Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-12-25
RUINED NOBLEMEN.
AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF DECAY
ING NOBILITY.
French Counts and other Titled Personages
and their Declining Influenza
Disconsolate Countess.
PARIS, November %, 1880.

Disconsolate Countess.
PARIS, November 30, 1880.
The first titled gentleman | ever met in
France was Professor of the French Ian
guage, a very modest Professor, who taught
the simple rudiments of grammar to for
eigners. His parents had left him little
money which he had spent on his educa-
ton in very expensive college patronized
by rich mobiles. On leaving there he had
neither profession nor trade, or cent in the
verdi One of his rich companions, TAX
ing compassion on him, invited him to his
fathers chateau in the country, whittier he
repaired as guest without any future be-
fore him. AS he passed his time in
complete idleness he was tolerated by
the family, sneered at by the servants, and
was generally treat with such contempt
that he decided to go anywhere and do any
thing; and that is how ne came to
be professor. He was possessed of very
| ordinary intelligence. and In spite of his Sc
we're experience would not divest himself
of his foolish prejudices. He was permit
ted to print a crown on his envelopes, but
his title was exceedingly obscure, and
| might easily have been bogus for all one
was able to know about it his cards, dis.
tributed with unequaled generosity, were
of the cheapest, commonest kind, and yet
a great crown nearly covered one-half Of
the space. Poor fellow, he had nothing
bat that one thing to recommend HIM, and
that one advantage did not always bring
him good fortune. for
CLEVER GERMAN GIRL
In the class would frequently remark that
count without chateau was possessed of
no Importance in her eyes, nor in anybody
else's, and the English professor said he
was an ass, the German professor a fool,
and so, in spite of the immense crown he
conspicuously paraded, he did not find the
world very appreciative.
In the fifth story of house where dwells
one of nay friends lives young noble with
his wife and one child. They occupy one
room and kitchen. As he had been
brought up without having been taught
any trade, and as he was very poor, he
turned his hand to almost anything, and is
now employed in manufacturing children's
dolls, which industry his wife follows as
well. Another nobleman kept boarding
house with the aid of his wife, whom he
had married for her dot, and after he had
succeeded in spending it all on himself,
opened this pension where foreigners were
preferred there were Russians, Germans,
l. l. E
who was naught but common plebian,
was accommodating industrious and lady
like the husband invariably swindled his
boarders, and at the moment of departure,
violent scenes would take place between
himself and those persons who were so
happy as to have a nobleman for land
lord.
THE MOST PERFECT TYPE
OF what the formerly rich and influential
nobleman is to day, met with in Nor
mandy. The gentleman was about fifty
years of age and perfect Hercules. He
had managed, with the aid of ballet dan,
GERS, to get through with all his fortune at
an early day, and he found himself while
still young without a cent IN the world.
and without either trade or profession. As
he was too proud to work, he allowed his
sister, who had not squandered her for.
tune, to bestow on HIM pension of some
800 francs per month. With that limited
sum he could not Of course continue to
drive fast horses and court ballet. dancers,
and as he was man of tremendous appe-
| tite, he boarded at hotel for so much a
month, and passed his time eating or re-
| counting to the guests his past exploits and
conquests. As he had never cultivated his
mind in the least, his conversation knew
no change, and as one sometimes tired of
the same histories of dancing girls,
Monsieur lie Marquis was made to
understand that the subject he treat.
ed was uninteresting, and soon he
was left to himself and his monstrous ap-
petite. His only effort towards earning
any money was proposition he made to
manufacturer OF champagne cider to try
and sell of it to each of his friends pro-
vided he were paid high commission but
the Marquis did not inspire his friends
with sufficient confidence, and his CONNER
cial enterprise did not prove success. 1t
was impossible to find any one as thor
oughly devoid of IDEAS as uninteresting,
as perfectly animal and at the same time
as extremely proud of his pedigree and in
fact he was the bearer of one of the Oldest
and most aristocratic names of Normandy.
HIS FEARFUL APPETITE
Eventually discouraged the landlord, who
begged him to go ruin somebody else. He
next went to hotel of an inferior order,
and so continued down until he found a
patissier who would accept him as a board
er. There always remained some traces Of
his early education and days of gallantry !;
for instance, did he meet lady he knew,
he would involuntarily draw his kid gloves
from his pocket and put them on; but that
| was an unusual ceremony, as he had eeesed
to wear gloves for economy's sake. The
utter uselessness of this man, his false ed
ucation and the brutalized state into which
| he had fallen, is the exact type of vast
number of noblemen of to-day. They
seem to have little strength of mind to re-
sist temptation besides, they are taught
that no one can be a gentleman unless a
member of clubs and he loses certain
amount at card-playing. As they never
know when to stop, or continue to play in
the hope of recovering what they have lost,
they end by leaving their entire fortune on
the green table Their next move then is
to find rich wife, Years ago the rich
bourgeois was flattered to have titled SON.
in law, go he frequently gave him his
daughter in marriage, with large dot
which permitted the newly-married hus-
band to pay off his debts and begin over
again. But repeated experience of sad
| nature has cured them all of such ambition
| When number of them have lived to
again and again pay off the debts of their
| NOBLE SONS IN-LAw,
And at last been obliged to see their
daughters come home to them beggars and
their husbands probably sent to prison for
forgery or escroquerie, they come to the
conclusion that they pay dear for the title,
and that it is better to marry their daugh-
tiers to honest bourgeois like themselves,
who, instead of spending the dot. will try
| to increase it and endeavor to render their