PEN PICTURES OF THE PAST.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 31 July 1914, Page 8

PEN PICTURES OF THE PAST.

BETSY BALCOMBE AND THE OGRE. | On October 13, 1815, Napoleon • Bonaparte (yesterday arbiter of Europe, now a captive "general," condemned to lifelong exile) arrived at the lonely island of St. Helena. The . strange stories told of the "Corsican Ogre" had led some simple folk to imagine him as something more fiendish than human, and when he rode up to. Briers Cottage, on his way into the '■■ interior of the island, two pretty girls who had been watching the j cavalcade beat a precipitate retreat. Their father checked their foolish fears, and fourteen-year-old Betsy Balcombe saw a. pale, but still dignified, man descend from his horse and enter the garden. , Finding the girl knew some French, Napoleon amused himself byquestioning her, and in ten minutes Betsy and the "ogre" were the best of friends. The acquaintance ripened during Napoleon's temporary residence at the "Briers," and be- \ fore a week was over the tyrant of Europe bowed beneath the yoke of a tyranny heavier and more complete than any lie had ever indicted on others. ! Betsy would burst into the Em- j peror's sitting-room, without mvi- ! tfition, interrupt his conversation with Las Cases and others, displace his papers and documents, chatter incessantly, and compel him to come into the garden, to walk whenever he wished ,to rest, to talk when he wished to b.^ si- \ lent. Heartily detested, as one may easily imagine, by the whole j of his suite, this insupportable " "flapper" of a century ago (for she was nothing else) was adored, by the Emperor himself. • He was, whatever his faults, an , indulgent husband and a doting father, and in his present painful '■ position had but one wish—to be forced to forget, in her prattle, his past glories and present downfall. Such, doubtless, was the secret of his failing weakness for Betsy, of which she took full advantage. When her Newfoundland dog one morning entered the garden pond, she called him to where Napoleon was sitting writing, and screamed with laughter- as the huge beast shook himself, and paper and writer were alike drenched. For this her father shut her up in the cellar ; but her victim came to chat with her at the grating, and whiled away the weary hours of her captivity as she had whiled away his own. Their friendship lasted till the Emperor was transferred to Longwood, and Betsy, growing into maidenhood, transferred her caprices and flirtations to the officers of the English garrison. She subsequently left St. Helena, married, and wrote the memoirs from which these notes are compiled—one of the most curious and unique pages of Napoleon's » singularly unique history. A VALTJABLE FIND. A tower of gold was discovered by some workmen on October 19, 1794, in the midst of a thick copse in the neighbourhood of a small village near Hamburg.- It was 14 feet high, about 2 feet in circumference, and modelled after the style of an old Gothic tower. It was made of virgin gold, and was valued at so large a -sum that no person could purchase it. The owner of the land claimed it ; but Government took possession of it "without any payment, though eventually they granted the landlord 25,000 florins for it, and then melted it down and converted it into current coin. It had evidently been erected on a clear space of ground, and commemorated the martyrdom of a famous saint. The ornamental tracing represented a long-bearded man tortured to death at the stake, and on the base was the figure of a woman, with outstretched hands and flying hair. THE WIPING OUT OF A CLAN.. The feud which had long raged between the famous Scottish clans Macdonald and Macleod—the ostensible cause of which was an insult offered by a Macleod to a daughter of one of the greatest of the Macdonalds—concluded on September 23, 1749. Macleod set sail for the island home of the Macdonalds with such a number of followers that any resistance by the inhabitants on th€ lonely Isle of Egg would have been folly, and so thought Macdonald -when he saw his hereditary foe approaching the shore. Calling his people together, he gave orders that they should conceal themselves in a cave near the seashore, which, although large enough to hold them all, had but a narrow opening, con cealed by a cascade of water falling from the cliff above. Suspecting a ruse, as they coulc not see any inhabitants, the Macleods searched the island thoroughly, but withooit success, and at last concluding that the Macdonalds had left their homes, they returned tc their ships, first, however, destroying the houses and collecting all the portable property that they coulc lay their hands upon. They har scarcely left the shore when s thick mist fell upon land and sea and they were compelled to anchoi until it should lift. Meanwhile, one of the young Mac donalds slipped out of the cave anc wandered along the cliff. Before very long the mist lifted as suddenly as it had dropped, and be

fore the boy could conceal himseM he was revealed to ths men on board the boat. Hastily relanding, they traced his footsteps to the cave, I and Macleod triumphantly bade the ' refugees deliver up all the heads of the clan to his mercy. i His peremptory order being scorn- ; fully refused, the Macleods hastily ' diverted the course of the stream, and then lighted a huge fire at the entrance of the cave, and tended the blaze until all the men, women, ! and children of the Macdonald clan were suffocated. Thus the longstanding animosity between the two clans was ended for ever. COURAGEOUS TELEGRAPH GIRL, j Mademoiselle Juliette Dodu, ajgirl of twenty, was in 1870 em- ! ployed as telegraph clerk at Pithi- j viers, France, when, on September i 27,^ the advance guard of the Ger-' man army £ntcre:l the little town. | Gorman operators occupied the ' telegraph office, and it seemed im- ; possible to keep in touch with the French commander outside ; but .J v- I liette had taken a telegraph appa- ; ratus up to her bedroom, and con- ; nected it to the vires outside her I window. She thus succeeded,! at the I time of the battle of Beaune, in i intercepting, a German military mes- '. sage, which she sent secretly by spe- | cial messenger to the French commander thirty miles away. | Suspected and watched, she. found j herself obliged to remove her apparatus to a neighbour's house, and finally to cease telegraphing alto- ! gether ; the servant, who had a ; Prussian sweetheart, threatening to denounce her. After the war she was decorated with the Legion of Honour, and received other recompenses for her courageousgjonduct, j A legend grew up around her j name ; she was said to have been [ arrested, court-martialed, and con- ! demned to be shot ; bul> pardoned l ; through the personal intervention of I , Prince Frederick Charles, father of ! the Duchess of Connaught ; but this i .does not appear to have been the i case.