A SCANDAL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1581, 18 March 1887, Page 3

A SCANDAL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

EXTRAORDINARY STORY. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph writer— The Jemi-mondaines and dashing Cyprians who disgraced the decline of the last Empire are passing away one by cne. A few weeks ago it was CVa Pearl, and now it is Marguerite Bellanger, an Imperial Aspasia, whose connection with the once mighty arbiter of Europe is a matter of history. The last time I saw the famous NVII G-wynne, or Pes: "Woffinqton of the Empire, she was familiarly called Marmot, phe was quietly walking along the Boulevards thickly veiled and arm-in-arm with a male friend, one of the dandies of the Empire. Like a good many of her profession, Margot had retired to a pretty surburban retreat at Passy, whence she miornfcd to St Cloud, and afterwards to Yilleneuve s">us Dammartion, where she has just departed this life, if not in the odour of sanctity, at least fortified by the last sacraments of a church which has always behaved with the greatest leniency to repentant Magdalenee.

After the Franco-German war she married an Englishman who is said to have been a sailor. Her union with the son of Neptune was not of long duration, as they parted company either in England or Germany, I forget which, and Margot returned to Paris to witness the desolation which had nvp'taken th» many places of yore. Marguerite Hollander's connection with the Emperar has been discussed in many bo >ks. L ; ke Cora Pearl's, her memoirs appeared a few years ago, but were li:tie road. Those who are fond of painting Imperial Paris, as Gibbon limned Antioch, where " the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was Wended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians," introduce Margot into the galaxy in which figured Miss Gordon, Miss Howard (called " La Belle Irlandaise Celeste "), Madame Chapard, and others. Margot was in the hey-day of her youth and beauty, a blonde with sparkling black eyes. Tho legend runs that the Emperor tir*.t met Bellanger at Yichy in 1863, Her real name had a less poetic ring than her adopted one. She was called Francoise Lebeuf, and bad been a bad actress at the Beaumarchais, and she was afterwards a figurante or female supernumerary at the Old Opera. Although as unsuccessful on the stage as was Cora Pearl, Margot was not wanting in cleverness, and her ambition was equal to her intelligence and good looks. Louis Napoleon was Baid to have met her as he sought refuse from the rain in some covered place near Yichy when out hunting. She promptly placed a Mackintosh on his shoulderp, and reversing the role which in ordinary circumstances should have been that of the Imperial C»sar himself, she literally came, saw, and conquered. Margot, as will be remembered, caused a tremendous scandal by alleging that the Emperor was about becoming a parent. The scandal made more noise at the time than the fall of the Porsigny Ministry, and the Empress when she heard of it became furious. The matter was partially hushed up, but after Sedan the drawers in the Emperor's room at the Tuileries were ransacked, and letters from Marguerite Bellanger were found. One was an epistle te M. Devienne, a lawyer, who had been charged by the Emperor to regulate the affair of the birth, and the other was a longer communication, addressed to the Emperor himself, who was called in it " Cher Seigneur." The two epistles were in an envelope, sealed with the letter "N." and the Imperial

Crown, and superscribed, in Napoleon's handwriting " To be kept." The publication of thpse documents was warmly opposed after the 4tb of September by MM. Jules Simon and Juleß Favre, G-eneral Trochu, and other?. M. Jules Ferry and M. Arago were of different opinion and M. Dsvienne was formally called to account befora the Court of Cassation for having carried on certain negotiations unworthy of a magistrate, these consisting in his endeavour to prove for the satisfaction of the Empress that the son born to Ballanger was not the Etnperor's child. No action was, however, taken against the magistrate, the Court having pronounced altogether in his favour. The son born is now about 22 years old. An estate was settled upon him shortly after his birth.