A BEAUTY OF FRANCE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7912, 28 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

A BEAUTY OF FRANCE.

DRIVEN TO ENGLAND BY FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. Tho most wonderful old woman in the world at the present moment is undoubtedly the ex-Empress Eugenic, who is the widow of the last Emperor of the French, has resided in England since the dekacie of 1871), and has lived to be ninety and to see the German army, which brought about her husband’s downfall and her own exile, checked and out-numbered, and may yet live to see tlie “lost provinces” rostered to the land over which she once reigned, and in which she was then considered! the most beautiful woman. Needless to say, she takes «a! great interest in the course of the Avar, and tlie Battle cf Verdun, which, in the neighbourhood of Metz, is on very reminiscent ground, has been of exceptional interest to the old Empress. Indeed, she might be a field-marshal on active service, for every morning find j her in her study critically scanning a large-scale map to note exactly the Allies progress during the last twenty-four hours. Before the w ar was three months old she had set off a wing of her lovely house at Farolborough, in Hampshire, for wounded officers; and they could hardlv be in better quarters, for tlie house has six acres of lawn and pleasure gardens, nearly seventy acres of park, and possesses a cinder cycle track 3,000 yards in length. The old Empress has to bo very much in disposed'to excuse herself from her daily visit to each of tlm eight rooms which the officers ocThis wonderful old lady had not long returned from Paris when the war broke out. She talks freeiy of the past, and when visiting Paris walked in the gardens of the Tuileries, where she used to reign supreme and where her lightest word was law. What recollection j she mint have had! A certain section of her house is a kind of Napoleonic museum, which some cLiy may be of priceless value. Hero may be seen a great number of souvenirs and relics which have come to tho Empress through her connection with tlie Bonapartes, one of tho most interesting of these being the great wash-hand basin which Napoleon the Great carried about with him on his campaigns.