The following article is from the April, 1976 issue of Chatelaine Magazine.

She ran away and joined the circus, wooed and won a

Prussian prince and became the toast of Lincoln's

Washington. Later, her intrigues to save Mexican

Emperor Maximilian made her an international heroine

BY BONNIE BUXTON

Any Female Canadian historian will tell you that this country's past is full of forgotten heroines. But none led a more exotic life than a part-Indian woman with the unlikely name of Her Serene Highness, the Princess zu Salm-Salm circus performer, lobbyist, medical officer and author.

I first discovered the princess while flipping through an old book called Types Of Canadian Women, Past And Present by H. J. Morgan, published in 1903. Staring out at me was a slender, square-jawed woman with short curly hair and a wasp waist, wearing a tiara, a royal sash, and a sprinkling of military medals across her breast.

According to the caption, the Princess Salm-Salm was born Eliza A. Joy at St. Armand West, Quebec. About the, time that the Fathers of Confederation were stitching together a new Dominion, Eliza was thumbing her nose at the Victorian concept of the passive female. Using her beauty, charm and shrewdness, the young tightrope walker from the Canadian backwoods had married a romantic soldier-prince and was manipulating presidents, emperors and generals in the heady games of war, revolution and international politics along with dodging the odd bullet from time to time. And in 1867, she became an international celebrity for her brave efforts to save the life of Mexico's imprisoned Emperor Maximilian.

I was hooked. It was an easy matter to track down her autobiography, Ten Years Of My Life, published in 1875. Juicy reading indeed. It begins with her arrival in Washington, D.C. at the age of 21. Along with a group of friends, Eliza now calling herself "Agnes Le Clerq" visits the camp of the German division just outside the U.S. capital. The visitors are received by General Louis Blenker, who then presents them to his chief of staff, Colonel Prince Salm-Salm.

"The prince was then a man of 30 years," Agnes writes. "He was of middle height, had an elegant figure, dark hair, light moustache, and a very agreeable, handsome face, the kind and modest expression of which was highly prepossessing. He had very fine dark eyes, which, however, seemed not to be very good, as he had to use a glass, which he perpetually wore in his right eye, managing it with all the skill of a Prussian officer of the guard ...

"He addressed me in his polite and smiling manner, but alas, he did not speak one word of English, and as I did not understand either German or French, and only very imperfectly Spanish... our conversation would have been very unsatisfactory without the more universal language of the eyes, which both of us understood much better."

She was fascinated by the prince, and in return, the prince was bewitched by her beauty and vivacious personality. According to one writer of the time, "Her complexion was ... of that mellow light olive tint which we admire in ladies from the South, and her hair as black 'as the wing of the raven.' Her smooth forehead was somewhat rounded, and under her finely penciled arched brows sparkled large light brown eyes, full of mischief and fun. Her fine straight nose was beautifully chiseled . . . and her nostrils reminded me of those of a fine Arabian horse . . . Her mouth was rather large; but its full coral lips, and the good-natured fun lurking around its corners, made it extremely agreeable and pretty."

When Agnes left General Blenker's camp a few hours later, she left behind an enamored prince. "We saw each other again," she writes. "The sweet malady increased, and the prince proposed." Of course she accepted: "for I did not love the prince, I loved the lovable man." They were married on August 30, 1862, in the private chapel of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Washington. The ceremony was a secret one possibly because the prince was not quite sure how to break the news to his family that he had married a circus performer of somewhat questionable origins.

Eliza Agnes Joy had been born on Christmas Day, 1840, at St. Armand West, Que. (later renamed Philipsburg), a small town on Lake Champlain, within walking distance of Vermont's state border. Her father was William Joy, who, according to various accounts, was either a harness-maker or a fisherman. She was the fifth of Joy's eight children by his second wife, the former Julia Willard, a part-Abnaki Indian woman who served as the local midwife and doctor. The family was undistinguished, but Eliza had at least one notable ancestor: Thomas Joy, a 17th-century architect who designed much of early Boston.

According to Philipsburg legend, young barefoot Eliza was a wild tomboy who could outswim the local boys and nobody before or since has ridden a horse with such speed and daring. In her early teens, she was sent to work as a housemaid for the local Anglican minister, the Rev. Whitwell. The result is the stuff of a Victorian novel: a high-spirited young girl hi a dismal church manse runs away to seek fame, fortune and adventure. She became a waitress in a hotel at nearby Highgate Springs, Vermont, eventually winding up as a circus performer and from time to time returned home to dazzle friends with equestrian feats on Dr. Brigham's horse, Monarch. Despite her skill as a horsewoman, however, according to one reporter in Washington, D.C., who knew her well, "She failed as a circus rider, and, tearfully giving up her desire, she never appeared in public in that line of business." Instead, she became a rope-walker, and in Chicago, in the spring of 1858, made her first public appearance as a "great ascensionist" resolving to ascend a stout wire, stretched from the ground to the flagstaff high above the circus tent.

"The day was raw, chilly, and windy, when the girl, clad in pink and silver muslin, attempted the perilous ascent," he writes. Halfway up the rope, "she fell, like a feather, into the horror-stricken crowd below." Fortunately, a strong male acrobat had been following her progress from the ground. He caught her, and up she went again, walking safely to the flagstaff and back, "amidst the boisterous cheers of the rabble . . ."

In her autobiography, however, she leaves out all of her early years, and explains merely that she had been living in Cuba for some time. It's quite possible that she had been living in Cuba and working as a circus performer. Both St. Armand and High-gate Springs were on the road from Albany, N.Y., to Montreal a route taken by circus companies who would perform en route to Montreal and Upper Canada. During the late 1850s a number of American and European circuses traveled throughout Cuba some as a means of earning a living during the winter months; others for years on end. Conditions were rugged, roads terrible and performers were constantly risking illness or death from yellow fever or cholera. She may have been a performer with the company, Sands and Nathan, which traveled in eastern Canada, the U.S. and Cuba from the late 1850s until February 1861, when owner Sands died of yellow fever and the troupe was disbanded.

While young Eliza was running barefoot through the streets of Philipsburg, Prince Felix Constantin Alexandra Jean Nepomucene zu Salm-Salm was distinguishing himself on the battlefield. The second son of the ruling prince in Westphalia, Prussia, he was born in 1828 (like his wife, on Christmas Day). He had received seven wounds in the Holstein war against Denmark and had been awarded a sword of honor for his bravery. But when the old prince died, Felix's brother Alfred, 14 years Felix's senior, succeeded his father. Rather like the hero in an opera by Sigmund Romberg, Felix went to live hi Vienna, soon spent all of his inheritance, borrowed great amounts, and began to be hounded by loan sharks and money lenders. The family shipped him off first to Paris and then to the United States, where he became a mercenary officer in the Union army and the husband of Eliza Agnes Winona LeClerq Joy Salm-Salm.

After the wedding, Agnes moved to Washington to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Delia and Edmund Johnson. From his military camp in Virginia, Felix kept up a busy correspondence in his newly learned English while the young bride learned how to use her feminine powers in the U.S. capital city. "It is said that ladies have a very great influence in the United States, and I think it is so ... I might say a good deal about this influence, and the manner, means and ways in which it is gained, maintained and used; but... if the men do not know it, they may be satisfied with the frequently quoted saying that 'ignorance is bliss.'"

Almost immediately after their marriage, several of Felix's fellow officers were fired by Secretary of War Stanton, and Felix was rumored to be next on the list. Agnes resolved to "win the good opinion and kind interest of men who might be supposed to be able to assist him." Among her friends was a New York senator who arranged an audience for her with Governor Morgan in Albany, and 22-year-old Agnes went to the interview terrified. Morgan had the reputation of being a woman-hater and a man who resisted all attempts to influence him. With a faltering voice, she told the governor of her husband's desire to serve the Republic ... his excellent military qualifications. Couldn't he be given a German regiment to command?

The governor hesitated, wavered, then, after consultation with an assistant, offered the commission of colonel in charge of the Eighth New York Regiment. The joyful princess had passed her initiation as a lobbyist.

For most of the Civil War, she stayed at her husband's side, near the front. "I was then happy, as I never have been again in my life. My husband was in the position he desired, and perfectly contented, and we loved each other very much."

Life was simple, even rugged but never boring. They lived in a large hospital tent, which "was trimmed very tastefully and even gorgeously." Outside, it was trimmed with red and white damask and flags; inside, its board floor was covered with a carpet. The company's carpenters made the princess a sofa with straw cushions, and a canopied bedstead with a straw mattress. Agnes's entire wardrobe consisted of two riding habits a black one and a grey one plus two uniformlike costumes consisting of an ankle-length skirt and a tight-fitting jacket.

On occasion, parties and dinners were held, and on one occasion, President and Mrs. Lincoln paid a visit. Although Agnes carefully avoids telling it in her autobiography, there's a famous anecdote about this visit which has been reported in at least one of Lincoln's biographies. It seems that Lincoln was extremely depressed with the military situation. At the urging of her husband's superior officers, in order to cheer up the gloomy president, "the audacious princess suddenly swooped down upon Lincoln ... and kissed him soundly on the lips." This diversion seems to have been greatly enjoyed by Lincoln, "and, before the fun was over, every woman in the place had precipitated herself on the hardly pressed President, each with a bouncing kiss."

Agnes was unable to become pregnant, but nevertheless the Salm household was ever-expanding. In the summer of 1863, a black-and-tan terrier, "Jimmy," was given to her by James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald. During his long life, Jimmy made the acquaintance of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, the emperors of Mexico and Austria, the king of Prussia, Presidents Juarez and Diaz of Mexico, the pope, and countless other lesser celebrities, as he accompanied his mistress on her travels.

During her stay in the South, she also acquired a large black horse, a beast which had thrown most officers of the German division before coming under her care. "Whatever the horse may do, she sits as gracefully in her saddle as if she were sitting before a piano," one writer reported, adding that once, in Nashville, she rode General Rousseau's blood horse, which was not used to carrying women. "At a fearful gallop, it rushed down rocks and into the river... scrambled up banks and ran at a racing pace through the streets of Nashville ... When the saddle-girth became loosened, and she fell, she kept hold of the bridle, was dragged some distance, but at last succeeded in stopping the horse. She then punished him with her whip and rode him victoriously home."

One little known fact of the U.S. Civil War is that one of the officers in the Union Army was a Canadian woman. Agnes! On arriving in Tennessee, she had visited the hospital near the camp and was dismayed to find it filthy and ill-equipped and to see that the medical staff were appropriating supplies for their personal use. As a child, she had probably helped her mother in her rounds as the local herbalist-midwife; now, she devoted her attention to the war wounded. A little lobbying in Washington, and Governor Yates of Illinois granted her a captain's commission and a captain's pay, to help repay the expenses she incurred in buying food, clothes and provisions for the patients.

And on her return visit to Washington in early 1865 the greatest coup of all; Felix was made a general! "He had given me his name and made me a princess, but notwithstanding his name and rank he could have failed ... I procured for him the command of the Eighth ... now he had become a general through my exertions."

Salm was given command of Atlanta, which had been nearly totally destroyed by General Sherman. In addition to their dog, Jimmy, the Salms' Atlanta household also included an adopted baby and a black nurse. In a somewhat peculiar agreement, Agnes's sister Delia, expecting her second child, had promised to give it to Agnes, if it were another boy. The baby, born in Cleveland in July 1865 was indeed a boy: Agnes christened him Felix and took him home. But this arrangement lasted only until October. "As little Felix did not get on very well with his nurse, and the doctors thought he would be better with his mother, I with great regret gave him up again."

When the war ended in late 1865, Salm was once more out of a job. Using his own connections, he managed to become the aide to Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and sailed for Mexico in February, 1866. In August, Agnes followed on a journey that was to make her an international heroine.

In 1862, the French armies with some assistance from British, Spanish, Belgian and Austrian allies had moved into strife-torn Mexico and deposed President Juarez. In 1864, they instituted the monarchy, inviting Maximilian of Austria to be emperor. Four years younger than Salm, the 34-year-old Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph was the younger brother of the Archduke Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria. By the time Agnes arrived in Mexico, Maximilian's throne was in peril. While the U.S. was embroiled in the Civil War, it had ignored the Mexican situation. Now U.S. Secretary of State Seward was demanding that Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) pull out his troops.

On February 5, 1867, the last of the French forces left for home. Maximilian moved north to Querdtaro to lead the imperial army, now composed only of Mexicans. His only foreign aide was Prince Salm-Salm, who forbade Agnes to accompany him despite her screams, tantrums and tears. "I believe I hated him at that moment, and felt very unhappy, for I knew he would come to grief, having never had any luck without me."

Left behind in Mexico City, Agnes paced the floor nervously while news of Liberal victories trickled in. By early April, Juarez's Liberal forces had captured most of Mexico, and were besieging Mexico City and Quer6taro. For three consecutive nights, Agnes had the same nightmare: her prince was dying. Something had to be done.

So on April 27, she set off on the 211-mile road to Querdtaro in a flimsy, bright-yellow, mule-drawn carriage a four-day trip through bandit-infested country. Accompanied by a Liberal gentleman escort, his armed servant, two unarmed coachmen, her maid and Jimmy the dog, she carried in her pocket her little seven-shooter revolver and three ounces of gold. For the next two months, she shuttled back and forth between Querdtaro where Maximilian and Felix had been captured and imprisoned and the headquarters of Juarez at San Luis Potosi, 130 miles away. Her mission: to persuade Juarez to spare the lives of the captured emperor and his aide. The roads were rugged and dangerous, in some places passable only on foot; on one occasion, she saw, hanging from trees, the bodies of Liberal officers, executed for rape and murder and left to blacken in the sun.

Through her efforts with Juarez, Maximilian's trial was delayed, but nevertheless his execution seemed imminent. Bribery seemed the only way out and Agnes concocted a desperate escape plot. She persuaded Maximilian to draw up two cheques for $100,000 in gold, payable by Vienna's royal family if he escaped unharmed. The officer in command of the city guards agreed to cooperate, but Colonel Palacios, in charge of the prison guards, was a different matter.

After visiting the emperor one evening, she asked Palacios to see her home from the prison, and invited him into the parlor of the house where she was staying. Asking him to swear, by the life of his wife and newborn child, not to divulge the conversation, she told him that Maximilian would be shot if he did not escape. The escape could take place that same night if Palacios would turn his back and close his eyes for just 10 minutes. The reward: a cheque for $100,000 in gold. "The Indian probably could not conceive the idea that in such a little rag of paper, with some scrawls on it, should be contained a life of plenty for his wife and child," Agnes writes. "A bag full of .gold would have been more persuasive."

Palacios said that he could not give an immediate answer, but that he would let her know in the morning. According to the account of Count Corti, an Italian historian, at this point Agnes began to unbutton her blouse, adding, "If this sum is not enough, take me as well..."

The next morning, Agnes was summoned by General Escobedo, who looked "as black as a thunderstorm" because Palacios had told him the escape plot. (Of this confrontation, Escobedo later remarked that he "would rather stand opposite a whole imperial battalion than meet the angry Princess Salm.") Under guard, she was taken to San Luis Potosi, where she was kept under surveillance. However, she was granted another meeting with a remarkably patient Juarez, who promised her that "nothing could be done for the emperor, and that he must die (in three days) but as for my husband . . . even if he should be condemned to death he would not be executed."

A famous painting by Manuel Oca-ranza shows Agnes's final, melodramatic meeting with Juarez the evening before Maximilian's scheduled execution. Totally grief-struck, she fell to the floor sobbing, while a "pale and suffering" Juarez told her, with tears in his eyes, "I am grieved, Madame, to see you thus on your knees before me; but if all the kings and queens of Europe were in your place I could not spare that life. It is not I who take it, it is the people and the law."

The next morning, June 19, 1867 at seven o'clock, Maximilian died bravely before a firing squad, along with two of his Mexican officers. Before the execution, he wrote a letter awarding Agnes the Order of San Carlos for her attempts on his behalf, and leaving her one of his few remaining possessions the fan which he had used in prison, the last few days of his life.

Salm was condemned to be shot in July, but true to his word, Juarez postponed the execution and then suddenly, on November 15, deported him to Europe. Shortly afterward, Agnes sailed for New York, and discovered that she had become a heroine. "When my arrival was made known in the newspapers, I received an immense quantity of bouquets from everywhere, and wherever I showed myself, in the hotel or in the street, people crowded and cheered me."

On December 28, she sailed from New York to Brest, accompanied by her dog, Jimmy. Leaving by train from Brest to Paris, she learned that dogs were prohibited in first-class carriages, and mischiev-iously, with the help of her Brest landlady, dressed him as a baby. "A thick veil covering his dear long snout concealed him before the sharp eyes of the railroad guards. The young lonely mother found sympathy with them, and I had a coup all to myself."

Arriving at the family castle at Schloss Anholt in Westphalia, the harness maker's daughter was warmly received by Felix's royal relations. The drafty old castle, however, was a disappointment. "Used to the luxurious dwellings of the rich people of North America, everything appeared to me somewhat primitive and as it were uncivilized." Moreover, as the younger brother of the ruling prince of a small Prussian principality, Felix was little more than an unemployed pauper with a title.

Not only was he jobless and broke, he was once again hounded by his former creditors. The couple made a trip to Vienna in February, where Felix was arrested released only on payment of $2,500 to bill collectors. But Agnes's stay in Vienna was somewhat more profitable. After her visit to Maximilian's mother, the Archduchess Sophie, the Emperor of Austria granted Agnes an annuity of $ 1,200 each year for life in gratitude for her efforts to save Maximilian.

1868 was a financially worrisome year for Felix and Agnes but by November, their situation was beginning to improve. Felix's brother Alfred, the ruling prince, agreed to settle with Felix's creditors; with Agnes's help, Felix wrote his account of the Mexican disaster, My Diary In Mexico, and the couple found themselves sought after by society. Felix was appointed a major in the Prussian Fourth Regiment, and the young couple moved to regiment headquarters at Cob-lentz, where they hobnobbed with emperors, queens, archdukes, generals, cabinet ministers and the like. Life became a series of dinners, parties and balls.

But by early 1870, Agnes found herself frequently despondent. She was constantly nagged by "the little bills" incurred by Felix in his attempt to keep up the royal life-style. "I was as sad as could be when alone, a feeling of dread always hanging over me like a thundercloud ... I was treated as an equal by persons to whom thousands of thalers were as insignificant as were to me so many gros-chens, and heaven knows what trouble I had to keep up appearances, when even the expenses for my gloves were more than I could afford."

Another problem was her seeming inability to conceive a child. After fruitless consultations with specialists, she gave up on the idea of motherhood and spent most of the spring in Bonn, studying to become a surgical assistant. On June 6, the Salms were invited to a christening at Coblentz, and Agnes's feeling of dread was intensified at dinner when she noted that there were 13 at the table.

On July 19,1870, France declared war on Prussia. On July 26, at half-past five in the morning, Salm's regiment departed for the French frontier. "Suddenly was revealed to me the meaning of that dread which had hovered around me since the commencement of the year ... When clasping my brave Felix for the last time in my arms, it was like a leave-taking on a deathbed."

After Felix had gone, Agnes set about organizing her own medical career. "If I had intended to go only as a simple nurse to the war, I might have done so now; but that was not my intention. I wanted to be in a position to do more and to be officially attached to the staff of the army like an officer. Everybody to whom I spoke about it shrugged his shoulders and declared such a thing to be impossible."

The word "impossible" was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Following her prime rule (always ask your favors directly from the highest authority) Agnes went to General von Steinmetz, Commander-in-chief of the First Prussian Army, who had been described to her as "an extremely strict and rough man, of whom everybody was afraid." He turned out to be a kind little man with snow-white hah- and large blue eyes, who'listened to the request, which she gave in "the most wonderfully broken German." Permission, along with a horse, was granted, and she set out with the surgeon-general, Dr. Busch, for the French frontier. The days went by quickly from morning to evening, she dressed wounds, used her authority to get food for the starving French prisoners, organized supplies, assisted in surgery and comforted the dying.

On August 21, she learned that Felix had been killed in action at Gravelotte on August 18. "All I can say is that I wished to be dead also, for I felt utterly alone and forsaken, and life a burden. I had however, to fulfill a sacred duty, a promise made long ago in America, and repeated solemnly when my husband left me... that I should bring his body to Anholt, and have it buried at the side of his father and mother."

And so she set out, ordering a zinc coffin en route, and arriving at Gravelotte on August 28, soon finding the grave in which Felix had been buried in a plain wooden box. "When the men had laid the coffin bare, I insisted on the removal of its lid ... I wished to look once more on the face of my dear, beloved husband, believing myself stronger than I was. When the men complied with my request, and I saw instead of the dear face only a black mass, my strength failed me and I fainted."

The last token of love she received from Felix was a postcard, written immediately before the battle of Gravelotte:

In one hour we begin the great battle. With God we will be united; butif I should be killed, darling, beloved Agnes, I beg your pardon for every trouble I have ever made you, and that I always have loved you, and that I take this only love with me in my grave. My brother will take care of you. Keep me in your kind remembrance. From all my soul, Your true and loving husband, Felix

After the funeral, Agnes continued her nursing work, completely reorganizing several military hospitals from the kitchen up, and using her influence to secure provisions. At her best under crisis conditions, she cheerfully chronicled her adventures sleeping in lofts, eating a delicious roast which turned out to be cat, and performing amputations while French shells burst over emergency operating rooms. On one occasion, after a rigorous day of surgery, "the amputation table was superficially wiped with straw; and sitting and standing around it, we enjoyed our chocolate and English biscuits, whilst in the next room were 16 dead and dying, and in the corner of our room a heap of cut-off arms and legs."

In January of 1871, she came down with smallpox, but with her usual healthy resistance, pulled through quickly and was left with only three small marks on her face. The war ended on January 28, 1871, and army commander General Von Manteuffel requested that the king of Prussia (who had just been proclaimed German emperor at Versailles) award Agnes with the order of the Iron Cross but he was informed that this award could be given only to men.

After the war, Agnes returned to Cob-lentz and to tradesmen clamoring for money owed to them by Felix. But her only income was her pension from the Emperor of Austria, and the small pension given to war widows. A visit to Edward Oppenheim, Cologne's leading banker... an audience with the German emperor... and loans were given to help her pay off her debts.

Fatigued and drained by her wartime experiences, her hair prematurely grey, Agnes seriously considered becoming a nun. Following her usual motto, "see the man at the top," in 1872 she met with the Pope, who gently said that he did not think she had a vocation, and advised her to think over her decision for a year. "He read my character, for indeed I changed my mind, and before the year had passed I did not think any more of burying myself in a nunnery."

She rented a small house in Bonn, and in 1875 her autobiography was published. In 1876, at Stuttgart, Germany, "before a brilliant assembly" (according to the London Times), she was married to Charles Heneage, the 36-year-old secretary of the British legation at Berlin.

The marriage did not last. According to some family sources, Heneage became mentally ill and Agnes was forced to have him committed. Because plain "Mrs. Heneage" didn't have the clout of "Her Serene Highness the Princess zu Salm-Salm," she resumed her former name and title.

She died in Karlsruhe, Germany, on December 12,1912, nearly half a century after the death of her beloved Felix. At the time of her death, her nephew Felix Salm-Salm Johnson, was U.S. consul at Kingston, Ont. He issued a statement pf the princess's last wish: that her body should be cremated, and her ashes buried at Philipsburg. But in searching the hillside cemetery just outside Philipsburg, I found only the graves of her father, mother and sister Jane. In all probability, she was buried in Europe one of the few instances in which Agnes Salm-Salm did not get her own way.