PAR@ ` ≤TEXT ` σSalm-Salm, Agnes Elisabeth Winona Leclercq Joy, Princess1840╨1912war relief workerBorn on December 25, 1840, probably in Franklin County, Vermont (but possibly in Philipsburg, Quebec, or, according to some sources, in Baltimore), Agnes Joy is said to have been an actress and perhaps a circus performer in early life. Whatever the case, by 1862 she had established herself under the name Agnes Leclercq in Washington, D.C., where in August of that year she married Felix Constantin Alexander Johann Nepomuk, Prince Salm-Salm, a German soldier of fortune. Three months later, in part perhaps owing to his wife╒s exertions on his behalf, he was given command of the 8th New York Infantry. By the end of the Civil War he was military governor of Atlanta and a brevet brigadier general, and she had become well known in camps and hospitals, where she did much to care for the sick and wounded. In February 1866 he offered his services to Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. Princess Salm-Salm accompanied him there and became a trusted member of the court of Maximilian and Carlota. When Maximilian and his staff were captured in the betrayal of QuerÄtaro in May 1867, she rode to San Luis PotosÆ to plead with President Juçrez for the emperor╒s release. That failing, she attempted to bribe the emperor╒s keeper, again to no avail. (Her appeal to Juçrez was later the subject of a well known painting by Manuel Ocaranza.) Before his execution in June 1867 Maximilian decorated her with the Grand Cordon of the Order of San Carlos. The prince and princess then made their way to Prussia, where the prince joined the Prussian Guard. On his death in battle in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 his widow once again took up army relief work. Her efforts earned her the thanks of numerous high officers and the Prussian Medal of Honor; she was also recommended for the Iron Cross, a decoration reserved, however, to men. The rest of her life was passed quietly in Bonn and Karlsruhe. In 1875 she published Zehn Jahre aus meinem Leben, which appeared the next year in the United States as Ten Years of My Life. She visited her homeland in 1899 and 1900, on the latter occasion soliciting relief funds for the Boers. She died in Karlsruhe, Germany, on December 21, 1912. ■styl ` ! ¬ 9 5¬ C 5¬ V !I ╖ 5¬ ╕ !I à 5¬ å !I ▄ !I ≈ !I . !I B !I link `
