The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-12-24
BATHING IN HUMAN BLOOD.
What French Countess Did to Retain
the Beauty of Her COMPLEXION.

the Beauty of Her Complexion.
Talking of fortunes. however, We hear a
great deal at present about the wickedness
of modern days, and many signs for the
good old times. Yet Paris has Just been
edited by work treating of the life and
proceedings of a lady of the sixteenth
century, who carried her care for her
beauty 10 the very utmost limit. This is
not fairy tale, but sober, historical fact,
backed by many official documents of un-
doubted authenticity, and the lady's ami
able weakness is described with a wealth
of detail and forcible simplicity of de-
scription that is apt to turn the reader
sick. The lady in question was named
Elizabeth Bathory. Countess Nadasdy,
having married at the age of 10, in 1895
Comte Francois Nadasdy, VINO was not of
too mild nature himself. as when his
wife complained one day that her maid
had been impairment, be ordered the
eTring hand-maideD stripped, smeared
with honey and laid on wasps'
nest, from the effects of which gentle
admonition she subsequently died. The
COun tess Elizabeth was left widow in
1904. and began simply at first to try to
keep up the rigorous discipline enforced
by her late husband. Unhappy, one day
she struck her wating-maid, and so
wounded her that her mistress hands
were washed the Countess remarked that
her hands were whittier and the skin more
supple anu firm. and thenceforward her
naturally cruel nature was spurred by
the frenZied desire to retain her
waning beauty at any price. ODD
though it may seem in the present day,
she used as a cosmetic from that time on
a bath of human blood, and tradition goes
that anything so superb in its brilliant
fairness as her complexion cannot DE im-
agined. She murdered all her waiting
maids one by one, aided by three accom-
plices. her old nurse being one of them,
and when she could get DO woman to enter
her service she coolly sent her emissaries
10 kidnap the peasant girls of the neigh
bOrhood.
At last. however, the CHASTITY scandal
ross to such pitch that even Hungary In
the Middle Ages could not afford to close
its ears To the wall OF bereaved families;
and the culprit's first cousin, Governor OF
the province, entered the palace on Christ
mas eve, 1910, to inquire into the truth OF
these horrible stories, and discovered his
fair and honored relative, her lair chin
propped by an exquisite hand. calmly
watching the death agonies OF
three girls. while her attendants
were filling a bath with the life
blood that was TO preserve her beauty.
Inc Countess herself was too great per-
sonage TO lEcur capital punishment, but
Ior thlity years she was shut up IN soil
tary confinement in the castle Of Cselbhe,
10 Hungary, where she finally starved her,
self 10 death. As for her aecompliees. they
had their hands cut off, and were subse-
quently burned at the stake, a., being
common people. there was DO reason for
sparing their lives. l. is said that this fair
dame sacrificed 600 girls 10 her radiance of
skin. but the biographer states soberly that
documentary evidence exists of the murder
OIL only 200, which was a very respectable