The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-10-26
ONE SECRET OF BEAUTY.

Baths In tho Blood Of Maid~ns, For which
Hundreds Were Put 10 Death.
Paris has been edited by work
treating Of the life and proceedings
of lady Of the sixteenth century
who carried her care for her beauty
TO the very utmost limits. This 10
not fairy tale, but sober, historic
hl fact, backed by many official doc
uments of undoubted authenticity,
and the lady's amiable weakness Is
described with wealth OF detail
and forcible simplicity of description
that are apt to turn the reader sick.
The lady IN question was named
Elizabeth Bathori, Countess Nadas-
di, who married at the age OF 15 In
1896 Count Francois Nadasdi, who
was not of toomild nature himself,
as, when his wife complained one
day that her maid had been imper-
tinent, he ordered the erring hand
maiden stripped, smeared with
honey and laid on wasps' nest,
from the effects of which gentle adj
monition she subsequently, died. The
Countess Elizabeth was left widow
in 1904 and began simply at first to
try to keepup the rigorous discipline
enforced by her late husband. Un-
happily one day she struck her wait
ing maid and so wounded her that
her mistress hands were covered
with blood. When they were washed,
the countess remarked that her
hands were whittier and the skin
more supple and firm, and thence
forth her naturally cruel nature was
spurred by the frenzied desire to re-
tain her waning beauty at any price.
Odd though it may seem in the
present day, she used as cosmetic
from that time on bath of human
blood, and the tradition goes that
anything so superb in its brilliant
fairness as her complexion cannot be
imagined. She murdered all her
waiting maids one by one, aided by
three accomplices, her old nurse be-
ing one of them, and when she could
get no women 10 enter her service
she coolly sent her emissaries to kid
nap the peasant girls of the neigh
borhood At last, however, the
! CHASTITY scandal rose to such pitch
that even Hungary in the middle
ages could not afford to close it's ears
to the wall Of bereaved families, and
the oulprit's first cousin, governor OF
the province, entered the castle on
| Christmas eve, 1910, to inquire into
the truth of the terrible stories and
discovered his fair and honored rela-
tive, her chin propped by her exqui-
site hand, calmly watching the death
agonies of three girls, while her at
tendants were filling bath with the
lfeblood that was to preserve her
beauty. The countess herself was
too great parsonage to incur capi-
tai punishment, but for 80 years she
was shut up in solitary confinement
in the castle of Cseibhe, in Hungary,
where she finally starved herself to
death. AS for her accomplices, they
had their hands cut off and were
subsequently burned at the stake,
as, being common people, there was
no reason for sparing their lives.
II is said this fair dame sacrificed
COO girls to her radiance of skin, but
the biographer states soberly that
documentary evidence exists of the
murder of only $50. Whether in
after years she considered 80 years
Of solitary confinement too high a
price to pay for six years of unim-
paired beauty it is hard to say, but
tho inference is that she did, since
she killed herself. Paris Letter in
Philadelphia Telegraph.