The Story of the Late Prince Imperial

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Story of the Late Prince Imperial

ia still the subject of a good dfal of newspaper correspondence. The French hairdresser, Dumont— who, by the way, was the late Emperor's coiffeur, and attended hia master at Sedan -writes to deuy that the Prince ever lodged at his place, or that any liaison went on there, though one of his rooms was used by the Prince and other gentlemen as an occasional dressir.groom. Another correspondent offers an explanation that he believes accounts for the whole story. " There lived," he says, "on the other side of Chiselhurat common from Catndon-place, thoEmprbes'a residence, a Catholic family, with three handsome daughters. The Prince often met them in the train as they returned from the theatres, by a lato train, and an acquaintance sprang up, especially with theelde^tdaughter, with whom the Prince was seriously smitten." He seems, from the account, to have bidden her a rathec tonder farewell when he went to fight the Zulus, and he evea wi-ote to her several letters from Durban, where he lay sick of fevor. The lady is now married, and has a youthful family. Whether the Prince was really the Simon Pure which Mon•signor GoJdard, hie parish priest, goes bail he was, or whether he amused himself in London after the manner of tho jeuncsse done, is not a matter of much interest to anybody except the French, for whom, in the revolution of "Fortune's faithless wheel," an Emperor with a bar sinister on his escutcheon is by no means an impossible event.