The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-06-07

offices, as Madame la Marquise do Ieuyille.
| Where il shes For with all that we have
been told about De Leuville cannot be-
lieve that he would commit bigamy. let
alone trigamy. Then again we heard that
he was shortly to lead to the altar a Mrs
Peters of London, the extremely rich
widow Of tie famous London coach builder
who was celebrated for his tally no four-in-
| hands, or, as they call them on the other
side, drags But IL is funny how his name
has come up again, as understood that he
had buried his alleged nobility since he
opened an old bric-a-brac shop in PIcadilly
| London
"TelI me-" the writer asked. ''Is he or Il
he not real French noble dating from the
old regimen"
"You make me SMILE" was the answer.
| French Marquisites, like those in other
countries, were either granted by the king
| or Inherited from the direct ancestor &c
whom the monarch gave the title. for him
| self and his lineal descendants only. Now
| this is a French title pure and simple, and
an extinct one to boot. for no descendant of
the first Marquis do Leuville, Louis Olivier.
who died In 1868, can be found on this earth
They have died out without leaving issue.
| There was such title and it appears in the
old French peerages, but there is not a liv-
ing soul to-day who has any right to claim
1t, much less an Englishman like the pres
emit pretended owner to the title, whose real
name is William Redivious Oliver, and who
has not a drop of French blood in his
veins
"But did not the sol distant Marquis de
Leuville correctly assert when he visited
America that the French books of nobility
acknowledged him to be a marquisY' was
asked.
"That is SO. There are some books pub
lished in Paris which put him down as a
marquis. You can have the same thing
done on anybody else If you pay the people
who compile them, and who will rig YOU up
pedigree dating from the time of Noah's
ark, IL you give them enough money for it.
We had that thing in New York some time
ago, when the late lamented pedigree fakir
Welles ran on University Place his alleged
College of Heraldry, which was a swindle
of about as big proportions as he
was, for we found out of the professors
record that he once upon a time served a
term in Sing Sing. The gentleman calling
himself the Marquis of Leuville is probably
victim of one OF these humbugs, for they
most certainly have forged for him bogus
pedigree. With some other antiquaries
have been through it step by step, and dis
covered that all the links are not only
uncorroborated but that the persons
named in it in many instances never existed.
or that they married other people, or died
without issue. For example, there Is a
supposed alliance with an Oliver, and one
of the famous family Of De Lacy in the
fourteenth century. Burke, Betham, Banks
and other authorities absolutely repudiate
the affair. Why they have made him a de-
scendant of an Earl of Suffolk, and il it
were correct, he ought now to be the mon
arch of England, instead of Queen Victoria,
and so it goes all the way through based
on the fiction that he is descended from a
family OF which a member emigrated
TO France several hundred years ago-it is
generally supposed the Normans came to
England in that way-and there founded
the house of Oliver, which held the title of
Marquis de Leuville. This is fabrication
altogether, and the story of the French Oh
vers other than this particular Oliver famf-
ly, being extinct. is all nonsense, for you
will find in the directories of Paris, Mar
settles, Lyons and other big cities of France
any quantity of people of the name. They
did not come from England at all, and they
are just as pure French stock as the mar
quis, so called. and all bis family are Eng
lish, and peasant stock at that, until Will
lam r. divers father, through his natural
genius, became q water colorist and taught
drawing and painting in London boarding
schools.
IA friend Of mine has copy Of bis GER
tiicates of birth, and be is simply described
therein as the son Of an ordinary person of
the name of Oliver. He was born in 1S43,
and il was not until he was about IS years
old or SO that he blossomed out into the