FOUR VIEWS OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9307, 9 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOUR VIEWS OF THE EMPRESS EUGENIE.

Four times have I seen tho Empress Eugenie. The first was a few months ; after her marriage, when she occupied, ; with her husband, the Imperial box at the Cora-kiie Franchise, exquisite to behold in white silk and pearK the famous pearls that had formed the Emperor's bridal gift. I shall not soon forget the slender, swaying throat rising from the statue-lovely shoulders with the grace of a lily stalk, the golden-lighted tresses, the hurge almondshaped blue eyes, with that mysterious sadness in their depth* that one sees in the portraits of Charles J., shading their azure brilliancy and not to be chased away even by the sunny sweetness of the smiling mouth* Ten years later I again beheld the Empress, this time in full court dress, at a gala representation at the opera, blazing with diamonds-, with that peerless gem, the Regent, surmounting the classicshaped diadem that she never wore since at the penalty of an agonising headache, so great was its weight. Her delicate, ilowerlike beauty had developed and expanded into that of a well-ripened fruit, the rounded arms and finely-moulded shoulders dimpling out of glowing draperies of rich red silk. She sat like a statue, or like some gem-bedecked Indian idol, so motionless tfiat her diamonds flamed ; they did not flash or sparkle. Next I beheld her scowled upon by the Parisian crowd at the review in 1870, a tired-looking, elderly woman, with the dainty charms of her youth and the glowing graces of her prime replaced by all the artifices known to the inventors of French cosmetics. And then, a year or two ago, I passed on the Place V'endome a sorrowful lady, clad in deep mourning, with silvery hair and an infirm gait, who was in the act of getting into her carriage, aiding herself with a cane as she did no. There was no mistaking the sad sweetness of the expression, or the still inimitably graceful carriage of the head and shoulders ; it was the ex-EmpreEs passing through Paris on her way to one of the Continental water-ing-places. Her health is good, with the exception of the rheumatic affection that has troubled her for years, and that impels her to seek annually the counsels and care of one of the great physicians of Amsterdam. She is wealthy, and in "rowing old she has grown penurious, so that her heirs, the children of her sister, the Duchess of Alba, will probably inherit one day an immerse fortune.

Like a ghost of the vanished empire that gave her grandeur, and to which she imparted grace and charm, she flits from one health-giving place of public resort to another, alone on earth with her memories and sorrows. She has survived all those whom she loved—husband, hod, mother, and sister. Dead, too, are her hopes and her ambitions; have vanished like her world-renowned beauty, liko her quoenehip, like her long-hoped-for and joyously hailed maternity. Often in thu watches of the night a storm of grief will scatter the calmness of her resignation to the winds, and she will sit for hours weeping before the portrait of the la to Prince Imperial.— Lucy H. Hooper, in the Philadelphia Press.