The Ladies' Magazine.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2128, 29 February 1908, Page 4 (Supplement)

T he Ladies ' Magazine.

ROMANTIC STORIES OF FAMOUS FAMILIES. AMAZING LOVE-STORY OK KING ALEXANDE.iI AND QUEEN , DRAG A. | THE BOY MONARCH AND THE MOST FASCINATING WIDOW | IN EUROPE. I A NIGHT OF TERROR IN THE ! ROYAL PALACE OF i BELGRADE. When King Alexandra of Servia, the victim of one of the most horrible tragedies in the annals of Royal houses, opened his eyes on the world it was amid the clash of arms and the fierce clamor of battle; for Servia. the land over which he was destined to rule, was engaged in a life-ami death struggle with Turkey, and the salvoes of artillery which greeted the long desired birth of an heir to rhe throne was drowned by the louder boom of death-dealing cannon on the held of war. Am! over the cradle of . the Royal infant a cruel fate already brooded; for, long years before, a peasant, whoso predictions had all come true so far. had told his career in these words: “He (the infant Alexander) will have a still more turbulent reign than his father, will marry a woman from the people, and in his twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year will cease to be King, his dynasty perishing with him.” A WEDDING ATTENDED BY EVIL OMENS. Omens and prophecies of evil, indeed, seemed to bo the heritage of his Royal house; for when, a few years earlier, his father. King Milan, had married the lovely Mile. Nathlio Kechko, the horses attached to the nuptial carriage had refused to move on the homeward return to the palace, and had reared and plunged so furiously as to place the newly wedded couple in grave danger of their lives; while the moment they set foot within the palace a terrible storm plunged it in tlie darkness of night-, and the lightning llared and the thunder crashed as though the end of all tilings had come.

PASSIONATE LOVE BECOMES FIERCE HATE. Under such appalling conditions King Milan and Nathalie began their turbulent wedded life, the story of which, with its passionate love changed to relentless hatred, the fierce and undignified squabbles ending in divorce, is known to the world. And thus was born the future King, amid the horrors of war, the child of parents who hated each other all the more because each loved him so much. And thus the child grew up, the cause of jealousy between father and mother, without a solitary companion oF his years to brighten Ills life, alono among the splendours of.a. palace, with grey-headded officials and statesmen for his oniy associates. THE YOUNG PRINCE'S BOYHOOD. Handsome and intelligent beyond most children, the young prince grew to boyhood wayward and self-willed, but winsome in spite of all, to find himself promoted to the throne at the early age of twelve through his father’s abdication. Was ever a boy placed in so pathetic, if splendid, a position? His father, who worshipped him, was an exile unable to set foot in Servia; his mother, from whose side he had been forcibly torn, was not permitted to approach the palace where her only son was virtually a prisoner. The very gates were closed against her, and the only glimpse she ever caught of her child was from the window of her little house in Belgrade, when she occasionally saw him ride past in company of his courtiers, turning his head to catch sight of her pale, tear-stained face at the window.. THE LOVELIEST WOMAN IN SERVIA.

Is it any wonder that the boy King, thus bereft of love and companionship, should seek distraction where he could find it? And he found it in tho most seductive and attractive form—that of the loveliest woman in Servia, the woman who was destined to bring him for a few years the only happiness he ever knew, and, by linking her life with his, to share the most tragic fate that ever overwhelmed a Euro-

pean Sovereign. A WIDOW WHO' FASCINATED

THE YOUNG KING

jUiUmvKo was tins woman who eaino so dramatically into the youthful King’s life and played such havoc with his heart and with his career? Draga Masliin was a widow about nine years his senior (at the time of his infatuation Aleiiander was still a youth in his teens), and probably tho most fascinating widow in Europe. With exquisitely-cut, delicate features, illuminated by large, dark eyes which could melt into tenderness or flash into flame, with a brilliant complexion, lovely and luxurious hair, and a figure divinely moulded, Draga was one of thoso women of whom poets rave and artists despair, a woman born to conquest and the homage of men. As a girl she bad been led to tlio alter by Svefozar Masliin, a young anil promising mining engineer, who had loft her a widow after a brief wedded life—a widow with a meagre fortune and a State pension of £3 a month.

A LADY OF HONOR AT QUEEN NATHALIE’S VILLA

It was at this period of her life that Draga, in the very prime of her beauty and in her condition of pathetic: poverty, came under the notice of Queen Nathalie, who, fascinated by her charms, installed her as a “lady of honor” at Sashino, her pretty Biarritz villa; and it is there that Alexander is said to have first mot her land fallen at once under the spell of heir radiant loveliness. That was a. halcyon time for the boy monarch. 'Thrown'hourly in tho company of this beautiful widow, full of sympathy and ■no doubt exercising all her arts on the susceptible youth, he became hopelessly in love with her. They rode together every day, swam together, and spent every possible golden moment in each other’s society; until Draga at last lost her heart as completely as her Royal lover.

DISMISSED FROM SASHINO IN DISGRACE.

'But dazzling as the prospect was, jDraga did not then aspire to tin; fhroiid; though when it became a due) between love and duty, how often tho former proves the stronger ! And so it was with fail - , if frail, Draga jMashin. For three long years, it is .said, sho refused his solicitations—re-

fused point-bl-ink to be his bride, although that meant to wear a crown among the Queens of the world. For long, Nathalie, the Queen motlii er, was blind to her soil’s inlatuatmn ! for the pretty widow. It was only a boy’s passing foolishness, she tliou- ! ght, and meanwhile “Sasha” was j amusing himself. But when one’day I she discovered a letter full of passionj ate words and hopeless devotion ud- | dressed by her son to Drngn, all the i mother in her, rose in arms against the woman who had stolen away the one heart which was left to her. Drags was a dangerous woman ; she must go ; and within an hour she had been dismissed from Sashino in disgrace. A PENNILESS WIDOW ON A DAZZLING THRONE.

- Foolish mother! if she wished to drive Drags into Alexander’s arms she could not have done anything more effectual. The moment the King heard of the fate of his love be hastened to her side to comfort and console her, and win her consent at last, to share bis life. “As my wife, ami only as my wile,' be protested to the yielding woman, ••von will bo safe from such insults. Give me the right to shield you, Drags, my beloved, and I will count lilo itself lost in such liappinos.” Wlmt. could Draga do but consent? And from that moment of supreme bliss and pregnant doom the late of both was irrevocably sealed. Thus it canto to pass that Draga, the penniless widow of the mining engineer, became Queen of Servia, and mistress of her Royal consort’s fate. TREASON AT THE DEAD OF NIGHT.

The last scene of this Royal tragedy opens in the very early hours of a June day in 1903. Alexander and Draga have long retired to rest, and in spite of their tears (for they have had more than one warning and premonition of the terrible fate that is hanging over them) are sleeping their last sleep on earth. Silence broods over the whole palace, which already is environed with death ; for the conspirators have drawn around it a ring of soldiers, that they may execute their fell mission of assassination undisturbed. A number of officers, fired with tho lust of blood, make their way into the palace, shooting down remorselessly tlie Royal sentinels who bar their way, and are now crowding, clamorous and excited, round the locked door of a room, on the other side of which Alexander and Draga, aroused from their sleep by tho shots and tho commotion, stand, clinging to each other, with heating hearts. BUTCHERED BY PUS OWN

OFFICERS

In vain did Captain Kostich, of the King’s Bodyguard, bleeding and faint from the wounds ho had received, try

to restrain the assassins. An axe was called for, and heavy blows began to rain on the door and wall that separated them from they prey. “Swear that you will spare the King’s life anti I will as’k him to open to you,” at last exclaimed Xostieh, realising that resistance and pleading were alike hopeless. And when a few of tho conspirators assented, he shouted, “Open, Sire, open! Here are your officers, they will do you no harm.” Scarcely had the words left his lips when the door was opened and tho murderers found themselves face to face with their King and Queen, pale and half-clad, as if they had but just left their bed, but as regally calm and dignified as .if they were holding a "reception. SHOT AND FELL INTO DRAGA’s ARMS.

Leaving the Queen’s side King Alexander walked towards his enemies, and in dignified tones asked, “What do you want with mo at this hour? Is- this ail evidence of your fidelity to your King?” For a few moments the officers stood silent and abashed in the presence of their Sovereign and victim. Then a lieutenant, more daring than his fellows, called out, “What aro you standing gazing at? This is how I show my fidelity;” and raising liis revolver, lie fired point-blank at the King, who fell wounded into Draga’s arms. As if this shot had been a signal, the fiendish passions of the officers were let loose. Quick as lightning a. volley of shots rang out; the King and Queen fell on tho floor, and, as they Jay, were riddled with a fusillade of bullets. Tho conspirators next drew their swords and slashed at their writhing victims with fiendish ferocity, mutilating them in indescribable ways, and emitting frenzied shouts as the work of butchery proceeded.

“OUT OF THE WINDOW WITH THEM.”

“Out of the window with them,” shouted one of the assassins, when at last it seemed impossible that the least spark of fife could finger. “To the dogs with the carrion!” Draga’s bleeding and mutilated body was first seized and Hung out of the window into the garden below; and the group of officers followed with Alexander. But there was still life left in the King; as he was raised to tlie window ledge his fingers convulsively clutched the framework, and only released their hold when an officer’s sword slashed furiously .at them. Tlio body was then hurled out amid long cries of “Long live King Peter!” “Long live King Peter!” thundered hack the soldiers massed in the palace grounds below, and for several minutes the air was rent with cries of jubil itiou over a tragedy which might well have made angels weep. MURDERED SOVEREIGNS IN

A GARDEN

For two hours the bodies of the murdered Sovereigns lay in the garden, an object of sport and derision to the soldiery, until the Russian Minister, Toeliarikoff, begged the leader of the conspirators (who was none other than Colonel Masliin, Drngn’s brother-in-law) to remove them inside the palace, #ii(l not leave them in the rain, which had now be-

gun to fall heavily, exposed to the public gape. Two bed-sheets were accordingly brought, and the bodies of Alexander and Draga were , carried to a room on the ground floor ' ,of the palace. UPROAR INSIDE THE PALACE. Meanwhile, inside tlie palace pandemonium reigned. The murderers, having accomplished their chief object were seized with a sort of a frenzy. “They screamed,” says Chedo Mijatovieli, “and shouted at the top of tlieir voices, dancing and running about the rooms like madmen, firing tlieir revolvers at pictures on the

walls, at loo'king-glasscs, and candelabra; they broke with axes the bedsteads of (lie Royal couple, and smashed all t.lu> fine tilings on the Queen's toilet-table; called for wine from the King’ cellars, and the trembling servants obeyed their orders.” \ ROMANTIC REIGN CLOSED IN BLOOD. But even then their lust for destruction was not sated. Before day dawned several ot the late King s loyal Ministers and officers bad been treacherously shot in cold blood, in eluding Queens Draga’s two young brothers, who died side by side, lacing without a tremor the lilies ol their assassins. And it was not until the Austro-Hungarian Minister threatened that, unless the slaughter ceased at once, the Austrian army would occupy Belgrade, that this night of horrors came to an end. Thus perished, in the twenty-seven-th year of his troubled life, King Alexander of Servia and Hie beautiful [ Queen whose love, while it bail crowned bis last years with happiness, had I brought on him the most terrible fate that over overwhelmed a monarch or closed a dynasty in tragedy.