Truth Stranger than Fiction.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 152, 1 July 1904, Page 4

Truth Stranger than Fiction.

The strange story of the cruel fate which appears to have overtaken llaroness De Rahden, reducing her to the rank of a circus rider, then'striking her blind, recalls one markedly similar. This was the story of the wife of an English architect, who, wifli her husband, resided in Paris. During the siege they determined that she should come home. As they clasped hands for the last farewell a shell exploded near them. It killed the man and tore away the lower jaw of the woman. When she recovered she was a penniless widow, horribly disfigured. She managed to get to London, where she was enabled to draw a pension. A person in whom she confided swindled her, creditors seized her furniture, and she was turned into the street to starve. And she was actually dying of starvation in a street in London when, by another turn of fortune, she met one who would listen to her, and to whom she felt impelled to tell her story. There were a thousand chances that her confidant might spurn her, but he did not. He recognised her name, knew her husband's work, had seen her own pictures in the Academy. She was able to mention people in Paris whom ho knew, and so establish her bona fides. Food and lodg ng were provided and the poor woman assisted to the residence in the country of the on? friend of her youth who remained alive. And then the story came out : how, Napoleon 111. and the Empress Eugenie had been godparents of the children ; how, at, the moment that the mother was starving in a London street, the children were travelling with the Empress of Spain. The poor woman would have died rather than have asked assistance of a stranger but for one fact. Her benefactress was the double of Loijis N'apoleon. ami she said to herself : "God in His mercy has sent the likeness of the Emperor u> me, and I know that lie does not mean me to die yet." The man to whom she made her appeal was tile late Augustus Hare.