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Show Oe grown Princess of Rotintania. (From Chicago Tribune.) Marie, crown princess of Roumania, aspires to be the next Queen Victoria of Europe! And why not? Marie is young, brilliant, beautiful, clever, and ambitious. And what cannot can-not one do when one is beautiful, ambitiousand am-bitiousand 27? In Bucharest she is simply idolized. Marie has wealth. Her father, the late Duke of Saxe-Ooburg-Gotha. gave her a fortune when she married, nine years ago. When he died he left her another. Like Queen Victoria, she never spent her fortunes, but kept them; and after her they will exist, well invested, forever. Marie is an English princess. When a child at Windsor she was called "Marie "Ma-rie of Edinburgh," for her father was then the Duke of Edinburgh, and she delighted in being called an English child. She did not like Germany and loved not to visit her German cousins, the little ones of Hesse, though she liked little Alix. Alix of Hesse and Marie of Edinburgh Edin-burgh grew up together cousins and it looked at one time as though Marie would marry the then csarowitz and be the one to own the title of czarina. fc Meanwhile there had been no end of trouble in Roumania. Literally no end, for the end is not yet. King Charles and his Queen Elizabeth Eliza-beth had no heir. Elizabeth is the queen who writes verses under the noni de plume of Carmen Car-men Sylva and who declaims from the piaza of the palace at Cucharest, and recites at the family dinners leaves from her own volumes. When not engaged en-gaged in this fascinating occupation she goes into the country, incognito, and learns the folklore of the simple I but delightful people of Roumania. The queen was once beautiful. She is now in the yellow leaf, but charming, of face, lovely in manner, gentle, re-fined re-fined and all that an elderly daughter i of the princely house of Wied should be in her old age. ! But she had no children and the country demanded an heir. There is a story told that once there might have been an heir. But the queen, nervous and apprehensive, crept one night to the door of the king to listen. There she heard voices and the" soundl chilled her to the heart. She fell in a dead faint and her favorite fa-vorite maid of honor, rushing from the j king's apartment at the sound, found I her queen lying: upon the floor. There ! was a serious illness, and, on her dis-! dis-! appointed recovery, the queen went ' into verse making, while the king became be-came moody and remorseful, j A few years ago tie government decided de-cided that the line of succession should fall to the elder brother of the king, 1 who, of course, gave it over to his eld-! eld-! est son, Ferdinand. I Today Ferdinand, nephew of the king, is the crown prince and Marie is his wife and the crown princess. ? j The czar-to-be loved : her for her beauty and the czar's mother liked her for her cleverness. The old czar admired ad-mired her because she could play the Russian game of cribbage. and the younger brothers found her the best horsewoman oi the mountains. ; But the Russian . people would not : have her. I The mother of Marie had been a Rus sian, the daughter of the dead and gone czar, and they did not want so close an intermarriage. There has b'ien enough trouble of that kind in Rus3ia without bringing new griefs of too close blood upon them. So Marie of Edinburg, sweet Marie, was turned down, and Alix of Hesse went to Russia. With what results, whether of happiness or despair, the world must judge for itself. Then Victor Emmanuel, crown prince of Italy, admired her, but Marie, capricious ca-pricious Marie, did not fancy the Italian. Ital-ian. He was too reserved and scholarly scholar-ly for her enthusiastic temperament. Marie learned Roumanian with all the other languages of Europe and chatted in that language with Queen Victoria, her grandmother, who was a fine Roumanian scholar. Perhaps in the heart of the old queen there nestled an ambition for this, her pretty grandchild, the image of Tier favorite fa-vorite son, but if so she found it difficult diffi-cult of gratification, though not impossible. impos-sible. Queen Victoria found nothing impossible. One day it was secretly whispered in diplomatic circles that the throne of Roumania desired a crown princess, and then Queen Victoria, turning the matter over in her mind, sent the diplomatic diplo-matic ambassadors match hunting into Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. And they found Marie, pretty as a peach and scarce 18. Ferdinand loved Helene Vacarescu, a maid of honor to Carmen Sylva, tind wanted to give up the throne to marry j her. But tnis tne Kin& wouia :ioi allow, al-low, and Ferdinand, broken heurttd, went nine years ago to England to visit vis-it Windsor. Here he saw pretty Marie and his heart on the rebound fell' at her feet. They were married, and what a wedding! wed-ding! Carmen Sylva gave her choicest laces, and. in accordance with he custom cus-tom of the country, a cradle of mother of pearl of her own design. The king gave the bride many of the crown jewels and Ferdinand gave her ' his heart and the promise of a frown which was about all he had. Marie, with all the vivacity In . the world and plenty of beauty, and: full of that wonderful English life, with the superabundant spirits of the Russian Rus-sian women, went to Roumania and in a short time found that the country sadly needed her. In all the court there was no one to introduce a new idea. Not a wcn.an of Roumanian upper circles knew how to ride horseback well. Not on understood under-stood the art of card flaying. In painting and embroidery, verses .and music, they were well versed. But in athletics they might as well have been women of the harem. Marie, gentle, with all the softness of the Anglo woman, knew both stjlfs of diversion, and on rainy days was the indoor woman, but in fair weather' bo-came bo-came the Diana. The Roumanians wer at first aghast, then they came to admire, and finally they offered that greatest flattery vt-all vt-all imitation. Today Marie, of 27, is the recognized leader of the court and the most admired ad-mired woman, as well as the hnndjorn-est, hnndjorn-est, in the kingdom. And her children! All the world loves a woman with a family of children. But the feeling with which, the subjects of a monarchy regard the, "sovcreten 1 who perpetuates the race and secures the line of a reigning and beloved sue- cession can neither be imagined nor described. ! . Marie gave them Prince Carol, now aged 7; Prince Ferdinand, aged 5; and Elizabeth Marie, aged 3. Besides giving the nation a little family, she gave her beauty to the children, and in all Europe there is none that can approach in prettiness the household in the Dalace of Bucharest. Bu-charest. It is said that the royal Marie has ambitions for these children, and has already arranged for their marriage. Whether this be true or not, she has sent the pictures of her boys to the czarina, and has given her own children as playthings the photographs of the small Russian girls. What is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh, and it may be that Marie sees things in the stars. Of Ferdinand it is said that he has fewer ambitions. No one can accuse him of weak intellect nor of sloth. But he has not the overweening, overtow-ering' overtow-ering' spirit of his wife. He rests and waits as did his relative. Victor Emmanuelfor Em-manuelfor the throne, and is content to let matters take their course. But with Marie it is different. She has learned the history of her great-grandmother, great-grandmother, Catherine of Russia. She knows the best points in the life of her ancestor. Peter the Great. Maria Theresa, The-resa, who stamped Austria forever with her genius, is her model, and she knows the life of Queen Victoria like a book. Marie's strong point is tact. Tact cuts knots where it cannot untie them, and ! gets there, to use a well understood ex-I ex-I pression, when all other qualities get left to use another homily. She writes as well as the beautiful Marie Corelli, to whom she has been likened but she decs not write as mimVl SVio Cfr.oolro c r, c lor),- Brooke, of whom she studied public speaking. She converses easily and with the utmost fluency, and listens as well as she talks. With the ministers of Roumania she is such a favorite that they pay her the compliment of requesting her presence pres-ence along with that of Carmen Sylva; and the leading literary societies of Roumania have made her an honorary member, praying her attendance. So Marie, crown princess of Roumania, Rou-mania, desires to be the next Queen Victoria of Europe. And why not? When one is beautiful, rich, ambitious, and 27, why not? |