ESCAPE OF AN EMPRESS

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 5

ESCAPE OF AN EMPRESS

HOW EUGENIE LEFT PARIS LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE. Few novelists would dare to invent such a coincidence as that mentioned in ‘ Sunshine and Shadows Over a Long Life,’ by Lady Mary Meynell.’ The Empress Eugenie went with the Emperor Napoleon 111. to Constantinople to he the guests of the Sultan. As they were being rowed across the Golden Horn in the Royal caique a small boat manned by an Englishman appeared right across their course. “ The Empress saw the danger,” says the writer, “ but etiquette forbade the Sultan’s crew from altering their course, and Ihcy forged straight ahead. The Empress could hear the suspense no longer; she put her hand on the Sultan’s arm anti implored him to make a sign and alter the course. In deference to his guest the did so, and the caique swept by the Englishman’s boat, and he was saved by a hair’s breadth!” Then, when fortune, changed and the. Empress had lo escape secretly from Paris, she went lo ihe railway station, which was so crowded that there seemed to be no possi-

bility of getting near tbe booking office, As she stood in the crowd, “ perplexed and anxious, an Englishman addressed her quietly in a low voice and told her to get out of the crowd if possible and make her way toward the railway carriage and he would fetch her her ticket. “ The Empress obeyed the instructions, and fortunately passed through the crowds unnoticed and unrecognised. .Presently the Englishman followed her, secured her a seat, and then he disclosed the fact that he was the man whose life she had saved when the caique was about to row him down in the Golden Horn.”