A ROMANCE IN HIGH LIFE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4287, 16 December 1874, Page 3

A ROMANCE IN HIGH LIFE.

A romance in very high life has just been brought to its last act. One of the most noted of the South German nobles was the Prince of Thurm and Taxis. He had been Minister to the late King of Bavaria, and his son was aide-de-camp to the present King. It is this son who is the hero of the German romance. Long ago the Lord of Burleigh chose his wife from the peasantry, and King Cophetua swore a royal oath that a beggar maid should be his bride ; but neither of these traditional lovers went so far as the young Bavarian prince of our own days. It was an obscure actress who fascinated him, and for whom he was content to sacrifice everything. These conventional words meant a great deal in this case. The marriage actually was solemnised, but it was made subject to conditions of a very rigorous character, which were imposed upon the bridegroom as a condition of the family assent. He was to renounce all his paternal rights, and even his name. He was to be no longer the Prince of Thurm and Taxis, but a plain bourycois, and he was to receive an annual allowance of 5000 florins. It might seem that such conditions would be impossible. The only answer is that they were exacted, that the marriage did occur, and that the Prince descended into plain M. de Pels. He had, however, a very fine tenor voice and a beautiful bride, and he made his dihitt a short time ago at the theatre at Zurich. The story so far reminds one of Marto’s history, who was Marquis of Caudia in his own right; but here the resemblance ceases. The Swiss are not an imaginative people, and care very little for romantic sacrifices. M. de Pels was hissed off the stage at Zurich, and retired into private life. It was easy to descend from rank and position ; it was difficult to re-acquire them. The young Prince was brother-in-law of the Duchess of Bavaria, nephew of the great major domo to the Court of Prince Oetingen; so great efforts were made to restore this would-be tenor within the princely circle. At last a way was found to achieve the end. On the Lake of Chiem, King Ludwig has an estate known as Herreninsel, and there it has been the custom to give great water parties and nautical fetes. A theatre is to be built there, of which the artists are to consist almost exclusively of the aristocracy. Scenes out of Wagner’s operas are to he represented, and Offenbach and Hervd arc also to appear on the bills. But for this distinguished theatre a dignified manager has to be provided, and the Grand Duchess of Bavaria, who has a taste for diplomacy, has thus found the means of introducing her nephew within the ring fence of his native aristocracy. The name of Paul de Pels, which appeared on the Zurich playbill, will be heard of no longer, and the Prince of Thurm and Taxis will be known in future as Marshal of the Royal Palace and Master of the Bevels to the young King of Bavaria. It is the habit of some foreign editors to admit statements into their journals “under all reserve,” arid when this sentence is seen it is tacidly understood that imagination has something to do with the announcements, but no such qualification has accompanied the reports of this chapter of romance.