The Indianapolis journal., 1884-04-03
MRS. LEsLtE's F1ANcEE.
A Strengthening Being Who Wears Cor
sets and High -HeeIed Boots.


Leander Richardson, in Detroit Times
The Marquis de Leuville, who is going to
marry Mrs Frank Leslie and her bank account,
seems on the whole to be a pretty sweet-scented
sort OF party / saw him last night for the
first time. He was going into the Victoria
Hotel and his personal appearance was so wild
and unusual that | asked friend who he was
| am not often led into questions of that sort
am not boiling over with curiosity as a general
thing, and when fall into the inquisitve line it
is because the object thereof is pretty start
ling sort of party. De Leuville
Is candidate for Barnum or Fore
paugh He is the strangest looking
human being you ever saw, even if you have
feasted your eyes on Frederick Gebhardt and
NJ. b. Curtis. He is man about the common
height He wears an immense black beard and
long black hair all pomaded and puffed and
curled in the most extraordinary fashion. His
shoulders are padded away out to an extent that
is simply comic. His waist is drawn in by
fairly robust woman. His feet are in boots
which are so tight as to make him limp on both
Sides and are padded underne. ih so as to lift
him up and give him height. He goes along
suffering at every step, and clothed in
a superclious smile that is simply the perfection
of coxcombery. He has written, or claims to
have written, a book of poems" They are, of
course. the veriest doggerel. On the fly-leaf is
what purports to be his family tree. 1t is the
habit of this alleged nobeman to leave copies of
this book around where folks will find it. The
volume Is goFgeously bound, and occasionally
somebody picks it up. One dose is sufficient.
When anybody has tackled it once he is ready to
sign contract never to read another word of
anything as long as heaven protects him from
another visitation of De Leuville. The man has
had various escapades. There was once big
scandal in England about his having run off
with the daughter of Nine Tussaud, the
wax figure woman of London, When her money
gave out, that ended De Leuvilles violent affec-
tion, and he left her. A gentleman who got here
last week from Paris tells me de Leuville was
shut out of there under suspicion that he
card sharp. AT any rate, his record is not the
kind of thing that would recommend him as
choice young party for religious family to
adopt. On this padded, corseted, curled, high
heeled, ostentatious, unsavory importation
Frank Lsslie's widow is mashed" She is as
proud of having captured his empty and wholly
valueless title as though it belonged to an hon
orable and manly man. AS for him, he is no
doubt, shivering with delight at the thought of
gathering in the Leslie ducats. which flow to the
tune of 800 900 year.
l wonder how old Frank Leslie would feel if
he could know that the property he worked to
build up would go, every dollar of it, out of the
reach of his kith and kin into the pockets of this
foreign iackanapes. How on earth the fellow
ever got>into the country 1 can't imagine. He
ought to have been stopped in the custom house
and hung up to dry for awhile As for Mrs. Les
he-well, what is there that is sillier than wo-
man of uncertain age who is hopelessly gone on
a mature dude with titlel This business is the
thing all New York is laughing at And it is
funny enough to make sexton laugh too But
at the same time it makes a genuine Americans
gorge rise. 1t also creates the thought that all
the bursted and shady recorded noblemen on the
other side of the big pond will be packing up
their pie boxes and coming oyer here to hunt up
foolish old ladies with big incomes. There's the
r11b