A ROYAL WOOING.

Evening Star, Issue 12875, 26 July 1906, Page 8

A ROYAL WOOING.

The journey of Princess Ena to Spain brings to mind (says a Paris correspondent) that of another Royal Spanish bride, told in her letters, published by M. Lucien Percy. Two centuries ago,, Princess Mario Louise of Savoy left her native Italy to wed Philip King of Spain. She, too, like Princess Baa, travelled by sea and by land, but what a difference ' in the journey then and now. “The sea,” wrote the poor lady, was “a very

disagreeable carnage.” She found no charm wem; in the passage through picturesque Provence and the sunny town of Nice. The roads:, were rotted tracks, at . times all mad, and at others all dost. Presents poured in from every town along the mito-r-rich, staffs, of Ind, orange flower water from Huhgary/ porcelain from Holland, and gloves and pomades from nothing • charmed , away” thoprmccss’s melancholy, J which l grew;wdtn the' increasing londiness of each' night. ■ She was pining for the s%ht of ‘.her husband,' whoso face, she had only seen in a pointed miniature.- Strange, contrast to the, wooing of King Alfonso and Princess Etoa. He-came at last, allonge way on the road to meet ’her. There was no royal train, no brilliant suite, no military pomp, no set cereas'at Iron. A solitary horseman rode up one 1 morning to -the l Princess’s Jitter and bid; her greeting from the King of Spain. It was the King himself—the man come to see 1 the woman chosen for him before the veil! of etiquette fell between than. Something in his eager manner, in his kindling eye, and, perhaps, something in her own heart as well, told the Princess he was more

than, he seemed. She tried to alight, and seized the hand which restrained: her. Only when the messenger had remounted did she find her voice to stammer a demand for his name. And with a sweep of hie plumed' bat, as he spurred his horse to a gallop, the cavalier answered: “Don Philip, Kmg of Spain.” That' was their courtship and thfeir romance'two centuries ago. ■'