DEATH OF DR. EVANS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 52, 11 February 1911, Page 11

DEATH OF DR. EVANS.

The cabled news of the death of Dr Evans recalls to mind a stirring j 1 1" cident in French history, which has almost drifted into the forgotten past. The capitulation of Marshal MacMahon at Sedan and the capture of the Emperor Napoleon 111. brought revolution to Paris. Crowdsgathered everywhere. Round 1 the Tuileries they waited—“ragged creatures with sinister heads, watching the Palace. Incensed against her whom they blamed for France's misery, thev clamored for revenge—to rend with their own ’hands the last remnant or monarehv. XV ithin the Palace the Empress Eugenie faced the alternatives, flight or defence. Other courses there may have been, but there was no one on whose influence she could rely. She decided to fly, and the Austrian and Italian Ambassadors strengthened her in that resolution. Hurrying through the Louvre Galleries to the door on the Place Saint Germain 1 Auxerrois, with the two Ambassadors and a tew faithful friends, she waited in the doorway to let- the crowd pass. A «itreet arab recognised the Empress, and would have brought the mob upon her had not one of tine Ambas--adors silenced him with his bootrhe crowd passed, a oab was summoned, and the Empress and Madaire Lebreton drove off alone to the house of M. Besson. Councillor of State, whom the Empress looked to for succour. He was out. In despair she remembered Dr Thomas Evans, a denitast to Louis Napo-

iLeon, and as Truth remarks “the one hero” in the career of the Empress Eugenie. His readv brain devised an ingenious plan, "though it was doubtful if. it would 'have succeeded had not the Empress brought with her by some happy chauce a passport, duly vise, for an English doctor and a lady patient. Dr Crane, Evans’s assistant, became the doctor, the Empress the patient, Evans her brother, and Madame Leibreton a nurse. With these disguises they passed the guards, and at last reached Deauville, where only the Channel stood between them and safety. Not that the danger was over, for French police agents were eagerly searching the shipping. Sir John Burgone’s yacht lay in the harbor, and Evans and Crane saw the owner, and asked for the protection of the British flag for the fugitive Empress of France. Sir John was reluctant, but his wife persuaded him to accept the charge. On the voyage over a big storm threatened to bring the adventurers to a tragic close, but the yacht reached Ryde in safety, and the Empress commenced her long exile.