ROYAL MARRIAGES.

Kumara Times, Issue 1023, 12 January 1880, Page 4

ROYAL MARRIAGES.

[NEW YORK TIMES] Poor King Alfonso is finally to be married. An embassy is shortly to set out from Madrid for Vienna, to bring the Archduchess Marie Christine to Spain, when she will become Alfonso's bride. The poor young man has never seen her. He does not eveD know what her mother's temper is, nor to what extent her brothers will borrow money of him, but, nevertheless, he will have to marry her, and live on friendly terms with the whole of her numerous German relatives. The marriages of royal personages are the most prosaic affairs. When an English princess arrives a a marriageable age, Queen Victoria says to Mr Gladstone or Lord Beacoosfield, as the case may be, " Bye the bye, how is the German Prince market just now ?" The Prime Minister replies that "it is rather overstocked, as usual, and that a good fair article of Duke or Archduke can be had quite reasonably." Whereupon he is ordered to make out a list of marriageable Germans of royal or, at least, noble birth, and to send it up to the palace the next time the messenger boy has occaeion to pass that way. When the list arrives, fler Majesty runs it over and tries to select a name, but uniformly fails—one German name being about as unattractive as another. The result is that she fiually writes the British Ambassador at Berlin to send her 1 (one) marriageable German Prince, and charge freight and expenses to the contingent fund. In due time the German arrives and is delivered at the Palace door. If he his a fat Prince, there ia generally an attempt made on the part of the Queen to have the expressman bring him up to the second story back bedroom, but hitherto the expessman has always stoutly refused, asserting that his duty was done when he delivered packages or Princes at the front door. In the course of the evening the Queen informs her daughter that a husband for her has arrived from Germany, and that she is to marry him that day week, to which the dutiful daughter replies, "Just as you please, ma," and beyond expressing a faint hope that the new husband is good tempered, betrays no further interest in the subject. When the wedding day arrives the marriage takes place in due and proper style, and the newlywedded pair then begin to form an acquaintance. There is not a particle of romance or poetry about thiß sort of thing. The delights of courtship are absolutely unknown to the properly- brought-up English Princess. From the time she is a little girl she knows that the inevitable German will some day be deposited at the front door, and that she will have to take possession of him as her husband. The poorest girl in England may taste the bliss of moonlight walks with a real lover, but the English Princess regards love as an invention of the poets, and practical lovers as vulgar and plebeian in the extreme. In other royal families the same system prevails, with the exception that husbands or wives may be sought outside of the German market. Occasionally a king draws a prize in this matrimonial lottery, as did King Umberto when he married the most beautiful woman in Italy, but, as a rule, undesirable Princesses with irregular noses are served out to royal Continental husbands. Whether Alfonso has secured a desirable wife or not remains to be seen. If the Archduchess Marie Christine should turn out to be a nice girl, it would, however, I e a mere matter of luck. So far as Alfonso is concerned, he has not been allowed the least liberty of choice, but has had to accept the Princess whom his Cabinet thought proper to select. And yet the young man is decidedly more fortunate than most persons. His first wife was a Spanish girl, and he was actually allowed some little liberty of courtship. She was the daughter of old Duke Montpensier, who, having for many years followed the profession of a pre"tender to the Spanish throne, agreed to go out of business on condition that hiß daughter should marry the King. Montpensier was therefore very friendly to his intended son-in-law, and gave him every show —as a Western statesman would say. Alfonso was allowed to come every Sunday night and sit in the Montpensiers' back parlor, and at 9.30 the old gentlman always went to bed, with a discretion which it could be wished that all fathers would imitate. Moreover, Alfonso and Mercedes were allowed to take moonlight walks, and it is even said that they once swung together on the front gate. Still the young King was made to feel the burden of his rank. He was never allowed to go courting without the company of two Cabinet Ministers and a squadron of dragoons. It was all very well for old Montpensier to go to bed at 9.30, but it availed little so long as the two Cabinet Ministers sat in the back parlor. Perhaps they were humane men, and occasionally heard a suppositious cat in the dining-room, whither they went for a few moments in pretended search of her, but it ia more probable that they strictly performed their duty and sat iu the back parlor with invariable and maddening persistency. Then, too, the romance of a moonlight walk must have been seriously marred by the ten dragoons that rode clanking in front of the lovers, and the ten more that came clattering "'[behind them. As for the alleged front 'gate exploit, it must have been a large gate that held a King, a Princess, and two Cabinet Ministers, and in the circumstances we can but regard the gateswißging as a prosaic failure. Neverthetheless, AlfonßO has had a little experience of real courtship, and in that respect he is far advance of any other King of modern times.

But, alas! the good young Queen Mercedes died, and Alfonso had not even the poor privilege of mourning her and remaining constant to her memory. His advisers tell him that he must marry, provided he intends to carry on the business of a reigning monarch, and he meekly obeys them. There remain to him only a few days in which he can smoke quietly in the front parlor, and can go to bed with a consoling pipe. Befor very long the Prime Minister will say : " Pleaae your Majesty, the Archduchess has arrived, and you must bear up and be married like a man. After all, her nose isn't as bad as it might be, and she has only two brothers." And the poor young King will meekly go to the altar, envying the lacky that opens his coach door, and who can court the third assistant chambermaid when, where, and how it may please him.