THE LATE QUEEN OF SPAIN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 187, 6 September 1878, Page 4

THE LATE QUEEN OF SPAIN.

The Home correspondent of the "Melbourne Argus " writes :— Death has bsen busy this year among the potentates. It is not long since we lost the King of Italy and the Pope. Last year the King of Hnnover was Jaid to rest in St. George's Chapel, "Windsor — our own Queen being preßent at the funeral service, and the Duke of Cumberland, as IfifeF mourner, being supported by the Prince or Wales and Prince Leopold. The Emperor of Morocco .has since died. The Empress of Russia is happily oat of denger, bat the young and popular Queen Mercedes, of Spain, has bean stricken down, and lies now cold in oae of the cbapeis of the chill Escurial, The marriage is still fresh jo the memory of

m all. She was but juat 18 years of age, and Bhe had not been married six months. She was the daughter of the Duke de Mootpensier, and the young King Alphonso, in making her hie bride, aroused not ouly tho anger of his mother, but was onooaed by the whole Moderado parly. Yet she "won golden opinions from all sorts of men," and became the centre of an influence wiiich added strength (0 the throve. The pathetic eircuajslancos of her death touched the hearts of the whole population. Attacked by typhoid fever, she rallied somewhat, but then fell bnck anil quickly succumbed. Her coudition wai pronounced to be very serious ou Friday, June 21. The symptoms grew moro and more alarming, and tho Prime Minister anJ other members of tho Cabinet remained in the pnlaco for some hours during the next evening. Sunday waa passed in diro Busponse. So general was the interest excited that on Mouday 11,000 cards and telegrams reached the palace, asking for tidings of the Queen'd condition. On Tuesday morning the physicians were raore hopeful, bul in the afternoou of that day she gradually grew worse. It is the custom in Spain that all the Ministers, Cardinals, and high functionaries of the kingdom should witness the death of the king or queen. Ab night approached a crowd of high personages thronged the palace, while the poorer classes congregated outside to hear read the half-hour bulletins, Bnd expressed their sympathy with loud voice and much gesticulation. The bed-chamber, we ara told, was a ecene of unusual emotion nnd painful expectation from midnigbt till morning. The couch of the dying Queen was surrounded by all her relations, who stood near thfi King, and the Dokade Montponsier, her father, besides about 40 other perboos. The lost rites of the church were administered in their presence juat as the grey dnwn signified the coming of day. After daybreak the Queen became unconscious, and slowly declined. King Alfonao never left her side. When he saw that she had breathed her laat, he allowed the Bishop of Salamanca to cloao her eyes, took off her ring, and retired immediately to his owu epartmonf, wbere for some time be relused to see any one save an old attendant. From this solitary chamber he sent a telegram to his mother Isabella 11., to his father Don Ftancisco, and to Queen ChiKtine : — "Pray for the soul of my poer Mercedes, who ia in heaven. — Alfonso." He has since decided that the room whero blio died is to bo kept in an unaltered coudition. The Cortes, on the news of her deaib, passed the budget without icquiry iv order to adjourn, and something like consternation is Bbij to have fallen on MaJri.i, where from early morning the churches bad been crowded, and musses uud solemn chants filled every nav3 and Bpoke perpetual prayer. The next day ibe same crowds thronged to the Chapelle ArJente in the principal hall of the palace, where, on bed covered with cloih of gold, the body lay io state It had been clad during the night in tho white robe of the Biaterhood of the Virgin of Morcy, according to the Queen's own request before ber death. Nearly 70,000 perBona passed through the apartment. The funeral took place on the following day. At six o'clock in the morning tha royal family, the Ministers, the diplomatic corps, and other official perBonagea assembled in the colonnade and hall of the palace 10 hear masa Baid in the presence of the Queen's remains. It was an impressive and touching spectacle. The body waa afterwards carried, amid the pealing of minute guns and the muffled tolling of belle, to the railway station, and thence escorted to the Escurial by train. Here the last funeral honors were paid, in the presence of a great concourse of spectators, and the body deposited in the tomb of the Infantas. Numerous messages of sympathy have been poured in by the telegraph upon the King. That from Queen Victoria says : — " Dear Brother, — My heart bleeds for you. What an awful misfortune it has pleased God to send you ! May He give you strength to bear this terrible loss."