QUEEN MARIA PIA DEAD.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1173, 7 July 1911, Page 5

QUEEN MARIA PIA DEAD.

A NOTABLE PORTUGUESE RULER, Bj Teleerarh—Press Aesociatton-OoDyrlnht Turin, July 5. The Dowager Queen Maria Pia of Portugal is dead; aged CJ. A MASTERFUL WOMAN. Tho lato Queen Maria Pia was tho grandmother of ex-King Manuel of Portugal, a sister of tho late King Humbert of Italy, and the only ono of the late King Victor Emmanuel's children who inherited his inconceivable recklessness and extravagance in money matters. In fact, the greater part of Humbert's reign was spent. in paying off his father's de'/.ts, a particularly big creditor, though a generous one, being Khedive Ismail of Egypt. Humbert also repeatedly came to the assistance of his sister Pia, paying her debts. Queen Maria Pia played a very great role in Portugal during the forty-eight years after she went to Lisbon, at tho age of fifteen, as Queen Consort and wife of a monarch whom she had never segn in her life before, having been wedded by proxy to him before leaving Italy. Her husband, King Louis, was easy-goin?:, apathetic, never having entirely recovered from the effects of au attempt made to poison him some months prior to his accession, and was content to leave the reins of government almost, wholly in her hands. Quite as masterful and imperious in her way as her father, the "Re Galant Uomo" of Italy, she ruled Portugal with a high hand, brooking no opposition, and even after the accession of her son, the late Don Carlos, she managed to retain much of . her influence, especially that of a social character. Whether she used this power wisely or not is a matter on which great diversity of opinion exists, and there arc many who insist that the economic difficulties which are at the root of all tho trouble in Portugal are largely owing to her. Princess Clotildo Bonaparte, who died last, week at the age of 68, was a sister of Queen Maria Tia.