Romance of Back Hair.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4773, 26 April 1884, Page 1

Romance of Back Hair.

At a ball given by President Napoleon at the Elysee, gome nights before the coup d'etat, Mdlle. Eugenic met her future Emperor and husband. The manner of meeting was somewhat romantic. Louis Napoleon did not much care for the rash of ballrooms, and he had chosen a pro* pjtioua_ moment t<*~of.©«»po, W rth bttrfricurt;' Edward Ney, the Duke of La Moskowa, into the Elysee gardens, when he sud* denly came upon a radiant, blushing girl, who was tying up her hair alone, opposite a glass in the conservatory. Her hair bad come down during a waltz, and the crowd was. too great to admit of her reaching the ladies' dressing room; so she had glided in here, hoping to be unobserved. : .:■ ■ Louis Napoleon, seeing her in this strait, gallantly gave her his arm, and led her round, by the private apartments, to the dressing-room in question, and from this time there was a mutual regard between the Prince and the fair stranger. During the following twelve months Mdtne. de Monti jo and her daughter were invited guests at all,the presidential residences —Fontainebleau, Compeigne. St. Cloud—and it escaped nobody that the Prince paid Mdlle. Eugenic an inordinate amount of attention. No one supposed, however, that these attentions would end in a marriage, for the Presi* deDt having performed his coup d'etat, was on the point of becoming Emperor, and it was no secret that his ambassador at Munich was trying to arrange a match, for him with a princessi of Bavaria. The king of Bavaria refused to sive away his relative to a prince whom he styled an " adventurer," and then it was that Louis Napolean, muoh mortified at heart, resolved not to expose himself to further rebuffs in courting princesses. Possibly Mdme. de Montijo had been waiting her opportunity, for two days after the news of the Bavarian snob had begun to get bruited, she begged a private audience of the Prince, and told him that as his attentions to her danghter were beginning to excita comment she had the intention of leaving France. This was at St Cloud, where the mother and daughter were both staying. The Prince asked Mdme. de Montijo to tarry one day more, for he might have something to say to her, and he employed those twenty-four hours in acquainting his ministers of his intention to marry Mdlle Eugenic.

The news fell upon them like a shell. Nothing of this kind had been apprehended by anyone, and both Count de Moray, M. de Persingy, and Edward JSey earnestly implored the Priuce not to contract such a mesalliance. The communication was made to the Cabinet on the 25th of November. On the $a d of December the Prince was proclaimed Emperor, ou the 2nd of January the coming marriage was officially notified to the French people, and on the 30th of January it was solemnised at Notre Dame,