St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-02-27
THE LATE PRINCE DEMIDoFF.
Career of Luxury, Excess and Foolish
Debduchery.

Career Of LUXURY, Excess and Foolish
Debduchery.
Paris Letter to London World.
The Paris papers have been devoting long
articles TO the Prince Paul Demidoff, who
died the other day. 1t is curious to observe
the stereotyped regrets manifested by the
journalists on the occasion of the decease of
this uninteresting 'boyard, who filled Paris
with the rumor of the debauchery under the
empire, and who has just succumbed to
delirium tremens. According to the news
papers Paul Demidoff was a model of benevo-
lence and charity, real grand segneur, a
refined connaisseur, and devoted husband
after he had ceased to be a grand viveur.
1t would be difficult to justify this panegyric.
Paul Demidoff came to Paris about 1858 in
the full bloom of his youth, strength and
beauty, and with an income of some ESQ, 900
year-he had Got yet inherited the millions
OF his uncle Anatole. He fell in with the
set of fast men who were the leaders of la
haute noce under the empire, namely, Ora
mont Caderousse, De Caux, Narishkine,
Talleyrand-Perigord, Choiseul, Castries; he
played for millions against his countryman
Narishkine; he imposed himself successfully
upon the actresses of the Gymnase, the Varie-
ties and Vaudeville; he Outdrank all his
companions he astopished the gastteers with
his extravagant freaks, and caused himself
to be compared to Nero because he used to
amuse himself by making half a dozen of his
men-servauts fight before him like gladiators
until one remained conquerOr and winner of
handsome honoroium. After ten years of
this idiotic life Paul Demidoff married the
Princess Metchierska, who, 1t is said, had
produced a strong impression on the present
ear. The marriage was a disaster; the
princess died year after their union; and,
in order to avert the disgrace into which his
conduct threatened 20 bring him in the eyes
of the sovereign, Demidoff simulated melo-
dramatically profound grief, and all Paris was
told that the Russian millionaire had had his
bed and bedroom hung with the dresses and
mantles of his deceased wife, and he wore
bracelet made of her hair, and went about
clad in somber vesture. This theatrical
widowhood did not last long, and then Demi-
doff went to Russia, brought back a second
wife, the eldest daughter of the celebrated
Princess Liso TroubetZoi, abandoned Paris,
and settled at San Donate, which he had in
herited from his uncle, the temporary hus-
band of the Princess Mathilde Bonaparte.
Since then-1S6S-we have heard nothing of
Demidof except when he sold his pictures
and objects of art, first in 1865 and then in
1880, when he put up to auction not only the
palace of his ancestors, but absolutely all that
it contained After the execution of this
caprice Demidoff Immediately began to form
another collection of pictures and objects of
art for the adornment of his new villa at Pra-
tolino, near Fiesole, built on the ruins of the
splendid residence which once sheltered the
romantic love of the Duke Francis aud the
beautiful Venetian Blanca Capello. A more
useless and inglonous life than that of Paul
Demidoff cannot imagine; it is summed up
in three words-ennui, caprice, excess. If
this is the type OF the grand viveur, one
hardly sees why the French gazetteers should
regret so profoundly the disappearance of the