DENTIST'S ROOM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 12

DENTIST'S ROOM.

A MEETING THAT CHANGED THE FORTUNES OF FRANCE. TWO EMINENT PATTIiNTS. A houso" was last month pulled down in the Avenue dv Bois de Boulogne, Paris, and this is a story of its builder (writes tho correspondent of St. James's Budget): — One day, after the Revolution of 1848^ Dr. Joseph W. Evans, a partner on" Dr Cyrus Brewster, a Well-known dsntist of the Rue de la Paix, was summoned to tho Elysee. Prince Louis Nano\eon, President of the Republic, had toothache. A brave man in danger, Louis Napoleon was an arrant coward in pain, and the dentist's touch was of such delicacy that he became persona grata. The Prince President grew ■ very fond of him, and he was one of tho few privileged guests at Mrs. Howard's, the house of the Englishwoman whtr would have^ become mistress of France's destiny had the third Napoleon only dared as boldly and as deeply as he loved. In 1851 Dr. Evans got another patient. She was the daughter of a charming Spanish mother, and perhaph the most beautiful woman that the century had seen. Ono r lay, *.he ytning Countess de Teba was waiting her turn in Dr. Evan's grim antechamber. An officer of the Presidential household was suffering from toothache that day, nnd being busy too, begged not to be kept waiting. The young Countess do Teba gave him hor turn, and for tho next week or two ho could speak of nobody else, for the charm of her manner had won him as much as tho charm of her beauty. Soon afterwards the roup d'etat brought in its wake, tho gorgeous evenings at tho Tuilorios, which replaced the more modest receptions of the Elysee, and tho young officer made it his business to send the Countess do Montijo and her daughter the Countess de Teba invitations. Tho beauty and the charm of the young Countess won all hearts, Louis N&poloon's heart among them, and next year she became tho Empress of the French. Dr. Evans became a closer friend of the Empress than he had been of tho Countess de Teba. Eighteen years later, On 4th September, 1870, his Waiting-room in the Avenue dv Bois Boulogne (he had left the Rue de la Paix some years before) was crowded with its usual throng of fashionable sufferers. Grave political events were pending, everybody knew, and there were rumours of a hostile crowd outside ,the Tnileries, but oven such events as these cannot break up a dentist's practice. A cab Btopped outside the gate of the house. A lady in a largo cloak got out of it and asked to be received at onco. "Madame will have to wait her turn," tho servant said. Eighteen years before, tho Empress Eugene, who had been Empress but a day or two, had burst out laughing when her faithful friend and servant Pepa had, in Dr. Evans's presence, called her "Your Majesty." And Dr. Evans, too, had smiled. To-day he cried "Your Majesty!" in blank astonishment, and the old man burst into tears, for ho well knew that the only majesty left to her then was to be one of sorrow. The story of the Empress's tlight to England in the dentist's care is too well known to need repetition. The workmen are thrusting their picks into tho brickwork of the Hotel Evans. The beams are falling. In a few months another house will rise upon the ruins of the Hotel fivans. Will it hide other tragedies as poignant at this one, I wonder?