A Sultana’s Romance.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 8, 22 February 1908, Page 41

A Sultana’s Romance.

MARRIES A POLICEMAN. To be a sultana by right of birth, and to renounce her royal rank in order to marry a simple gendarme, and settle down as a farmer’s wife in France—this, in brief, is the life story of Salima, Sultana of the Comniores, who has just demanded an audience of the French Minister of the Colonies. When France established a protectorate over the Comoro Islands, the little Princess Salima, Sultana of Moheli. was placed in a convent. It was arranged that when she had finished her education, she should return to her island. But instead of assuming the dignity of a Sultana, she elected to marry M. Paule, a French gendarme. M. Paule, who has now turned to farming, and resides near Dijon, likes to tell how lie met his wife. One day he saw the Queen of Moheli walking with some nuns in the street of Saint Denis, in the island of Reunion. He was sitting on the wall of the barracks. “1 found her beautiful,” he says, “1 loved her. and from tluit moment I regretted that 1 was • French gendarme, and not a Prince.” Here is how Salima renounced her rank (says the Loudon “Morning Advertiser”) : — “Oiw day," abs relates, “the Inspector-

General of the Colonies found me in the convent, and informed me that, as 1 bad attained my majority, I could marry or return to Moheli. For one moment the vision of my mother wearing her Royal mantle and her crown studded with jewels came to me. I reflected'. 1 saw myself alone, ignorant of power, and afraid of its obligations. Then I thought of him whom I had seen several times for a few moments, and who came one evening with the Sister Superior to have a little chat. I concluded that I was too weak to reign, that I loved him, and was ready to abandon my rights for him. The Government raised objections to our marriage. But you see that I was not a bad diplomat after all, for I conquered. And now we have been married six years, and I want nothing. But, stay, I have one wish. It is this, that for the sake of my little son and daughter, the French Government, in exchange for what I gave up, might assure me a peaceable existence.” © © ©