ROYALTIES WITHOUT THRONES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XXI, 13 November 1897, Page 648

ROYALTIES WITHOUT THRONES.

Alphonse Daudet. the French romancer, shows in his well-known I took. ‘ Les Rois en Evil.' a whole colony of formerly crowned heads, who. hurled by various cata> trophies from their thrones, were gathered in the gay capital on the Seine during the first years after the FrancoGerman war in common exile. The author met |»ersonal!y the models to his figures of romance. • While a young man.’ M. Daudet says. • I brushed in the narrow corridors of the all-night restaurants, in the hot breath of the gas lights ami in the pungent odours of musk and patchouli, frequently past the raven-black rig of the Duke of Brunswick (called the diamond dukei : at Bignon’s I saw one evening u|hiu a lounge the Dutch prince. “Citron the Silent ’ (Grown Prince William of < ’range*, while he. in company with a memlier of the demi-monde, devoured a goose-liver pa>ty. 1 also saw one Sunday the tall figure of the blind ex-king of Hanover while leaving the conservatory concert. He was guided by the sentimental Princes*. Frederika. his daughter, who touched him gently u|m»u the arm whenever |»olite usage required him to salute someliody.’ \t the opening of (he last world's exposition in Paris the following former and pseudo majesties could lie seen in a row : Don Francisi’o of Assi>i and Don Carlos, accompanied l»y their lietter halves. Donna and Donna Margherita: also, the Duke of Aosta, w ho is Aniadeu" of Spain There are at present in Europe forty thrones occupied by twenty-six reigning dynasties. Among the formerly reigning lainilies of Romanic extraction there are three Ikmrlion. Bonaparte and Braganza who l«»st their insignia of |»ower, an'd they and their descendants form the prin • ipal contingent of the princes and prine> w ho at present live in exile. In that valuable and interesting gen ealo-i«-al work. * Almanach de Gotha,* they -till figure among the ‘active' jh»teutat*-. and when we oj»en this volume we find first in the list of exiled royalty Ihivhes* Marie of Bavaria, dater of the Empress of Austria and widow of ex King Franz II of Naples, who died Christmas Eve. IS<M. in a hotel at Arco. He belonged to the Italian princes whose thrones during the |M>litical cyclones of |x’i!»an«l Isiio were wiped out by Napoleon

111. ami the ' Re Ilalantuomo,’ father of the present King of Italy. His last stand was made at the Fortress Gaeta, where yueen Marie, the ‘ only man' in his entourage. developed such brilliant bravery in the defence of the fortifications. Daudet hits taken many leading traits from this energetic princess for the heroine of his renowned Ikm>k. The son of the • Re Bomba ’ travelled afar, but later returned to Austria, like all the others of his Italian compatriots in fate, and he shared with them that other fate, to lie forgotten Only the news of his death recalled this

exiled King momentarily to the memory of his contemporaries. He left no children, but his eldest half-brother, Alfonso, Count of Caserta, who mostly resides at Cannes, in France, has after the demise of Franz 11. claimed all rights and titles of the deceased, and has renewed the former protests against the ‘ usurpation of his country.’ In this connection the other two exPrinces whose throne once stosl in sunny Italy may lie mentioned —Duke Roliert of Parma, whose land in 1860 was united with the realm of King Victor Emanuel 11. of

Sardinia, and who resides with his family at Sehwarzau. in Lower Austria, and Grand Duke Ferdinand VI. of Tuscany, who leads at Salzburg, also in Austria, a contemplative existence. Ex-Empress Eugenie of France, while owning a resilience at Farnborough, near London, is a restless wanderer upon the face of the earth, despite her physical ailments and her e.ge. The ‘ future Emperor of France,’ as the Bonapartists call him, is Prinee Victor, residing at Brussels. He is the eldest son of the celebrated Prince ‘ Plon-Plon,’ a brother of Napoleon 111., but it is rumoured that the ex-Empress prefers his youngest brother, Louis Napoleon. who is commander of a regiment in the Prussian army. Another woman. ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, grandmother of the little King Alfonso XIII. of the Pyraenaeic peninsula, lives still in exile, though the latter is no longer dictated by political urgency. The revolution of 1868 drove her and her entourage—led bv the nun Patrocinio and the intendante. Marfori—from Spain, though she might have returned when her son Alfonso XII. succeeded to the throne. However, the mode of life of this giddy old Queen is so reprehensible that her residence in Spain would have been so inimical to monarchial institutions that she received the persuasive hint that it would be better for her health to remain away from Madrid and from the land of wine and song.