The Persecuted Princess

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 257, 3 November 1904, Page 4

The Persecuted Princess

LOUISE OF COUUKG AND HER GALLANT RESCUER.

BERLIN, Sept. 2. Another wretched woman, tortured by convention ß , by the need of a throne, to bolster its dignities, has dared to be human, to stoop, as they will say, to those tender,, unreasonable things in life which are after all better and sweeter than life itself. At forty-six years o* age, scparpitjed from feer husband, hhjadled by doctors and gaolers as a mad woman, Princess Louis of Co&urg h a s eloped with her lover like a girl new to passion.

Daughter of a King, wife of a Prince,' she drank in 'her time the cup of bitterness to the utter dregs. Even as a child the foulness of the Court she lived in, the moral dirt that .pmaded every atmosphere in which her father drew breath, laid its smirch upon her. Geza von Mattachich, who has saved heiy at last, tells in his tragic book how at six years of age she was dragged into the intrigues with which her father and mother complicated thefr lives.

HER FATHER'S HATRED. "She received a letter jfrom her mother," he writes, "and was bidden deliver it secretly to the person to whom it was addressed. The King, however, met the child in the corridor,,and ■■ full of the susji|ioi!on with which he regarded everyone, stopped her. But the little Princess was plucky enough; she lied to him with the calmest assurance, and retained the letter." "From that day,"' relates the Princess, "my father haied nie." That is merely the surface of her life a 9 a baby ; who shall say that her experience in evil, her utility as a tool, stayed ait this [joint,"'?j fMready she was 'teaming the art of existence, of that existence, at least, to which she was condemned.

Then, conies tile abiding horror of her nvaxi'itjg©, that criminal marriage to which she was forced by the ruthless King, her father. Prince Ferdinand Philip of Coburg was her husband, a man who has not spared the world a frank view 'at his char-1 actor. It was a mad arrangement, the -deliberate, cold-blooded sacri-| flee of a human soul to the traditions of a petty Royal House., The life she led with the man to whom they chained her<Wsas, horrible. The Prince told her.'one' day that he had married her only because he was in love with her. mother. She shrank from him, .trembling;: this was in the early days of their wedded life. Her toofcher>-int-law, the present Prance of Bulgaria, added to her misery by a persistent persecution. He pressed an ignoble suit upon her, and once even sent her a dagger. "Smcayou are sojieaimish/' was bja message, "kill your husband." She carried her tale to the latter ; he took the' dagger from her hand, laughed, and left her. ONLY TO BE FREE !

At last, to separate from this man was a purpose to which she clung as to a hope of salvation. Divorce, an amicable parting, anything would suffice, so long as her days and nights were freed of his presence, the air abputi her cleansed of the, .taint of his breath. The matter had to bo referred tcHhe King of the Be%3ans, of conrae, and he, already an old man,thla, was in 1896—a husband and .father", bad no counsel to give his (daughter save one of ahanW. "Your husband is a screen," he told •her. '''(Behind that screen you may do as you please. But you must keep the screen." She flushed scarlet. "That is vile!"- >i dhe said r- It was the only time she spoke openly the - truth about her-father. .1

Of the beginnings of ' the affair 1 with. Captain Hattachich, only she! and he' know the truth. TEere were marty (meetings,., and it, is saW that ihey met for the first time when he commanded an ejacort about her carriage. Tnen there were letters, secret; .interviews here 1 and! there, till at last the matter was carried by the spies with which the Princess was surrounded to the Emperor of Austria. 1 ... He seat for "her, and received her at a .formal audience.

"I have exact information as to what has taken place," he said, and silenced her with a gesture when she would have spoken. "I know all, and I am satisfied that your conduct has been at fault. Therefore, I regref that your Royal Highness will not be able to remain this year for the Court festivities."

BANISHED. She tried to speak, to explain, to demand justice, but agiain the old, sad man silenced her. "I, know, all," he said, and gave her Ms' hand" to rise, and she ; went rforth. She was banished from Court, branded and proclaimed. difficult to ■ see her lover again, but it seems that the world holds in Captain, Mattachich « real man for the poor Princess, after all. When he wants her, people raem to get out of the way. He contrived to meat her to a labtle wood, close by the saaatorium at Lradenhof, alone and at night. She was so-overwhelmed by her griefs and byiitHß new joy he brought her, that for.a, long time she could not speak, but leaned tremibfling against ' a tree. , He. toW her—what he had to tell her, what concerns neither you nor', me. May it have been good hearing to those ears so little used to welcome words ! At length she stood upright, and reached her hjwd to him.

"And "so there is a Heaven after all," she said. * She, got her separation from her husband. Someone helped her there; I will not guess who, but there are Christians, too, among the crowned folk of Europe. But there was little freedom in her deliverance ; those about Her had some reeondite, royal reason for harassing her still. They told her she was mad, and \gave their tale to the world, and locked her up, between doctors and watchers, to see if they could not make it come true. It might well have been true ; they imri stung her to the point of sluHelang mania. The crime was, no working well, when Mattachich stopped hi. At Dresden once before he Just failed to rescue her; between'" Tuesday night and Wednesday morning when he drew togethei* the strings o« llonfe preparation and .elaborate plotting, be succeeded. ',. , He cut, Jjer.'out from, under the guns of her turnkeys, fetched her down from her window, and carried her. off like the cool-headed, fearless, gallant gentleman he is. Three cheers for Captain Geza von Mattachdch-Keglewitch, and may •him find him—just once !—Perciv a l Gibibon, in Daily Mail.