THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 819, 26 June 1879, Page 2

THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL.

The news of the death of the Prince Imperial ut France, wiieu lighting as a volunteer m. the English ranks at the (Jape, wall be read with general regret, as ho lias, the last revolution m Fiance, ao indentified himself with his adopted country that he has come to be regarded as a Prince of our royal line. He met .his death, nut amid the Bounding din of battle, con tending with, his country's enemies, but m an ambuscade of our savage Zulu foe, and the fact that he was so willing to espouse our cause and fight with our soldiers must have further endeared him to the British nation. Hiß father was England's best friend ; m his adversity he sought a sanctuary with us, and his remains are interred m English ground. His only son, the Prince whose death as announced, was but a boy when his father became an exile from France after the FrancoPrussian war, and he was mainly indebted to English public schools for his education. Narrowly escaping with his life after the disastrous battle of Sedan, he crossed from Ostend to Dover, and since that time he lived amongst us, working with the sons of our nobles and commoners at the Royal Military Acideray, at Woolwich. He showed not a little of the military genius of his great-uncle, Nupolean I, and he quickly passed the highest examinations m military science, qualifying himself, when still a mere youth of nineteen, for a commission m either the Artillery or Engineers. At the time he left for the Caye he had just passed his twenty-third birthday. While he lived quietly at Chislehurst, and showed no feverish impatience for the crown of his father, there is little doubt that, even if his personal inclinations did not lead him m that direction, his mother, the devoted but ambitious Eugenic, always looked to him as the future ruler of France, and ceaselessly worked and intrigued with that end m view. Round this youth the Imperialists rallied, and did homage as to their sovereign. • Now that he is gone the Imperialist cause must have sustained a crushing blow. True, Priuce Joseph is left, but the adherents of the late Emperor will never rally round his cousin. Prince Joseph haß never been popular with the Imperialists, and his. iiftrigues to supplant the Prince Imperial estranged many wno wou ld otherwise have b»en his friends. The sudden and unexpected death of the young Prince will work mighty changes m the politics of France. While the Imperial party will 'have lost their mainstay, it is more than prohable that the adherents of the Orleans family will receive a great accession of strength. One of the three contending parties will m all likelihood disappear from the fifeld, or will be so weakened as to exercise little influence on the course of events, and henceforth the battle will be between the Monarchsits and the Republicans.—^. J5. Jlcv<?kl