KINGS AND QUEENS IN EXILE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 16, 31 December 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

KINGS AND QUEENS IN EXILE.

‘J am a beggar and a tramp, but one that receives no .sympathy. Instead of a throne I am given a dinner, an 1 instead of my people, the ridicule of niy conquerors.” ' Such were the pitiful words spoken tc- a friend, a few years ago, by Ranalalo, ex-Queen of .Madagascar, who, from the position of ruler of a kingdom as large as France, had sunk to the obscurity of an exile in a foreign land. At the time she was lodged in a mean apartment in a third-rate Paris hotel, anil allowed to go out only very occasionally. Her onlj- friend was an attendant, whose chief duty was to fetch the ex-Queen':s meals -from a nc mhbouring restaurant. MR AND MRS. SMITH." A few weeks earlier Ranavalo had arrived at the Gave de Lyon one cold, foggy* morning. No red carpet iq>on the platform, no police-officers in white kid gloves, no palm-decked waitingroom. no band, no flags, not a soldier, not a cheer grr-otod Imr arrival. She descended shivering from her carriage, was unceremoniously hustled into a rtntion-cnb by two detectives, and driven away, none noting, none caring, to her dreary home of exile. Well might Napoleon say, ‘‘Tim lot of a dethroned king must be dreadful.'’ The p-mip of the throne, the gewgaws which surround him from his cradle, and wlm-li accompany him step by ship throughout his life, become a necessary condit-on of hrs exi-;onc".

It was on a bleak .March morning in 181 H that a respectably-dressed elderly gentleman, accompanied by a lady cqitalk advanced in years, landed .at Newhaven from the Express steamer from Havre. They had travelled under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and none who hustled the insignificant cr.upie dreamed that they were Louis Pl.ilippe and his queen, who but a few weeks earlier had been the splendid rulers of I 1 ranee. For a little more than two years "Mr. Smith’ lived in obscurity, until death claimed him at Claremont cn the dlith August, 1850. ■‘LONT; LIVE THE EMPEROR I” _ Verv different was the reception on English shores of the dethroned Napoleon HI., when ho landed at Dover on March 20th, 1871, welcomed by an immense crowd short’ing "Long Live the Emperor!" Not the flicker of a smile lit the sallow, deeply-lined face of the broken monarch. In the dense, clamorous crowd he sought eagerly two faces, those of his queen and son : and in a few moments he had clasped them again and again to his heart.

At Chidehnrst. where Napoleon spent the brief remainder of his days in close retirement, racked hv frequent pain and comforted by his beloved wife and son. he was visited, among others, including Queen Victoria. by Lord Malmesbury, who snvs: "His quiet and calm dignity and his resignation were the grandest examples of human moral courage that tim severest Stoic could Lave imagined.’’ UNHAPPY KINGS OF FRANCE. 'Hie same calm resignation and dignity have marked the long exile of Napoleon's Empress, Eugenie, since the far-away dav when, alter a perilous flight from Paris, she landed at Ryde from Sir .John Burgoyre's yacht. She has drunk de. p of the cup ot sorrow, and hn.s learnt to "weigh against a grain of sand tin- glories of a throne.'’

When Louis XVIJI. was driven from his throne in 1807 he found a refuge in England, and purchased a residence, Hartwell, in Buckinghamshire, where he remained for seven years, until Najioleon’.s downfall opened the way again to the throne of France. But, although the British Government offered Louis m: asylum, he was not recognised ns king, and as the Comte de Lille was condemned to lead a secluded life in the country, being soundly rated by the Government when, on on? occasion. _he went to London witho--.it permi-sion.

But the kings of France have had long familiarity with flights and exile, for during the last 150 years only a single Sovereign, Louis XVITL. Ims died possessed of his crown. VANITY OF CROWNS. In the last century and a half Spain has sent four of her kings packing; and Queen Isabella, grandmother of the king of "to-day, h id to fly for her life one Seiitemiier morning forty-two years ago. The spectacle she presented was too pitiabb.- for comedy. With her round face swollen from sleeplessness and tears, surmounted bv n little straw hat with a nodding red feather, with her drtss in dis irder, her hands without gloved, hi r skirit- distended by a swinging crinoline, sh? reachwl the station. m-companied by the King Consort, on her wav to France. wh- j re Napoleon TIT. had. placed the Ca-tle of Pau at her disposal.

In I’aly Victor .Emmanuel I. abdicated ; ami Charles Albert gave up his throne to his son. Victor Emmanuel IL, and died, broken-hearted,- at Opiorto, foil-- months later. And the. same story of emptied thrones is toldof every country in Europe, from Russia to Portugal, which has furnished the latest illustration of the vanity of a crown. SOME HUMOROUS ASPECTS. Piobably the most pat-hetic Royal flight on record was that of Queen Adelaide of Italy, who, when she escaped from Pavia, tramped through many a ling, dark night over rough roads r.nd through forests, hiding by day nnd begging her bread from the kindly rustics whose cot.t ages she passed, until, footsore nnd in rags, she rcaeh-ed safety in the hospitable home of the Archbishop of Reggio. Even the cxi'e of 1 ings. however, has its hum-roiu as-eel -. In r?cejit years we have read of ex-King Prernjeh parading th? s r?:t< of Freet--wn in Ins Royal robes, with his escort I o*' wives an 1 heralded bv bis umbrel’aI Ijoarer: of Sim-n-v. an ex-West African I potent-iitc. sitting on his mat at Kayes I and smoking furiouslv. surrounded bv I the iidmirimg ladies of his harem; and ; :>t lie'mzzin, -‘I’R fa’leil King of • Daholnev n f i d-innikY .'-up ,-F •!>- ; latest. ;! 1 c:;t. iving oiitstreic-lied on a mat sin k'n-g ci-pi'S. ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Qua of the finest examples of 1 pawkv" humour is p'aced to the ciedit of ,-in old srard'-nc-r who w.ns in ‘ the service <-f Admiral »■ Fl-er Kir i Alexander Milne wh-> was in Ids time : a <: i-' I-- *’- of th? v rit . ongrogation. I The r-dn-iral. who died ;> few years ay i his n’netietb vear. was or? 'fl old I man. full of -m a <d 1-1 -dpey i : mt .1 strict tli'cil.limv i in. Th,-' '<?;•- dene'- having ernitt 1 -thi" - ywl v j -11 ’> -s, .» r"I I-xx *» -f- i• ! -.j r I ■ t) 1 5Xter said to him : — • Wi- •: I o-i loaid -’-in ’ won'-!