The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-11-14
Secret Of q Woman's Beauty.

Paris has just been edited by work
treating of the life and proceedings of a
lady of the sixteenth century, who carri-
ed her care for her beauty to the very
utmost limits. This is not 81 fairy tale,
according to writerin the Philadelphia
Telegraph, but sober, historical fact,
backed by many official documents Of
undoubted authenticity, and the lady's
amiable weakness Is described with Q
wealth cf detail and torcible simplicity OF
description that is apt to turn the reader
sick.
The lady in question was named Eliza.
beth Bathory. Comtssse Nadasdy, who
married at tue age Of l5, in 1895, Comte
Francois Nadasdy, who was not of too
mild nature himsel6 es, when his wife
complained one day that her maid had
been impertinent, be ordered the errlng
hand-maiden stripped, smcared with
honey and laid on wasps' nes::, from
the effects of which gentle admonitlon
she subsequently died. The Countess
Elizabeth was left widow in 1904, and
began simply at first to try to keep up
the rigorous discipline enforced by her
late husband. Unhappily one day she
struck her waiting, maid and so wounded
her that her mistress's hands we're COW
cred with blood. When hey were wash
ed the Countess remarked that her bands
were whittier nnd the skin more supple
and firm, ard thenceforWard her natur-
ally cruel nature was spurred by the
trepz:ed desire to retain her waning
beauty at any prico,
Odd though IL may seem in the present
day, she used as cosmetic from that
time on bath of human blood, and thb
tradition goes that anything SO superb 10
its brilliant fairness as ner complexion
cannot be imagined. She murdered al
her waiting maids, one by one, aided BY
three accomplices, ber old nurse being
one of them, and when she could get n5
women to enter her service she coollV
sent her emissaries to kidnap the peassSS
girls of the neighborho opdsH&
ever, the ghas1}YazsH Hahda rose to such q
L,!tch -t.l4... 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 Castle on Christmas
Eve, 1910, to inquire into the truth of
these horrible stories and discovered his
fair and henored relative, her fair chin
propped BY hea exquisite hand, calmly
watching the death agonies of three girls.
while her attendants were filling bath
with the life blood that was to preserve
her beauty. The Countess herself was
too great parsonage to incur capital
punishment, but for thirty years she was
shut up IN solitary confinement in the
castle of Cseibhe, in Hungary, whore she
finally starved herself to death. As for
her accomplices, they had their hands
cut off and were su ubsequently burned at
the stake, as, being; common people,
there was no reason for sparlng their
lives.
It is said that this fair dame sacrificed
900 girls to her radiance of skin, but her
biographer states soberly that documen-
tary evidence exists of the murder Of
only 250. Whether In after years she
considered thirty yenrs of solitary con-
fnement too high price to pay for six
years of unimpaired beauty, 1t is hard to
say. but the inference is that she did,
since she killed herself.