A TRUE FAIRY TALE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 21 September 1909, Page 4

A TRUE FAIRY TALE.

j 10 THE EDITOB. • Sir, —ln a large city, full of noise, | lite, and excitement, there comes al- | ways at the 'beginning of spring an I old -woman, cladly plainly in black silk. Her hair is white, her figure bent and weak, yet her eyes still full of fire. She is accompanied by an elderly gentleman and a lady, both dressed in old-fashioned elegance. i They lodge in a large hotel, situated fin the centre of the city, and the same rooms are reserved for them for ! a few days, year after year. Nobody take.s any of the lady in black, who receives no visitors; cbut sits at the window of the hotel, and Btares into a large garden ' at her feet. Thiere was once a beautiful castle in this garden, burnt down long ago, and this castle, with its lights, balls, and festivities, used to be the talk of the world. Now there are flowers, trees, and shrubs instead, and children play amongst the bushes, and know nothing about the castle that used to be there. Sometimes the old lady in black leaves the hotel, and enters the gar-: den. She wanders slowly amongst the flowers, bent on her stick, followed in respectful distance by her two companions. ' Often she stands siitt, looks at the children; but speaks to nobody. She seems to look for something, seems to see things, not visible to others, as if her mind wore occupied <with people departed long ago. What is she looking for? Does this garden contain secrets, som c fairy tales unknown to others? What? ever it may 'be, the lady in black returns soon to the hotel, and after a few days departs for the south. This large city is Paris, the garden the garden of the Tuileries, and the old lady in black the Empress Eugenic of France. % The fairy tale she is looking for is her own, and well might she, like Madame Tallien, as Princess Chimaz, say in her old age: "If some lady would tell me what I have experienced, surely I would not believo him!" Eugenic of- France, once the centre of fashion, was looked upon as the first beauty of Europe, sitting on the proudest throne of the tvorld. Well might her brain indulge in dreams of ,gocUJness, wh;en 'her carriage, surrounded 'by an escort of tho gold c!:iJ Hii^ed Guards, rove down the avsnue of the Empress —now avenue dii Bois 'de Boulogne——amidst a thousand voiced "Vive I'lmperatrice!" In October, 1869, as quasi representative of Europe, the Express opened the Suez Canal. She was received in Venice, in' k Athens, in Constantinople, and Alexadria with all the Oriental pomp of a sovereign, and at the opening of the Canal her followers wore the rulers, or representatives, of Europe and the East. All this is past, and her fairy tal« has <ome to an end. One day' 3 thunderstorm hauled the mighty Em pire into the dust, and swept the proud Empires from her throne. To-day Eugenic of France is the old, bent, gouty woman of whom nobody takes any notice. She still comes to Paris before she goes to the Riviera; lodges still in the Hotel Continental; and stares from its windows into the garden of the Tuileries, where stood her castle, burnt down <by the Commune after her downfall. But cruel fate was not satisfied to hurl the proud woman from a brilliant throne; it had still deeper woe 3 in store for her. The loss of a crown, the death of a husband, the disappearance of :ili her hopes for the future, what was it in comparison to the cruel death of her only son, killed by the savages in Zululandf i The last heavy blow made Eugenic I the old woman sha is now, indifferent i to the world around. She lives in ( dreams, and only P.ii's produces such! dreams. I am, etc., MAETIN BOEAX. Green Hills, Seipt. 18, 1909.