PRINCESS PLEADS FOR MERCY.

Waikato Independent, Volume V, Issue 328, 24 January 1907, Page 6

PRINCESS PLEADS FOR MERCY.

KING LEOPOLD AND HIS BANISHED DAUGHTER. Princess Louise of Belguim, who has been living in France since her dramatic flight from the “ sanatorium ” in which she was imprisoned, has for some time past been making pathetic appeals to her father, King Leopold, to be allowed to visit her native country. She has just returned to Paris from the South of France, and in an interview with her she said, with evident emotion, that she desired nothing on earth so much as to see her father once more. “ I have written again and again to my father,” she said, “ but no letter can tell how keenly I feel my separation from my family. lam condemned to live without seeing a single one of my relatives. “If I could only see my father face to face, and speak to him alone, all the terrible misunderstandings that have been created between us by interested parties might be removed. I have asked to be allowed to return to Belguim and go to my mother’s grave, and although the King has not yet seen fit to grant ray request, I still hope that he will do so before long. “ In any case, I do not forget that he is a king and my father, and I will do nothing to embarrass him. I will do anything to be reconciled to him short of giving up the devoted friends who have helped me to escape from prison.” “ Has any such proposition been made to you ? ” was asked “ Yes,” the Princes replied. “ Baron Goffinct, one father’s chamberlains, and Maitre 'Weiner, his legal adviser, told me that I should be provided form Belguim or Germany if I left France and my friends. But I would not hear of it. It would be gross ingratitude on my part. “ I do not believe that my father suggested anything of the kind. He would no more wish to select my friends than I would his. As to my financial position, I have made no complaint, and I have never asked my father for money to pay my debts. “ I want affection, not money,’ the Princess concluded sadly. Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of the King of the Belgians, married Prince Philip of Saxo-Coburg and Gotha at the age of seventeen. An unhappy married life ended in her elopment with Count Mattachich in 1895. In May 1898 she was placed in a 11 sanatorium ” by her husband’s order, but escaped in 1904, and has lived in France ever since.