Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1867-01-26
A Partisan Celebrity-Gone.

y
lar section Of Partisan society. At break of
day following an opera bal masque strange
looking figure was seen to lean for a moment
or two over the parape1 Of the Point 6es Arts
and then dump into the river, A fisherman
who witnessed the incident after long searching
brought the body 10 the surface OF the water
Enyeloped az it was from head to foot in a
long hairy covering, it seemed at first sight to
be an ape, but was soon recognized as a human
being. Attempts were made to restore ANNA
ton, but in vain. Ia one of the pockets of the
unknown the following letter was found which
helped to clear up the mystery.
1T is useless to attempt to identify. me. I
am the defendant of q noble family whom my
folIies have dishonored. All my patrimony IS
disspated, and prefer suicide to misery. To
those WAC affirm that it is necessary to be brave
to kill oneself, | reply that abslnthe gives
courage. l am drunk; 1T is thus that L ought to
die have been surnamed 'Caoutchouc : let
nae be buried under this name May my death
serve as an exampleto youth.-CAoUTcHoUC
Caoutchouc. say the Paris papers, was the
Old Count Chicard Of modern public balls =
There was always crowd 70 see him dance,
and it was certainly an extraordinary perform
ance In appearance he was far from pre-
possessing; he had coarse, brutal-lookipg
lace, puffed and pimpled by debauchery; his
dull lustreless eyes had an odious leer,. and his
swollen, rickety figure also told the tale of ex
cesses But dull and listless as he seemed in
the intervals of the dance, the music no sooner
struck up than sort Of fury seemed to seize
him. He writhed and bounded like a mad
man In quadrile his steps were so many
cocvulsions; none of the clowns in the Cirque
could dislocate their limbs after the fashion of
Caoutchouc in the figure of cavalier soul. -
tle had method of shortening himself, OF
fattening himself, of balancing himself on his
hips, of bounding about q la Quasimodo, which
thrilled the wild Bohemians among whom
he danced with enthusiasm and envy. On
Saturday, the 22d, disguised as an ourang7
outaog he exhibited before the crowds in the
theatre OF the Rue Lepelletier the marvellous
elasticity of his body. He leapcd on the
shoulders of his companions, springine from one
to the other with all the ease and more than
the mischievou>ness of Brazilian ape. At
5 o clook in the morning be was dead. On
leaving the opera Caoucthouc declined to sup
with a band of maskers. After drinking five
glasses of absinhe in cafe on the Bou!evards,
he betook himself to the Pont Ges Arts, which
he scaled to perform his last pirouette. lie
belonged to proud and noble family, and was
taken from the Moreue in a tourgoo for inter.
ment in the vaults in the chapel belonging to the
chateau ofhis ancestors where repose knights OF
unbiemished fame and statesmen Of high re-
nowu whose shades must have shuddered as
his dishonored head was laid beside them
His name is not to be inscribed on the tablet
beside the altar, and that is the only symptom
OF Indignation manifested by his family. Fol
long time past he had been wholly dependent
tha
owner of Chateau Rougue, and Of late he had
been compelled to own that the vogue was de-
serting him, that his attraction was diminish.
ing. In vain he leaped and rebounded, and
rolled head over heels in the spasmodlc dellr:
ium produced by absinthe-his efforts had
ceased to please, the pay was growing, less,
penury was staring him in the face, and yet,
compelled to grin aud skip, he went dancing on
until he sought oblivion beneath the frozen
waters of the Seine, and rushed into eternity
attired in the garb of folly in which he had been
playing all kinds of foul tricks and indecent
a5tics, until within few minutes OF his death.
DIAMONDS. The French crown possessed in
theyear 1871, including those purchased tol
The hilt of Louis XVI's sword of state, 8, ,457
diamonds. among which were the Regent, the
Blue Diamond and the Sancy The whole Of
this treasure was robbed in 1892, from the
Royal Garde Meuble Search was vainly made
for the perpetrators of this daring theft, but
no trace could be discovered Of the jewels until
the Commune received an anonymous letter,
stating that great part Of the missing stones
were buried In ditch OF the Alo des Veuves,
Champs Elysees, andtruly the Regent and the
greater part of the Crown diamonds were dug
out of the spot of ground now occupied by the
celebrated restaurant so we'll known as the
Moulin Rouge: -
The true story of this robbery was never
known, but in 1906 man Of the strange name
of BABY. was taken up for forgery: and COMES
sed that be had assisted in the affair, aud had
buried the Regent, and subsequently revealed
It's whereabouts to the Commune. His line OF
defence was peculiar one. He Informed bis
judges that France owed the imperial dynasty
spot where the Regent lay buried, Napoleon
could not have pledged it, after the 18th
Brumaire, when his possession of power de-
pended on his having funds at his command
wherewith to pay the army and carry Oh tht
Govern nent.
The Emperor had Europe ransacked to re-
cover the rest of the Crown diamonds, anc
succeeded in repurchasing the most valuable
among them. Louis XVIII. presented tht
Duke Of Wellington, In 1915, with the Orde,
of 81. Esprit, executed with the Grown dla
monds which bad cost $50, 0,000f., butthe value
of which amounted TO 20, 900, ,260f., in the yea
1882, although the Sancy was net among them
neither were the splendid opal called th'
Burning of Troy which had belonged t
the Empress Josephine, nor diamond o
thirty-tour carats, which the first Emperor wa
said to have lost on the field of Waterloo.
The Washington Republican, takes partic
ular pains to disavow, for the President, an
purpose of armed resistance to Congress. Tb
threat having been imnuted to him, is seize