BUTCHER TO KING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 45, 17 February 1912, Page 3

BUTCHER TO KING.

' ;JU I ;~T'| 1 7 MAN' WHO MADE ’ A 'KINGDOM; vH.li;; im OneCwthe proud ..bearer, of' •<1 Royal 'title,l.-Mlle • Marguerite Toiinens died recently in the workhouse of the Island of Ryesgade, off the Danish coast. To the present generation her name conveys little or nothing, for we have tb go ; hack nearly half a century to. findt Manguerdtoea; renounc'd beauty of the Spanish type in the heyday of her glory. She was the <of M. Ahtoine Tounens, h : Frencliddawyer of 7 Periqueix l hi ! tlieMidi, and' her earliest childhood was spent in qthe seclusion of a French provincial town. ' Tounens had risen from the status of a butcher’s errand hoy to that of an accomplished barrister, but his ambitions were not yet realised. In 1861, accompanied by a few adventurers, ho set sail for South America, landing in Araucania, a strip of councry adjoining the Argentine. Tounens soon cowed the natives by the aid of modern European inventions, such as the camera, and before very long he was the greatest man in the little country. Hut being a Frenchman he was not, content with the untitled greatness. He, persuaded the people that Araucania was big enough and rich enough to become a kingdom by itself, drew up a Constitution, and because its king under the style of Orelic Antoine 1. Until then nobody had minded what he did with Araucania. But when Araucania became a kingdom and the Government of Chili heard that King Orenc was thinking of buying or building a fleet, the trouble began. 1 A Chilian army matched across the mountains. The Araucanion army was only a half-fledged atmy yet and there was very little lighting. The Chilians made an offer to King Ofeli'd. ‘ He was to meet them and talk matters over. Ihe letters adressed him a King and as Royal Majesty. Tounens fell into che trap which had been laid for his vanity, arid Araucania was bereft of its comic-opera king after a “rule” of four years. The fallen monarch was liberated after some months from a Chilian prison, and sent back across the seas to France. While her father’s rule had lasted “Princess’ Marguerite was keeping up appoarancese in Franco, and each month her father sent home large sums to be dcvbted to gaining for her the position of a .princess.. Maugerite travelled all over Europe, completed her education, and gaining experience for the formation of the brilliant Court of Araucania, .which' was her father’s ambition. , One day, in Germany, she was out yatching with some friends when a sudden gust of wind swept her overboard. A young Danish lieutenant rescued her, and their acquaintance ripened into love. But he pleaded for her hand in vain. Tounens had set his heart on getting a real prince for his daughter. So the young officer put an end to his troubles by shooting himself before his sweetheart. Princess Maugerite’s reign was brilliant, but brief. On her father’s return to France, penniless, and no longer a king, lack of funds, put an end to her merry doings. She had had a good time, but no prince had actually pleaded for her hand, and so Marguerite gradually disappeared out of sight.

In 1878 Antoine Tounens died a pauper’s death. Marguerite migrated to Denmark, where she had formally made many friends with her beauty and position. Now, however, that both were gone, she was no longer received with open arms. In Copenhagen sho sought to earn a living by teaching French, and for thirty years she eked out an existence in this manner. Then illness overtook her and nothing for her to do but to go into hospital, and later she became an inmate of a workhouse. And now the former princess has passed away, leaving but a memory of this romance, of southern seas—such an adventure as in the twentieth century occurs only in fiction.