OCR Text |
Show ROYALTY AT EASE. ! European Women of High Station Seen In ai Atmosphere of Democracy. At the Hotel Cap Martin tbe emperor of Austria lives in democratio fashion. I was there yesterday visiting some friends from very democratio Chicago and we met at frequent intervals during dur-ing all the morning the once very beautiful beau-tiful and still stately empress taking her constitutional walks about the hotel grounds as freely and with as little formality for-mality as any other guest. Her constant companion is a young Greek 6tudent who is teaching her his language. The reigning duke of a German duchy, to whom the emperor gives a friendly nod as they pass each other by, explains to us that her majesty has an insatiable thirst for knowledge; that she has been giving to a dozen languages within the past dozen years each a twelvemonth in attaining its conversational mastery. She has already mado astonishing progress prog-ress in modern Greek. She certainly appears ap-pears to converse fluently with her modest young teacher. We are further told that Bhe is dressed dress-ed and out of doors each morning at 6 o'clock; that she eats no meat and lives almost entirely upon milk; that she deplores de-plores above all things that her health has compelled ner to give up ner num-er; num-er; that riding after hounds has been the greatest pleasure of her lifa The hour for luncheon has arrived, and we go back to the hotel. The two princes who are the emperor's gentlemen gentle-men in waiting are standing at the main door, evidently expecting some one. A carriage drives up, and a plainly plain-ly dressed lady, with two young girls, equally simply dressefl, steps out and is escorted into the hotel rotunda. From his apartments opening into it the emperor em-peror comes hastily out, bows to the elder lady as he offers her his arm, is saluted with a courtesy by the two young girls and leads the way to the breakfast room. The curtains part, disclosing dis-closing the empress awaiting her guests. She has taken off her hat and cloak, and we see her truly magnificent hair coiled in a veritable crown above her statuesque statu-esque face, her figure, famous always for its perfection, still seemingly that of a young matron, although she is a grandmother, and a very sweet smile of welcome to make the face beautiful. The visitors are the queen of Naples and her two royal daughters so styled in the Almanach de Gotha although there is no longer a kingdom of Naples upon any map. When told by the grand duke who the elder visitor is, we look at her with absorbed interest, for we take her to be that famous queen, wife of Francois II, whom Gaiibaldi dethroned, and who herself was the heroine, under an obvious pseudonym, of Daudet's master mas-ter work, "Les Roia en Exil. " But our friend recalls to us that Francois II died a few months ago, and, having no children, chil-dren, that the royal (and barren) title passed to his brother. This lady is thei-" fore that brother's wife, and it appears that the fiction of her queenship is still maintained as real in the imperial court of Austria at least. The heroine of "Les Rois," however the brave woman who defended Gaeta against Garibaldi for so many months is herself expected at thd hotel within a few days to visit her sister, the empress. em-press. "On the Riviera," Ballard Smith in New York World- |