Woman's World

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 93, 15 September 1914, Page 6

Woman's World

THE GIFT 0? AN EMPRESS. (Xcw York Sun). The Empress Eugenie has just bought Napoleons Walk at Malmaiso'n for £12,000. It is an avenue of ancient trees that leads to a small building where Xapolcon worked with Ministers, secretaries and Aides-de-camp while Josephine was entertaining on the lawn. lieneath these trees the Man of Destiny would pace alone, head down, his hands behind his back. Malmaisoo » becoming the most romantic pilgrimage of Paris; and Josephine, who was the star of Napoleon's destiny, is honored with Mailniaison. This suburban mansion, six miles out of l'ariu, is Josephine's museum; and Eugenie wishes to enhance the, interest for a pious purpose. 1 All France is phased with Eugenie's purchase, of whicii she will make a gift to the nation and thus prevent the Walk from being parcelled out in building lots.

When the domain of Malmaison was threatened with a like fate some ten years ago, AL Oiris bought and bequeathed to the State only tiie chateau and as much of the greaiul a; v,ae offered for sale. From that moment Joseph-, ine had a monument, which all who go to I'aris may visit—her home, as she lived in it, with its furniture and relics. Eugenie at that time gave many priceless objects which she had inherited or bought for heavy sums. Here is Josephine's bedroom, all complete, her em.pire couch, her bath, her toilet table, beauty utensils, her drawing-room, library/the dining-room, and silver set which the Paris City Council gave her; and here is the harp she never learned to play—type of the broken music of her life.

"My music, too, was broken." said Eugenie, as she gave it, "from the last ex-Empress to the first!" Strange parallel between their lives. Both raised by beauty unadorned from nothing to a throne, both leaders of the world's fashions, both lost the Imperial crown which self-made men of t.ie Vapoleon family put upon their beads! And Eugenie still lives. She was watching. Only yesterday the speculators v.ho had withheld from sal? the part of tlie grounds offering the finest view of the Malmaison decided that the hour had come to cut it up into building lots. The Emperor's W'si'.k was on the edge of it, protecting Josephine's rose garden. The lots aggregated in price £1:2,01)0. And Eugenic bought the lots! ' A wonderful old woman, Although eighty-eight years old last May, she has been out to .Malmaison four times in chilly winter weather. She discovered that twelve trees had been cut from the Emperor's Walk. Now it costs something like i'2oo to buy a tall old pop'ar, take it up by the roots and transplant it bodily across half of France, to set it up and make it grow again; but it can be done—in France." "The Walk went to the rose garden,'' said Eugenie. "Thirty-six years ago 1 bought the busts of Roman Emperor; before w'niili Xajiolcon used to stop and meditate, We'll have to put them back in plaoe. l'ietri, see you to it!"

Thirty-six years ago! U'hat are thc;J to Eugenie? She was already a widow of fifty-two, all in black, with a grown 6on, both exiles in an alien land. Already she had lost her throne, her empire. She hail lost her elegance and beauty—she. the world's brilliant queen of joy and fashions. You see the sentimental parallel she draws between her lif'i and Josephine":;. ]sut Josephine—as [ must show—mourned her eclipse, retired, lit Mailmaison; white Eugenic, made of sterner stull', protects her memory—for a price. Eugenie, a great romantic figure, alone, like the last oak of a forest, is a very aged woman; but she does not totter. Her shrunken form, on.e that of Venus, is bundled in black silk and llanne! petticoats: but she gets around in astonishing fashion with lcr cane, eats roast chicken and the shilling, and. they say. even risks pickles for supper.

Every winter she stops oil' in Paris on her trip from England to Cap Martin. Usually .-he stays two weeks, always in the sani" suite at the Continental, with its windows on the Tuillel'ies <!ardens—scene of her one-time Imperial glory. Tin; pa'ace where she lived and reigned has been destroyed, but she can look down to where her baby -on, "the Little Prince," took his ailing, and the regiments pre.-ented arms and the drums rolled as she rode out in her daumout with Napoleon 111., her husband, behind four grey stallion.-, with their liveried outriders. Few ill 'Pari- recognise the aged, wiry woman as -ho travels through tlie»wct and chilly stiv.'ts in a chemically heated limousine, it is true—with a mania for revisiting old .-puis and old friends. Vi ry curious in her soiial visits calling upon -imps, and even factories. On the |.resell! trip -he went to the I):- Dion automobile works and took tea with tin- .Mania;-. She wat.'hed the Amen-an t\ po-ctiing machines at "l.'Aut.oite." -\- u-i'-'.l. -he popped in nn Me l'.apst-I'aV./e. the court jewellers „: ]' • Koyire. of whom Cerman T.apst wrote -The lii-C.ry .•:' the Crown .lewel-." And. a- usual, she was in and out of Cuorhiin's sumptuous ullices behind the -hop in the line lie la l'aix that n e,i to have "by appointment to their Miij-stie-" "ii it s -inn. It was not Tin the -nave old coliigiiis wiiich her onetime eiuirt perfumers still make up for her. but just to .hat about old times with old Cabricl Cuerlaiii, the. only living person with whom Eugenie speaks of her past beauty. And she runs to the JSassanos- of whom the present Duchess was Miss Suncs. And to the Murats—of whom the heir has just espoused a grand-

I daughter of AlacOonald, one time Standard Oil magnate of Ohio. And to the Afontgomerys, and the Dollfuses, and the—in a word, she runs about a lot in I'aris. Vanity ,of vanities! One trip she never misses. It is Jo a door in a blind wall, numbered 6, in the Avenue de la Bourdonnays. It i» on the edge of the Champ de Mars, where the first Napolccn lies in majesty beneath the dome of the Invalides. i'ew know the object of her visit—that within a stone's I throw of the sleeping first Xapoleon stands the mausoleum of the last. In 'a narrow strip of land, owned by Eugenie and protected by the wall, rises the monument oi her son, the Prince Imperial—"The Little Prince"—killed.fighting with the English in the Zulu war. j To remove this monument to Malmaison has been Eugenie's ardent desire tor years and years. •And now she does it. It is the price o f her kindness to Josephine.

A woman of wonderful activities. It was her habit of running to the archives of the I'aris National Library that started the legend of her memoirs. In truth, they existed. Eugenie put colossal labor on a task of refuting her calumniators, often spending five hours a day in Pari; l , copying from Second Empire despatches, Council minute.;, Parliamentary debates, bound volumes of reports and letters, genealogical researches in France and .Spain an] what not. TT.a n:,'~01r.5 were. They were not. Six years ago Eugenie, in a spirit of Christian renunciation, burned them. The most slandered woman in the world pardons everybody, destroys her proofs and stands mute.

'And yet the legend of the memoirs will not out. Five years ago the editors ot a foremost American magazine empowered somebody to secure the American rights to them. Pictri, the old friend of Eugenie, wrote hack, in a lcttei whieli the magazine has put on file: "There are no memoirs, and there never will be any.'' And more details, which are not mine to tell. The editors—like nil the others who had tried and failed to get the non-existent memoirs—gave it up. And yet the "memoirs'' will be offered in America by cable almost before the poor woman's body has grown cold! A unique and unprecedented band of literary vultures in 'Paris has compiled tlie "memoirs" in her name. And now they wait until Eugenie dies! •lu>s Chiretic, her eld friend, director of the Theatre L-'rancais, toid this before his recent death: —

"They hold, all ready to be published, a sensational work, to be offered simultaneously to the bookselk of the entire world, in all the languages, 'The Memoirs of tlie Empress Eugenie.' The Flench edition is all printed, and printed, hound and boxed are the English, German, Italian and Spanish editions. Vet we know and can allinn positively that the Empress, who is, by her own will, Silent on the past, has not written a line of the hook which is proposed to be attributed to her."

The plan may still succeed in making money, although Eugenie, having resigned herself to make no apology for her career, has no idea to permit irresponsible scandalmongers to make a counterfeit one. in her name. On her side she has planned. Her executors are armed to nip the speculation in the bud. 'i'ietri,'' she says, pathetically employing her stereotyped phrase with the ffiithfiil secretary, 'Tietri will see to

it." , Malmaison is her present solace after many rears. And it is curious how another money speculation in the great name lias made it possible for Eugenie finally to secure entrance for her son's mausoleum to Malmaison's grounds. When Malmaison was purchased by the patriotic Osiris it was a great sorrow to Eugenie that she had not been before him. Although Jiving out of Fiance, it was the lirst Napoleonic bargain which she had failed to pick up, no matter at what price. Happily the sellirs of the park held back that portion of Napoleon's walk for later sale at a ripe moment. Now that she has bought tiie "'lots" she ran set up the mausoleum of "the little Prince" 0:1 her own land before presenting that land to the nation. And. with or without tlie mausoleum, it is a gift which the republic cannot refuse. And Kugciiie is happy to put her sou's memory with Josephine and Ilorti-nse, at Mahnaiscn!

JOSEPHINE AT MALKAISGN (New York Si'Ji-) AVlliie all ■liii'-w -losqihinr's il is a revelation to mo.v. how her uiKre. lifi' w.is b'.uad »|i ill M.:i.l!ii.ii-:o;i. It ibi'Ij'.IKS with I'loiss-V village, on its I'.lff'i bcvonJ -Mtiliiiiii-t'ii ■«•»:!. It tin' days ; ; i-r<ir«s tlid rcviilulK.u -.i yowl- mother tcr- k her two children for their airing to l!!i> r-ihiuli' of lli>'. empty .\!.Jlmni-on park. The p.ate wan utitiihal.itcd, ami I lie' \<,uny mother was j»'.ad. The children played, while i-lu- Mil her book. Nie bad £-'i)i) alinviony and a lc»il separatum Il cm a liirtins lint tilled 'husband. Now sin' was at peace. It never came into her in ad to'wish that M.iiinaison was hers. Vet it v.a- Josephine. \nd Mil- -ill baliv wa.s Uoiiense. she had'married Do lit aucharmus at Ci i-,y ("imr.li when still an awkward ..ill. ' faiheiicilly she h"d iled to i .-oi-sv when she. I'oiuii 'herself al-one again." , . lint (mi day iMaiaiaison awnb to lit'-' \ j^imitiiiL? l'ai'i.-. waterworks cont'actor boimlu the place, and brought I.S -MU'sts. and .Malmais.m was elesed to .I'.. M'phine. 11. sho.ked 'the yiHliifC • thir to decision. If -he eouM not air 1,,.,- children in anoUn-r's -rounds ,shs liin-l lii:d -rou.i.U of her own. J ler'alimony came ir.eL'uiarly. M>e was almost a foridj-uer. Martinique, was ilev own leso'.itve. Sit? made !.'"• trip, realised mi f.imilv properly, and was s l - on bark 'in with a Jlad.nne llosten, who had a eonntry place at (. roissy. y.. oucst. ef Madame llosten she met the lievohitioiKirv crowd, Tallien. 1fci- ,.,.,-,. The JleVolUtioa was ,r,.ttin" bloo.lv. They! save her the tip: "•Put "y<mr son us apprentice with the carpenter at Hroissy-it will he a oertiticato of liepuMicai.ism ior yon. It v,as none Iw socn-for « ow

wir. i a nf'l-if liat. lltr sister-'in-buv. -Madame de fkuuharmun, was aiieudv 'wested. Tnuiy to get her out. /Josephine got m. t'.ic Revoiulivuwry crowd released iher; but liar h-ep-eiutcd iiu.iuukl nxd uecii i"ow his nobie hva.il. And, widow i'or good, she lieu—again to Uoissy. At Croii*>y, sait-r oven lor rle.pu.Micans, suits met lioclie an i lima*, liiey helped the young widow in some speculauons. All •iKgan rising together in the world. In raris s.ie met .Napoleon, it wad love at iii'st i.i; i- In a few n.onUis they were ma.'. i. : ,1. On Ins ireturn from Italy Joseph iu; began to gt!'. an idea, how great a m.'.i v-S'iT'aiad married, lie wa.j .oi/ivii-' !ur a couiiay p:aus to purchase. "What Kindi ' asked ju.~eph-'ne. "A chateau, eviuunis,' tuitl' Napoleon. it tOJ'.i away .'her ■ bveajh. iStately Mahuaison fLwiiod acror-a her mind. "L know a. place, a-iiii Josephine. ■ *'iU!ma;soii, at 'Dhey bought Malin.,l on and held tiie consular court 'out tucre in summer. The nation put <St. Gioud and Mon'.amebleau at ihis dispo-at; but Napoleon preferred '"Mahiiaison. "It is our own place,'' he said. . Ami on the law he led 'tobacco to the pet gaze.lo i-f until the gentle, creature, cr.izi-d :v Ji vision*, tore tin l , film sheath gowns of the fair, and, according to the liucir'...,e d'Ahbvan.es, bii their legs! Happy ikiv* for J»,;< ~hine!. Only too scon she was to live alone aga.re—at il.ilniaison, Kr, t..ie cd.S' of Oroinsy! After the divorce .tie Xxnie inalntaimsd liar i» the ran:: of • crowned Em■press with 4«>,(KX)doi. a year and the chateaux' of Xavavn. :•.:<.■]■ 'Mahnhison. I Xa.poleon turned it o.'t'i' for the purnoito. , , . To lUaimakon ,!o-;epb : n3 routed. Again 'Mainiaison bwams a .-di-.'ii't paik. Again a young mothw walked with her two children in its shad-'. They were Kngenie and Hor tense, growing Was it all a dreamV Josephine would shut her eyes. A'-fain *!: c aw hcrselt end ilier two toddlers come from Croissy to this park. The phce was uninhabited, aiw had \> eu gtod- fel»e had lev book. Xme. w.umd hr off. Then Josephine awoke to the reality. She had toer hook. Her diiioren walked beside her; and Jlaimaison park was her?, n'r.ne to moles, or warn her off. She lived there, alone. Slu Jived m a museum of the past—the same it hat tourists see. to-day. It was already Josephine's museum wiilo she dwelt there! .... And docs not Josephines own ehud Hortense lie in itlio cii'if'n out there? Til'! romantic interest of Malmaison embraces every such detail. Visitcri neve- tiro of Josephines furniture, her lMn-arv lwr toilet table, beauty utenfins tlid familiar objects. The iiarp was Josephine's, but it was llortensc who plaved upon it, and only ye&terday Fredcrat Ifawson lectured to ransians on her nvmph-like figure- and her gracj while harpins? and her fresh young lender voice when she >ang "The Complaint of Ileloise."