Word: empresse
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Wrote Pegler: "The Empress Eleanor recently made a sentimental journey to the Deep South, and [it] prompted her to prattle discreetly about her fine old aristocratic Southern background. 'My grandmother was a Bulloch from Georgia,' she wrote . . . Nowhere [did she name] that fine old Southern aristocrat who was the father of the Bulloch belle who married the first T.R. . . . The reason . . . might be that his name was Rufus Bulloch, sometimes spelled Bullock, one of the foulest rascals of a day when rascality was truly in flower; a thief, embezzler, grafter, a veritable Quisling, and ... a scalawag...
Caught up, Pegler retracted his error with a sleight-of-hand pass designed to be quicker than readers' eyes. ("Only recently [I] caught myself in the mistaken belief that Rufus Bullock . . . was the great-grandfather of the Empress Eleanor.") In doing so, he pulled another mudball out of his hat. Demanded Pegler, with the air of a man getting to the heart of the matter: "But who, then, was Rufus the rogue? What...
...with Japan's new democracy-or at least in compromise with it. Instead of arranging his second daughter's marriage through a go-between in the time-honored way, he sent his frock-coated vice chief chamberlain directly to the bridegroom-elect. "Their Majesties, the Emperor and Empress," hissed the imperial emissary, bowing low, "would like to have their daughter married to Honorable Takatsukasa. What are his feelings on the subject?" "I accept," said 26-year-old Toshimichi Takatsukasa, a $20-a-month clerk in the Traffic Museum, bowing equally...
...marriage." Pretty, 20-year-old Princess Kazuko had begun preparing for marriage two years ago by learning to cook, sew and sweep floors in the home of one of the Emperor's former chamberlains (see cut). The imperial family soon afterward settled on bespectacled Takatsukasa, cousin of the Empress Dowager, as a likely husband, provided both youngsters were willing...
...Thus ignoring nine other Michaels among his putative imperial ancestors, including Michael III (the Drunkard) and Michael IV (the Tickler). Michael IV was valet to the Emperor Romanus, who used to call Michael in to tickle the soles of his feet. Romanus' wife, the Empress Zoe, fell in love with Michael, poisoned Romanus, married tickling Michael and made him Emperor, while Michael's brother, John the Eunuch, ran the country as premier. Michael got sick, locked himself in a room and died refusing to see the lovelorn Zoe. John the Eunuch went on running the country...