Books › Voice and violin, 1898 › scan 68
Scan 68
Voice and violin, 1898
18 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 48. See the scan on archive.org.
1upon these contributions as a regular part of her small income.
3Never was a man more easily attracted by the charms of a pretty face than was Prince Louis; but music appears to have been almost entirely absent from his soul. At Compiègne, the noted hunting resort, after he had been made Emperor, he once turned a piano-organ—they had no other instrument, it appears, at the château for their carpet dances in the evening—but no one could dance to it.
5It was not, therefore, the sweet tones of the girl's violin, nor the songs and engravings she sold, which attracted the attention of the future Emperor of the French, but her pretty face and coquettish manners.
7She knew perfectly well who he was, and seems also to have had a very clear idea of his ambition. But what is more curious, she was evidently well acquainted with the low state of his finances.
9In this respect the following little anecdote may be related here:—
11One evening, after thanking him for his usual gift, she added—
13"Prince, I should like to say a word to you."
15"Speak," said Louis Napoleon.
17"They tell me," said the little violinist, "that you are very hard up at the present moment. I have three bank-notes of a thousand francs each
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