Band, art. HOHENZOLLERN. Carlyle's History of Friedrich II.,
(London, 1858,) Book III. Cli. 1, Vol. I. p. 200.] And yet on this
most distant and infinitesimal relationship the French pretension
is founded. But audacity changes to the ridiculous, when it is
known that the Prince is nearer in relationship to the French
Emperor than to the Prussian King, and this by three different
intermarriages, which do not go hack to the twelfth century. Here
is the case. His grandfather had for wife a niece of Joachim
Murat,[Footnote: Antoinette, daughter of Etienne Murat, third
brother of Joachim.--- Biographic Genemle, (Didot,) Tom. XXXVI.
col. 984, art. MURAT, note.] King of Naples, and brother-in-law of
the first Napoleon; and his father had for wife a daughter of
Stephanie de Beauharnais, an adopted daughter of the first
Napoleon; so that Prince Leopold is by his father great-grand-
nephew of Murat, and by his mother he is grandson of Stephanie de
Beauharnais, who was cousin and by adoption sister of Horteuse de
Beauharnais, mother of the present Emperor; and to this may be
added still another connection, by the marriage of his father's
sister with Joachim Napoleon, Marquis of Pepoli, grandson of
Joachim Murat.[Footnote: Almanach de Gotha, 1870, pp. 85-87, art.
HOHENZOLLERN-SIGMARINGEN.] It was natural that a person thus
connected with the Imperial Family should be a welcome visitor at
the Tuileries; and it is easy to believe that Marshal Prim, who
offered him the throne, was encouraged to believe that the
Emperor's kinsman and guest would be favorably regarded by France.
And yet, in the face of these things, and the three several family
ties, fresh and modern, binding him to France and the French
Emperor, the pretension was set up that his occupation of the
Spanish throne would put in peril the interests and the honor of
France.