Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/340

334 time for Morelia to remember her two most distinguished sons.

The title of Liberator was conferred upon Iturbide in 1853, nearly thirty years after his death, and two years later the anniversary of his death was declared a public holiday. On that day a grand mass is celebrated in the cathedral of Mexico for the repose of his soul.

The ex-Emperor left a wife and eight children, but only the two youngest and Doña Ana accompanied him on his fateful return voyage, the others being left at school in England. The widow went first to New Orleans, afterward lived in Washington, then in Baltimore, finally taking up her permanent residence at Philadelphia, where in 1861 the once beautiful Dona Ana ended her eventful life, and now rests with several of her children in a vault of St. Mary's Church in that city.

The Princess Josefa, the only surviving child of the Emperor, resides in the City of Mexico. She remembers the coronation of her father and the pomp of court life which followed during his short reign. It was my pleasure to make her acquaintance, and I found her a woman of rare conversational gifts as well as great personal charm of manner. She is remarkably well preserved, and still shows a vigorous and cultivated intellect; is a fine linguist, and possesses a vast amount of historical information. But the one who connects the past with the present is Prince Angel de Iturbide. He attended the Jesuit College at Georgetown, D. C, where as a school-boy he met and loved Alice Green, the lovely daughter of Nathaniel Green, of that city. The wooing was persistent, and finally this charming and accomplished woman became his wife. In the course of time the laws which had banished Doña Ana and her family relented, and the Iturbides were allowed to return to Mexico.

Now comes an old, old story, but one which loses nothing by familiarity. In the checkered fortunes of Mexico, a prince of the house of Habsburg and an Austrian archduke was invited by the