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DisDiissal of Blenkefs Staff. > 2-3 



* That you are a prince shall be no inipediment to your suc- 

 cess with us/ said President Lincoln, with a smile to Salm, 

 when he expressed his fear that this hereditary imperfection 

 might be prejudicial to his progress in a republic ; with me it 

 certainly proved no impediment. An ample fortune to gild 

 the noble escutcheon would have been none either ; nor was it 

 his poverty, for I did not love the Prince, I loved the lovable 

 man. 



Some poets say that love is a madness, and as I believe 'n 

 poets I suppose they are not far wrong, for in this state things 

 are done at which common sense smiles, if it does not frown : 

 sensible people, therefore, will not blame the Prince for pro- 

 posing a private marriage, and that I did not resist too hard 

 his entreaties. 



We were married on August 30, 1862, in St. Patrick's 

 Church, F Street, Washington, by Father Walter, according to 

 the rites of the Catholic Church, for both of us were Catholics. 

 Witness to this holy ceremony was our intimate friend Colo- 

 nel von Corvin, whose name is well known in Germany, Eng- 

 land, and America. He had been one of the military leaders 

 in the German revolution of 1848 and '49, and having bom- 

 barded the town of Ludwigshafen and defended the fortress of 

 Rastatt against the Prussians, assisting the Grand Duke of Ba- 

 den, thus covering the retreat of the revolutionary army into 

 Switzerland, he was condemned to be shot, but saved by a 

 concurrence of favourable circumstances. He was, however, 

 confined for six years in a solitary cell of a penitentiary, and, 

 when he was still persecuted after his liberation in 1855, he 

 retired to England, where he lived as a refugee until 1861, 

 when he went to America as a special correspondent of the 

 Augsburg Allo^emeine Zeitimg and the London limes. When 

 General Blenker learnt the arrival of his much-tried old com- 

 rade from Baden, he paid him at once a visit at Willard's 

 Hotel in Washington, accompanied by his whole staff. On 

 this occasion the Prince became acquainted with Corvin, who 

 was then forty-nine years old. As the autobiography of the 

 Colonel has been published, both in the German and English 

 languages, I need not say more about him now. Salm felt 

 great confidence in the Colonel, and liked him very much. 

 Both became much attached to each other, and remained true 

 friends all these years. 



