PRINCESS LOUISE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3742, 17 January 1907, Page 3

PRINCESS LOUISE.

A Pathetic Appeal.

Paris, Nov. 28

Princess Louise of Belgium, who has been living in France since her dramatic flight from the “ sanatorium ” in which she was imprisoned, has for some time past been making pathetic appeals to her father, King Leopold, to be.allowed to visit her native country.

She has just returned to Paris from the South of France, and in an interview I had with her this afternoon she said, with evident emotion, that she desired nothing on earth so much as to see her father once more.

“I have written again and again to my father,” she said, “ but no letter can tell how keenly I feel my separation from my family. lam condemned to live without seeing a single one of my relatives. If I k could only see hiy father face to face, and speak to him alone, all the terrible misunderstandings that have been created between us by interested parties might be removed. I have asked to be allowed to return to Belgium and go to my mother’s grave, and although the King has not yet seen fit to grant my request, I still hope that he will do so before long. In any case, I do not forget that he is a king and my father, and I will do nothing to embarrass hinv I will do anything to be reconciled to him short of giving up the devoted friend who helped me ‘ to escape from prison.” “ Has any such propositiou been made to you ?” I asked. “Yes,” the Princess replied. “ Goffinet, one of my father’s chamberlains, and Maitre Weiner, his legal adviser, told me that I should be provided for in Belgium or Germany it I left France and my friends. But I would not hear of it. It would be'gross ingratitude on my part. ’ ’ ‘ ‘ I do not believe that my father suggested anything of the kind. He would no more wish to select my friends than I would bis. As to my financial position, I have made no complaint, and I have never asked my father for money > to pay my debts. I want affection, not money,” the Princess concluded sadly. Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of the King of the Belgians, married Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the age of seventeen. An unhappy married life in her elopement with Count Mattachich in 1895. In May, 1898, she was placed in a “sanatorium” by her husband’s orders, but' escaped in 1904 and has lived in France ever since.