Bellefonte, Pa., April 19, 190,
TO YOU.
A flight of birds across a wintry sky;
A ship which fades from sight against the
blue ;
A certain song, though one you never knew,
* Where Tostitells how lovers say good-by ;
Bome footstep passing in the silent street
And sounding fainter off into the night
Where I lie sleepless waiting for {he light;
Or sudden glimpse through city dust and heat
Of sunset tints where houses crowd across;
These things in which you had no conscious
part
Touch some twined cord which vibrates in my
heart, f
And rouse to yearning that numb sense of loss,
That homesick loneliness none can efface,
Since there is none on earth who takes your
place.
—A. P. Rex, in Harper's Bazar.
A NIGHT IN A DILIGENCE.
The diligence was in waiting at the door
of the hotel at Coir. A tall, slim, figure
appeared in the doorway, an up-lifted face
lightly framed in erratic tresses of brown-
gold hair, crowned by a sombre Tam-O-
Shanter traveling hat. The girl stood
confronting an iron gray world, built up of
mountains and storm clouds.
‘‘Really going to face the weather?”
said a voice from behind her, and a chilly-
looking lady came forward, rubbing her
hands in self-congratulation.
Elizabeth—that was the name in the’
copy of Browning in her bag—thought of
the number of the guineas in her purse,
and of her promise to the Princess Pompil-
ia to arrive at the Palazzo Pompiliani at a
certain moment.
“I am really going,” she said. ‘‘A
storm on the Alps will he rather glor-
ious.”’
She got into the diligence and put her
face out to smile good-by. Strong brows,
an intelligent, inquisitive line of slender
nose, and a mouth with elastic curves sug-
gested that this must have heen a very
piquant face before the shadow of those, or
other storm clouds fell on it.
One good thing gained to her hy the
weather was that she had the diligence all
to herself. Her first impression after she
had planted her bag under her feet and set-
tled herself in a corner was that she ought
to sieze the opportunity afforded her for a
“good cry.” However, she reflected that
strength was to be in the future her only
reliable friend. Now that she was putting
these hard, gray mountains hetween her
and the past, scarcely one look back could
be safely adventured. Yet there was a
glance with shaded eyes. Only yesterday
she was a queen in her own world, queen
of her father’s heart and home. Now she
was suddenly dethroned and bankrupt, her
girlhood crushed under the ruins of her
father’s fortunes and the tragedy of his
death. She knew that like things had hap-
pened before in the world she had lived in.
She remembered individually such a case.
Her regret for the sorrow of those people
had hung about her the length of a morn-
ing, but she had danced with a spirit at a
ball the same night. What, she wondered,
had become of that So-and-So girl 2 Prob-
ably she, too had gone out to be English
governess to the daughter of some other
Princess of the Pompilianis.
Elizabeth opened her bag and rummaged
for a magazine, but it was the Browning
that came to her hand. It was not merely
as Browning that she was taking the book
across the Alps with her ; yet she would
hardly have acknowledged that it was for
the hand-writing of the word Elizabeth in
the front page corner. She held the hook
close, though she did not open it, and her
desire for the magazine appeared forgot-
ten.
Night came down early, the weather dark-
ness hastening its fall. At a point in the
road a long whistle signaled the driver of
the diligence, who thereupon came to a
stop. A man opened the door of the ve-
hicle, made a step to get in, but drew back
again.
‘Only one lady ?”’ he said, in English.
‘‘Then I shall not intrude. Ishall do very
well outside, driver.”’
Elizabeth felt guilty, though relieved.
As the vehicle swung on and she lay back
in her corner,she was disturbed by an echo,
something in the ring of the voice that had
spoken at the door out of the darkness.
She had pushed the Browning away from
her. Now the storm came down in earn-
est, a dry, scattering wind, freezing as the
breath of icebergs ; it seemed to her that
at any moment coach and horses and
freight might ride off on the gale down the
precipice.
As the night wore on and the cold grew
more intense,she heard the outside traveler
coughing, the man who bad equal right
with herself to the shelter of an inside
seat. Was she going to be so selfish or so
prudish as to give over this fellow creat-
ure to suffering, perhaps danger, for the
gratification of her preference for privacy ?
She watched her opportunity and commun-
icated with the driver.
“Will you tell the gentleman,” she
said in German, ‘that the lady requests
him to come inside of the coach ?”’
A safe halting place was chosen, and the
outside passenger got into the comfortable
interior. He thanked the lady and retired
into an oppogite corner, and his few words
were spoken in German. There was no
mistake about the voice this time. What
had seemed a mere echo on the wind from
lier own brain had become a reality. The
impossible had come to pass. She smiled
a little pained smile in the impenetrable
darkness of her wrappings.
The man slept, but Elizabeth was wake-
ful. The storm was unabated. One or
two wild-looking stars looked through
rents in the masses of dark clouds.
Another hour passed. The man woke,
stirred, sat up and struck a match.
‘‘Excuse me,”" he said, “I want to see
what o’clock it is.”’
Taken by surprise, Elizabeth allowed her
open-eyed face to be revealed by the puny
flame, which also lit up for the moment
the clear-cut features of the fellow-traveler,
a resolute mouth and chin, thinking fore-
head, and calm gray eyes holding more la-
tent tenderness in their depths than do the
eyes of most women.
“Eliz—!"’
The ting phosphor-flash vanished ; the
two sat in the darkness as before, and the
mountains thundered.
Elizabeth passed in an instant through
an exercise which to a woman is something
like what the buckling on of armor must
be to a man.
‘Do you think the match was extin-
guished before it fell? A diligence on fire
in a storm in the Alps would make quite a
thrilling paragraph for the London morn-
ing papers.”
*‘I believe it is safe,’’ said the man, and
the slight shake in the voice that had
named her was gone from it. ‘How do
you do, Miss Whethered ?’’
‘‘Well, thank you. I am glad to see
you were not eaten by the savages.”’
“Those I have met with are rather above
the average of civilized persons.’
“I did not know. I have not read your
book.’ Eh ry ars
*‘Why should you? I hope youn are g
ing to make a pleasant stay in aly.» . i
*‘My destination is Rome-—the Palazzo
Pompiliani.” 2 ees
‘‘How interesting !
too, is well 2”
Elizabeth choked back a sob in the
darkness. :
“Well ? Yes, I trust he is well,”” she
muttered. o£
‘And the old place looking as sweet and
charming as ever I’.
Here the two minds, looking out of mut-
ual darkness, while the wind roared and
the diligence shook and swung above the
precipices, saw hoth the same scene. An
English garden in the flush of June, high
yew hedges with banks of brilliant flowers
heaped against them.
There was a girl in a white dress, in a
whiter heat of passion, and a man. who
had accused her of coquetry, standing a
little ways from her with quiet eyes and a
determined mouth. Manifestly it was a
lover’s quarrel, with the ending that is
usual when the love is only on one side
and the other belligerent has the advan-
tage of being without a heart. Each of the
And your father,
minds in the coach summed up the evidence
in this manner and arrived at an identical
conclusion.
“And your cousin who had just got his
jacket in the Horse Artillery?’ said the
man. ‘‘Has he worn the jacket much ?”’
‘Jim bas distinguished himself in Af-
rica,” said Elizabeth. ‘Not your part of
Africa,” she added, with a slightly wicked
‘touch of scorn which she knew to be un-
just. riby
) I understand, by the way, in my lon
absence, many changes among friends may
have taken place. I have perbaps blunder-
ed in addressing you hy your maiden
name.
*‘I have encumbered myself with no new
styles or titles. And you—for I am not a
reader of the papers (a fib, for had she not
read every review of his book !) you remind
me that it is probable you are no longer a
bachelor.’’
“Writing a book in Central Africa does
not run to wooing.’’
‘But your savages who are above the
average of the civilized ? You may never
meet with such another opportunity.’’
“I intend to return to that society. I
have only made a flying visit home to ar-
range with my publishers.’’
The travelers were clearly visible to each
other as the morning radiance penetrated
into the interior of the diligence. Each
stole a long and investigating look at the
opposite face and figure. The woman
found that the man. had grown bronzed
and older, and that his mouth had got
harder lines. The man saw the woman
like the pale and spiritualized sister of a
blooming girl who had plighted her troth
to him three or four yearsago. He noticed
that her dress was black, of that particular
degree of somberness which denotes the
deepest mourning.
*‘She had no one but a father,’ he
thought.
Bat just then the diligence came up with
a rush to the door of the hotel on the sum-
mit of the pass and stopped there.
‘Will you allow me to assist you to
alight, Miss Wethered 2 Will you give me
your hand 2’?
Elizabeth put out her hand—a long,
slim hand, every line of which he knew.
He took it, and held it as coldly as he was
able. They stood in open dawn, with car-
nation-tinted glaciers above their heads,
and the heavy green and purple draperies
of the huge pines loomed up out of the
abysses of the earth-shadows that stili hung
on the lower valleys.
‘You look cold and ill. Come in and
rest while I order your coffee. Put your
feet to thisstove. Let me take your heavy
bat. I see yon have no maid with you.
Bear with my clumsy attentions.’
They bad breakfast together, talking
carefully, as people will talk who are hoth
anxious to avoid a painful subject present
to both minds. The hour for the starting
of the diligence drew near.
The man looked at his watch. ‘‘Our
ways part here,”” We have half an hour
still. And now, Elizabeth, as we may
never meet again, will you tell me—you
who were so kind to a perishing fellow
traveler, thinking him a stranger—tell me
that you forgive me for writing yon that
abject letter.’
Elizabeth opened her ‘eyes wide and
gazed at him wonderingly.
“What abject letter ?’’
“The letter I wrote you the day after we
parted.’’
‘I never got a letter from you since that
evening.’’
‘‘You never got that letter ?’’
‘‘Never, assuredly. What—"’
She checked herself.
‘What did I say in it, Elizabeth? Only
that I loved you—that I was ashamed of
my jealous words, and prayed you to for-
give me. And you?”
“I thought the e,’”” murmured Eliza.
beth. © You went from me angry, and I
knew no more.”
The half hour was too shott to hold the
words that followed, but the fellow travel-
ers finished the journey together, and the
Princess Pompilia is in search of an Ea-
glish governess.—From Mainly About People.
Big Fund for Poor Students.
The will of Ella McPherson, widow of
Senator John R. McPherson, was filed for
probate in Jersey City on Tuesday. The
estate is valued at over $500,000. :
The will creates a trust fund in charge
of Aaron S. Baldwin, of Hoboken. Mrs.
McPherson’s only child, Mrs. Ella C.
Muir, is given the income of the estate
during her life. After the death of Mrs.
Muir and Mr. Baldwin provision is made
for the distribution of the estate as follows:
$10,000 to the Emergency hospital of Wash-
ington, D. C.; $50,000 to Christ’s hospital
and the residue to assist poor and indigent
students at Yale university. The will was
signed the day before Mrs. McPherson’s
death.
——Says a writer : Heredity is a mean
refuge. A man who is old enough and
sane enough to realize the consequences of
his deeds, and to be responsible for them,
ought to take the blame of his misde-
meanors. To say that he inherits a crav-
ing for alcohol or vice, and therefore must
indulge in it, is a babyish way of shifting
a respongibility. He who does evil deliber-
ately and intentionally does it by his own
will, and not by his ancestors.’”” That it
may he more difficult for him to overcome
certain tendencies because of heredity may
be admitted without conceding the point
that one is under greater obligation to
strive to overcome them. He who pleads
his faulty up-bringing as a reason for con-
tinuing complacently in his faults, has yet
to learn what manhood means and manli-
ness strives fer.
wonderful calm. And yet heis not the de-
The Aged Pontiff,
Private Life of Pope Leo XIII, and His Simple Daily
Existence. Po Fores
The aged, pontiff who dwells in the great
vatican at Rome, and who rules the great-
est sect in the world, is nearing the goal
where the reaper awaits him—an end Leo
awaits with Christian fortitude and
crepit individual his great age—91 years—
would indicate. Neither his public life
nor his home life would suggest that he
stood so near the brink of the grave, for
even at the best he cannot expect to live
long. The public life all the world knows
—his profound knowledge, his blameless
life, his Christian democracy. Not so with
the life he leads hidden away from all but
the college of cardinals, from his physicians
and his body attendants. It is as a private
individual that the pope is perhaps more
interesting than as a great prelate.
As the latter, he stands in the light of a
principle—the religious and moral guide of
millions. = As the former, he is an humble
man, whose perfect life has won for him
the respect of all the world, irrespective of
belief or creed. As the mere individual he
is watched over, nursed and cared for with
a vigilance far greater than that extended
to the head of a royal house.
As every one knows, the pope makes his
home in the famous vatican a magnificent
palace in Rome, surrounded by superb
gardens. Since his accession to the papacy,
Leo XIII. has not left the confines of the
vatican gardens because of the conflict be-
tween the church of Rome and the Italian
government over the question of temporal
power. ‘So great is the vatican, however,
20 magnificent its appointments and art
treasures, that so patient and philosophic a
man as Leo XIII. does not feel the restraint
that would seem irksome to most other be-
ings.
And yet, despite the hundreds of rooms
and salons and immense halls, the pope
uses only three small apartments for him-
self, and one of these is the private chapel
in which he celebrates mass every morning,
as the church Jaws demanded. The most
interesting of these rooms is the one in
which he sleeps and works, a small narrow
room, comparatively plainly farnished. In
one corner stands a low bed of magnificent
mahogany, embellished with solid gold and
bearing on the foot-piece the inscription in
gold, ‘Leo XIIL.”
Above the head of the bed hangs a small
oil painting of the Virgin, and Child, by
one of the old masters. To the side of the
bed within reach stands a low chiffonier,
having no ornamentation whatever. This
serves the double purpose of writing desk
and medicine chest. To one side of the
bed is a settee of red velvet, and at the foot
stands an easy chair. That completes the
entire furnishing of the room.
The other rooms are a dining room, also
simply furnished, with a semi-alcove ad-
joining, which is used as a reception room
for the cardinals and favored visitors. Be-
yond is the private chapel, the mural
decorations of which are famed for their
exquisite beauty. The floor is of onyx
and gold abounds. The altar of solid gold
is magnificen$ in the extreme.
In these few rooms the pope lives, save
when in the gardens of the vatican or when
saying pontifical high mass in St. Peter's.
He rises between 6 and 8 o'clock in the
morning, is dressed and goes to breakfast,
consisting of coffee and wheat bread. The
simple meal over, he goes to his desk and
attends to such business as may be pre-
sented to him by the cardinal camerlengo—
the real secretary of the church, and the
prelate nearest to the pope. At about 11
o'clock he takes a cup of bullion in which
araw egg has heen beaten. Then more
work is done until 2 o’clock, when dinner
is served.
This meal cousists of soup, meat, vege-
tables, and fruit, neither sweets nor pastries
of any kind being permitted on the papal
table. The dinner lasts until 3 o'clock,
when the pope rises and passes through the
various corridors and rooms of the vatican,
where he greets the prelates and blesses
those who seek his benediction. At the
door he enters a sedan chair, in which he
is carried by liveried servants to the park
itself, where he is transferred into a car-
riage, which takes him some distance away
to the spot where the ramble begins. The
pope is usnally dressed in a red cloak and
ared pontificial hat, and is accompanied
by some prelates or by his nephew. Couns
Pecei, and a body guard of his Swiss sol-
diers. In summer Leo takes his walks in
the early mornings to avoid the great heat
and works in the evenings.
Returned from his walk the pope takes a
glass of Bordeaux wine and a cracker, at-
tends to more work, or indulges in his fa-
vorite pastime of versifying, and then pre-
pares for bed. Once in his couch the pope
is watched over until he awakens in the
morning. In the wall opppoite the bed is
a hole, throagh which every movement of
the aged pontiff can be seen. His every
breath is noted—his every move anticipated.
As often happens, Leo awakens during
the night and rises to work, for his brain
is unceasingly active. At those times the
watchers, his body servant and physician,
keep their respective eyes at the peephole
to see that his holiness does not tire him-
self. In that manner he is somewhat con-
strained, hut even he acknowledges that
he is careless at times and needs a restrain-
ing hand.
In fact, there is a sort of jolly warfare
between him and his physic'an, Dr. Lap-
poni, to whom he has to report himself
every day, whether he wills it. or no. The
doctor asserts his authority, however, and
like a good patient Leo submits and laugh-
‘ingly vows that he will outlive all his doc-
tors, despite their pills and drugs.
Besides these faithful watchers there is
another, of whom the world knows even
less. He stands until relieved, at the
piazza rusticucci, near St. Peter's, and
watches a window in the vatican. Winter
and sumer it has been open (since 1878)
in the daytime and lit by a lamp by night.
That denotes, he knows, that Leo XIII.
lives. But let that window be closed or
dark and the caribinier will know at once
that the soul of the pontiff has gone to that
bourne from which no traveler—e’er re-
turns.
Aside from these phrases of the pope’s
private life and the fact that he was 91
years of age on the 2nd of March, some in-
cidents of his early life, before he became
even a priest, are of much interest. To
begin, he was born in 1810 at Carpiento,
Italy, and christened Vincentio. This
name he bore until he was graduated as a
doctor of laws, when he took the name of
Joachim (Pecei.) Long before this time,
however, he had become famous through-
out Italy for his brilliant proficiency in
Latin and mathematics. The pope, at-
tracted by the young man’s abilities, used
his influence to obtain the finest teachers
for him. At 28 the future pope became
civil governor of the province of Benevant,
which was at that time infested with mur-
derons robber bands. From the first he
ruled with energy and firmness and in a
few months had cleared the province of the
Vn ol
| dained a priest, and three years after was
malefactors. Five years later he was or-
made apostolic delegate to the province of
Perngia. Shortly after he was made arch-
bishop, and in 1853, at the age of 43, he be-
came a cardinal.
The most important event in Cardinal
Pecci’s life took place February 7, 1878.
At that time Pius IX. ruled the church and
Pecei acted as cardinal camerle At 3
o'clock in the morning of that day Pios,
who had been ill for some time, called car-
dinals about and asked for a confessor. A
bumble Augustine monk, dressed in som-
ber black, was called in and shrived the
dying pontiff. Two hours later Pius was
dead
At 7 o'clock in the morning the cardinal
camerlengo entered the papal bedchamber
and removed the white veil hiding the face
of the dead pope.
‘Giovanni Mantai! Giovanni Mantai,
speak !’’ called Cardinal Pecei to the dead
figure. No answer came from the cold lips
and the cardinal tapped thrice upon the
forehead of the former pope with a silver
mallet and pronounced him dead. Then he
drew from his finger the fisher ring, sym-
holic of the Apostle Peter.
Six days later Cardinal Camerlengo Pec-
ci was elected pope, and on March 3, when
68 years of age, he was crowned with great
pomp and splendor at St. Peter's.
A Hostile Religion.
Christian Science At Odds With Christianity and
Common Sense.
Dr. J. M. Buckley, the editor of the
Christian Advocate, did a most valuable
service to sound action and clear thought
by insisting that the Methodist Episcopal
‘conference in session in Brooklyn in dis-
missing a clergyman who had adopted
Christian Science should use no language
which implied that Christianity could treat
Christian Science as a part of the great fam-
ily to which itself belonged.
‘Christian Science’ is, as Dr. Buckley
aid, ‘a hostile religion. Many people,
with sincere hearts and hazy heads, think
differently and try to persuade themselves
and to persuade others that: Christian
Science and Christianity are twin branches
of the same stem. They are mutually ir-
reconcilable. They represent diametrically
opposite views, theories, principle and
practice on all the greater issues of life and
of death. If one is right the other is
wrong, and either men or women, clergy-
men or laymen, who think a compromise
is possible at this point imagine a vain
thing.
So do those who think that through some
misty talk about spirit influence, inner
knowledge, continuous illumination or im-
mineunt forces, it is possible to bring science
and “‘Christian Science,’’ scientific medi-
cine and ‘‘faith healing,” into harmony.
If the premises of the one are accepted the
premises of the other are false. If one is
true the other is left without hase, founda-
tion or support.
Those who believe in Christian Science
bave the right, common to all, of holding
any faith, without molestation, which does
not break the laws. among which is the
statute forbidding medical practice by an
unlicensed practitioner. They are free to
hold their services and make their converts.
Bat it is also true thatso far as both Chris-
tianity and science are concerned ‘‘Chris-
tian Science’’ is a “hostile religion.” If
Christian Science be true, both are false
and based on a delusion and a snare, as is
indeed pretty much everthing else on which
sound thinking rests and which the long
experience of the race, summed in modern
civilization, teaches. To mistake this is to
surrender to that cloudland of unexact
thought and unstable intellection which in
all ages has led first to mental delusion and
later to moral disaster.— Philadelphia Press.
Rabbit Is An Outlaw.
Governor Signs the Bill for Shooting Him at All Sea-
sons.
‘‘Bre’r Rabbit’’ has been officially declar-
ed an outlaw.
Governor Stone signed the bill making it
lawful ‘for the owner or lessee of any
premises which are epclosed, within this
Commonwealth, to kill on said premises
at any and all seasons of the year, for their
own protection, but not for sale.”’
Under this act the rabbit is virtually
shorn of all the protection of laws, for it is
admitted that, while the statute against
killing out of season still applies: to non-
owners of the property on which the ani-
mal is killed, the manifest difficulties in
the way of proving non-ownership of the
place of the killing practically open the
way to indiscriminate rabbit hunting, re-
gardless of seasons.
The bill was introduced by Representa-
tive Morrison, of Mercer, aid had the sup-
port of a large majority of the members
from farming districts. Its preamble tells
its story as follows :
“The protection given to rabbits by the
various acts of Assembly of this Common-
wealth, prohibiting the killing of the same
except during short seasons of the year,
had so increased their number that they
bave become a nuisance to farmers and
others engaged in the raising of fruits and
vegetables.”’
Bre’s
Doctors Plerced His Heart.
It Was Four Inches Larger Than Normal and They
Cut it In Operating For Dropsy.
Frank Seiler, whose heart extended four
inches ‘beyond the space occupied by the
normal heart, caused consternation on Sat-
urday among the surgeons at the city hos-
pital at San Francisco. Seiler went to the
hospital to be treated for pains in the chest.
There being evidences of dropsy. it was de-
cided to tap him. The needle was driven
in at a point four inches from the place
ordinarily occupied by the heart. Instead
of dropysical fluid the needle caused a flow
of blood.” The patient collapsed and in a
short time died on the operating table.
An autopsy revealed the fact that the
heart was badly affected, heing several
times larger than normal, and that the
needle had pierced the right ventricle. As
the surgeons could detect no heart tones
before they began the operation, no precau-
tion would have prevented the accident.
The man had dropsy. The autopsy show-
ed that, but the-fluid was not where it
should have been.
——Last week a giant red oak which had
stood as a great sentinel in the lumber
forests of Knox township, Clearfield county,
and which has been admired by hundreds,
was felled on the job of Samuel Mountain
and Clarence Witherow recently. It meas-
ured seven and one half feet across the
stump and cut five logs which scaled 7,109
feet. Thus one by one, says the Public
Spirit, these old forest land marks are van-
ishing and very shortly the last raft will go
down the Susquehanna.
——The incident is closed,
With credit to them both ;
For Funston he took Aggie,
And Aggie took the oath.
—Chicago Tribune,
Napoleon's Birthplace.
One of the Sights of Ajaccio Corsica. Tales of the
Bonapartes. Letitia, the Peasant Mother of Kings,
and Her Husband, the Impoverished Notary—The
Boy Nicknamed “Straw Nose.”
Aside from its natami beauties, the se-
quested iSland sapital innot rich in ‘points
of interest,’’ its one attraction being the
boyhood home of the greatest man of mod-
ern times. The guide book says it is the
Rue San Cario, Place de Letitia; and on
seeking the locality you are surprised to
find a dirty alley, barely eight feet wide,
faced by a square about the size of a hed
blanket, but brilliant with flowers. The
celebrated house is in no way distingunish-
ed from its neighbors of equally nnpreposs-
essing exterior, except by a marble tablet
above its closed door, inscribed in weather
dimmed letters ‘‘Casa de Bonapart.” Yet
it was evidently oue of the best houses of
its day in Corsica—a four storied, plain
fronted structure, stuccoed yellowish gray,
with tiled flat roof topped by a square ob-
servatory, and many windows shaded by
the everlasting gray Ajaccio. Both square
and street are entirely deserted, and your
knocks upon the heavily timbered door
bring no response, until at last a female
voice behind the shutters of an adjacent
house informs you that the concierge lives
in the cottage at the end of the “Place.”
Thither yon hie, with the result that the
Bonapart door is finally unlocked by adila-
tory old woman of voluble tongue, whose
strange patois of mingled French, Spanish
and Italian renders the information she
pours forth well nigh null and void.
As in all the older housesol the Latin
world, there is little to be seen on the first
floor of the historic home—even the kitch-
en being on the second. A short flight of
stone stairs goes straight up from the front
entrance, without the preliminary of lobby
or hall. Under the stairs are closed doors,
suggesting offices. The house runs back a
long way, and all this ground space once
answered the manifold purpose of stable,
barnyard and woodshed, sheltering the
family cow, horse, pigs and fowls, accord-
ing to universal Corsican custom. Beneath
this ground floor—so says the concierge—are
extensive wine vaults and storage cellars,
having side doors opening into the streets
that surround the place on three sides.
Like a flash, a long forgotten incident of
history recurs to your mind—how the
young officer Napoleon, whohad not yet
won his spurs, escaped this way after his
quarrel with the patriot General Paoli.
The latter sent to arrest him as a traitor to
the Corsican cause. By a trap door in the
floor of his room the future Emperor de-
scended to the wine vaults, and thence
made his way to a vessel lying in port—al-
ready hoisting her sails. Had he been tak-
en he would surely have heen shot, and the
history of Europe for the next quarter cen-
tury would have made very different read-
ing from that of today.
AN EXACT RESTORATION.
Following the guide up the stairs—your
hand on the sae rusty iron rail which the
hands of all the Bonaparts have pressed,
and your feet in hollows of the stones which
their feet have worn—you come to a broad
landing at thesecond floor. On either side
are slightly ornamented, double folding
doors, and, looking up, you ohserve the
same arrangement at the third and fourth
floors, of shallow steps doubling back upon
themselves to landings. After much fumb-
ling with her keys—nowadays seldom used
the woman throws open the right hand
door, and you enter a great square drawing
room. There is but one window, and that
is curtainless. Dingy tapestry adorns the
walls, on which ate several mirrors and
small pictures in frathes of tarnished gilt.
The floor is inlaid with hexagonal red flags,
in the Corsican fashion. In the centre,un-
der a crystal chandelier, stands a table of
dark wood, with white marble top that
looks like a tombstone, and around the
four sides of the room, ranged in straight
rows, as for a funeral, are at least twenty
chairs and two bigh backed sofas, all up-
holstered in faded green silk brocade, and
with slender claw footed legs. Nothing
here looks the least bit homelike—though
said to have been restored to precisely its
former state by the ex-empress Eugenie,
who owns the house, it having heen willed
to her by Napoleon IIL.
OFFICE OF NAPOLEON'S FATHER.
Adjoining this is the study. or private of-
fice, of Napoleon's father, M. Cario-Maria
Bonaparte, who, as you know, was a solici-
tor, without much practice and proud as
he was poor. If this was his furniture he
must bave been rather extravagant for an
impecunious notary. Even the dressing
case is a gem, ‘‘of purest ray serene,” It
is very large and elaborate, made of choic-
est inlaid woods, all the borders and pig-
eon holes jeweled with elegant little pla-
ques of lapis lazuli and other costly stones.
How one yearns to run away with that
bureau, whose counterpart, aside from his-
toric associations, probably does not exist !
The several mirrors (how fond those Bona-
partes must have been of looking at them-
selves, for there are at least one hundred in
the house) are in delicate frames of lace-
work filigree, the gilding long since dark-
ened like the fortunes of the family. The
exquisitely carved mantlepiece of white
marble represents Venus and Cupid at play;
and the floor is tiled, like the terrace out-
side, upon one end of which the long win-
dow opens.
This terrace, by the way, is an important
feature of the place. It runs back at right
angles to the study, along the whole length
of the house, serving as an outdoor means
of communication with all the rooms on
that side. No doubt it was a safe and fa-
vorite playground for all the little Bona-
partes, being screened off to the height of
six feet by a trellis overgrown with green-
ery. It is still a charming place; compared
to the gloom inside, though overlooked by
the backs of tall, dilapidated old cases, on
whose rotting balconies long lines of many-
hued “‘washings’’ hung out to dry flap pic-
turesquely in the breeze.
WHERE NAPOLEON WAS BORN.
The third room is merely a passage be-
tween the sleeping apartments of papa and
mamma Bonaparte; but, strange to say, it
is most interesting of all, because right
here the great Napoleon was born. History
tells us that Madame Letitia was unex-
pectedly taken ill while attending mass in
the Cathedral. Her sedan chair was quick-
ly called, and she was hurried home; but
so rapid was the march of events that it
was impossible to carry her beyond the
spindle-legged sofa in this passageway.
The ‘“Man of Destiny’’ seems to have heen
master of the situation, even at his advent
into the world. Besides the historical
couch, whose severe outlines must have
made it extremely uncomfortable, there is
little else in the tiny room, except the
wreck of a sedan chair, once resplendent
with gilding and carving and lining of
crimson plush—the same in which Madame
Bonaparte made her hasty journey from
church on that eventful day. On a corner
table, in a safe angle of the wall, is a large
and carious carving in ivory, which the
care-taker says Napoleon sent from Egypt
to his mother. It oddly represents the
Nativity—Joseph and Mary seated oti'alto-
gether too modern chairs in a parlor, gaz-
ing enraptured upon the Babe in a fine
cradle, while outside and peering through
the windows are the shepherds, just ar-
rived and carrying satchels on their shoul-
ders. ‘‘Butcher Napoleon’’ must have had
a sense of humor in him, after all! On the
mantelpiece is a marble bust of Eugenie’s
beloved son. There are several pictures
and buste of him scattered through the
house, representing the various stages of
his short career. The jealous care with
which “this mother of many sorrows has
sought in every way to link the memory
of her dead with that of his more illustrious
predecessor has in it an element of the
pitifal.
Letitia’s room, with its once gravely-
flowered but now dim and ghost-like paper,
its scones and many mirrors in frames of
faded gilt, contains little but a dilapidated
spinning-wheel (relic of her peasant days)
and the framework of a bed. The latter is
painted in stone-gray monochrome, but in
tinies long gone by it was doubtless gay
with color and gilding, for the curves and
beading of the head and footboards
testify that it was the expensive style of
bed known as “Un lit Pompadour.”’
Several other apartments are shown.
The fact that Carlo Bonaparte oc-
cupied so large a mansion, with the
luxury of a hall room attached, seems to
indicate a social prominence which refutes
the stories of his extreme poverty and the
slanders concerning the character of his
wife. The oft-repeated statement that
‘‘Napolean was the son of a base-born
pauper and brought up at a charity school,’’
and the wickeder insinuation that his fath-
er was not Letitia’s husband were probably
instigated by the Bourhonist enemy.
‘Though money was so scarce in those days
that the boy Napoleon was ridiculed by his
schoolmates as a ‘‘mezza calzetta’> (one
without garters), and doubtless Mother
Bonaparte found it difficult to provide even
shoes and stockings for so many little feet
—the feet which were afterward to climb
the steps of thrones—we learn in Corsica
that besides bis unluerative profession,
Carlo Bonaparte was also a considerable
landed proprietor and wine grower. At
any rate, the family made good their claim
to rank as nobles, and about the year 1760
the Superior Council of the island confirm-
ed the claim, declaring Napoleon’s father
and brother to be “nobles of a nobility ex-
tending over two hundred years.”
How the handsome Letitia must have
queened in that ball room ! It has no fewer
than 16 mirrors—a very large one at either
end, the rest being long and narrow panels
set between the windows. Instead of the
usual red tiles, its floor is a kind of primi-
tive parquet, smooth enough yet for dane-
ing, and its windows open to the ground,
allowing free access to the terrace.
We purposely left to the last the room
which Napoleon occupied when a boy.
There are no mirrors there—only a tiny
dressing glass above a rickety bureau. It
shows the soldier’s instinct, and might he
in a barrack for the luxury displayed.
There is the shell of a plain bedstead and
two or three chairs, a shabby writing desk
and a little cupboard in the wall, where his
school books were kept. In the small fire
place stands the same old andirons, and he-
side it is a card table, with checker board
attachment, where perhaps he practiced
with ivory pawns the moves he afterwards
made with the kings and queens of Europe.
The fact that to him alone, of all the eleven
children, was given a room on the parlor
floor is proof that he early assumed the
direction of the family. His father died at
the age of 39, and Letitia had only her sons
to depend upon. It is recorded that Cardi-
nal Fesch, uncle of the Bonaparte boys,
said to the jealous Joseph : ‘‘Yes, vou are
the oldest; but remember, Napoleon is its
head.”’
What of the family life that once went
on there? These moldy walls tell few tales
—but no doubt the afterward illustrious
family bad its joys and sorrows, its petty
quarrels, its loves and hopes, just like oth-
er folk. Fancy sees the well born young
bridegroom, only 18, bringing home his
beautiful child bride of 14 years—Letitia
Ramoline, of peasant birth, hut of fortune
much superior to his own. How little they
though that they were destined to become
the parents of a race of princes, who should
practically rule the whole of Europe—that
fame was going to shower imperial crowns
upon that humble roof! There is not a
tale in the Thousand and One of the Ara-
bian Nights which compares with the his-
tory of this family—the poor little notary
in his struggles to make ends meet, and his
eternal but always unsuccessful lawsuits
against the Jesuits of Ajaccio, until he
went to his rest before middle age; the
Juno-like Letitia, who remained a peasant
to the last day of her long life—bardy, un-
sentimental, frugal and not always scrupu-
lous. She was a woman of heroic mold,
unmoved in prosperity and undaunted in
adversity. Napoleon strongly resembled
his mother in childhood, and to her he
owed his tremendous physical endurance.
Such a number of children as came to this
home!
" The two eldest, a boy and a girl, died in
infancy. Then came ‘Joseph, baptized in
the little Corsican church as Nabulione ;
then (in 1769) Napoleon, or rather Napo-
lione, as the church record shows. Nine
others followed in quick succession, six of
whom lived to share their brother’s great-
ness ; and at 86 the honored mother was
still in possession of all her faculties.
The girls are said to bave been rather
wild and careless, like their neighbors in
the half barbarous island town ; but they
turned out pretty well after all. Caroline
became Queen of Naples ; Pauline, a Prin-
cess of Italy ; and Eliza, the worst of the
lot, a no less illustrious princess of the
same country. As to the boys—Joseph
was King of Spain ; Louis, King of Hol-
land ; Jerome, King of Westphalia ; and
Napoleon, greatest of all—whom his school-
mates nicknamed ‘‘Straw Nose’ and ridi-
culed because his stockings were always
down over his shoes, when he was able to
wear stockings at all—well everybody
knows what happened to Lim.
FAx~Nie B. WARD.
Philadelphia Record.
Left $10,000 for a Dog.
Miss Ellen A. Griffin, who years ago was
prominent socially, died on Friday morn-
ing in a plainly furnished room at No. 47
East Eleventh street, New York. Curled at
the foot of the bed upon which she lay was
a little black an? tan dog. Dandy Jim,
which, with the canary swinging in the
cage near the window, had been her only
Spipanion for many years.
Althougn Miss Griffin was reputed to be
worth $150,000 when she died, for years
she had been a recluse. A few days before
Miss Griffin died she drew her will. In it
was a bequest of $10,000 which she gave to
Mary MoGivney, the housekeeper of the
house, in which she lived, for the care and
maintenance of Dandy Jim, her pet dog, to
the end of his days. The rest of her prop-
erty was left to her nephews and nieces,
who live in Santa Barbara, Cal.
oe