplished reciters of .Uhland and Schiller in all Germany. Before dying her fond mother reaped her reward in the marriage of her daughter with the young prince, her nephew, and 'this consolation is the greatestwhich could be felt by her friends. The young princess recited with the most exquisite clearness and pathos two scenes from Count Egmont and The Diver, on the visit to the Empress, while the imperial lady listened entranced, and the large tears rolled down her cheeks as she gazed on the wreck which the wickedness and cupidity of man had made of one of the most beautiful works of God’s own creation. —European Times.