Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1896-10-17

"a jacket of raised gold, the placard EN-.
broidered with diamonds and other rich
stones, and n great bauderike about his
neck of large balasscs." The favorites Of
James !. wore earrings of cmoralds set in
gold flligraGe. Edward ii. gave to Piers
Galveston a suit Of red-gold armor studded
with jacinths. and a collar Of gold roses set
with turquois stones, and n skull-cap pdr-
seme with pearls. Henry II. wore jeweled
gloves reaching to the elbow, and had u
hawk-glove set with twelve rubies and fifty
two great pearls. The ducal hat of Charles
the Rash, the last Duke Of Burgundy Of
his race, was studded with sapphires and
hung with pear-shaped pearls.
How exquisite life had once been How
gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even
to read the luxury Of the dead was wonder
full.
Then he turned his attention TO embroid.
cries, ami 10 the tapestries that performed
the Office of ~frcscocs in the chill rooms OF
the northern nations Of Europe, As he in
vestigatcd tho s~ubiect-and he always had
an extraordinary faculty Of becoming abso-
lutely absorbed for a moment in whatever
he took up-hc was almost saddened by the
reflection of the ruin that time brought on
beautiful and wonderful things. He at any
rate, had escaped that. Summer followed
summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed
and died many times, and nights Of horror
repeated the story Of their shame, but ne was
unchanged. No winter married his face or
stained his flower-like bloom. How differ
ent it was with material things! Where
had they gone tol Where was the great
o,.on,tc ,n1nrnH ,.phn IN ,,lt,b al. ID,
fought against the giants, that had been
worked for Athena! Where the huge vela-
rum that Nero had stretched across the
Colosseum at Rome, on which were repre-
scented the starry sky. and Apollo driving a
chariot drawn by white gilt-reined steedsl
He longed 10 see the curious table-napkins
wrought for Elagabalus, on which were dis
played all tho daintics and viands that could
be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth
Of King Chilperic, with its three hundred
golden bees the fantastic robes that excited
the Indignation Of the Bishop Of Pontus,
and were figured with ''lions, panthers,
bears, dogs. forests, rocks, hunters--all, in
fact that "A painter can copy from nature;n
and the coat that Charles Of Orleans once
wore, on the sleeves of which were en-
broidered the verses of n song beginning
MADAME, je suiS t0lt %joycur," the musical
accompaniment Of the words being wrought
in gold thread, and each note, of square
shape in those days, formed with four pearls.
He read of the room that was prepared ut
the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen
Joan of Burgundy, and was decorated with
thirteen hundred and twcnty-one parrots,
made in %broidcry, and blazoncd with the
kings arms, and five hundred and sixty one
butterflies, whose wings were similarly
ornamentcd with the arms of the queen, the
whole worked in gold" Catherine do
Nedicis had n mourning-bcd made FOR her
OF black velvet powdered with crcscents
and sun Its curtains were of damask,
with leafy wreaths and g%arlands, figured
upon n gold and silver ground, and frirged
along the edges with broiderics Of pearls,
and it stood in n room hung with rows Of
the queens devices in cut black velvet up
on cloth or silver. Louis XIV. had gold
embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in
his apartment. The state bed of SobieslSi,
King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold
brocade embroidered in t~urquoises with
verses from the Koran. It's supports were
of silver gilt, beautifully chased aud pro-
fuscly set with cnamelcd and icwclcd mo-
d~allions. 1t had been taken from The Turk
ish camp before Vienna, and the standard
Of Nlohammed had stood under it.
Aud so, for a whole year, he sought TO ac-
cumulate tho most exquisite specimens that
he could find of textile and embroidered
work, getting tho dainty Delhi muslins,
finely wrought, with gold-thread palmates,
and stitched over with iridcscent beetles
wings; tho Dacca gauzes, that from their
transparency are known in the East as
"woSon air." and running water" and
"evening dew strange figured clothes
from Java; elaborate yellow Chinese hang
ing; books bound in tawny satins Of fair
blue silks and wrought with reus dc IyS,
birds, and images wells of ldcis worked in
hungary paint; Sicilian brocades, and stir
Spanish v~clvcts; Georgian work with its
gilt coins, and Japanese FOutousds with
their grcen-toncd Colds and their marvel
ously plumagcd birds.
The hero of the dangerous novel that had
so influenced his life had himself had this
curious fancy. In "A chapter of the book he
tells how, crowned with laurel, lest light
ming might strike him, he had sat, as Tiber-
Jus, in a garden at Capri, reading the shame
full books of Elephants, while dwarfs and
peacocks strutted round him and the flute
player Knocked the swingcr of the censor;
and, as Caligula, had caroused with the
green-shirted jockeys in their stables, and
supped in an ivory mangcc with a jewell
~frontlctcd horse; and, as Domitian, had
wandered through a corridor lined with
marble mirrors, looking round with haggard
Ax,A, -, a.. x,a,-.... - Al. A.. A..
was 10 end his days, and sick with that
ennui, that t0dium ritG, that comcs on those
to whom life denies nothing; and had peer
ed through "a clear emerald at the red
shambles Of the circus, and then. In q litter
of pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod
mules, been carried through the Street Of
Pomcgranitcs to a House of Gold, and heard
men cry on Nero Caesar as he passed by;
and, as E~lagabalus, had painted his face
with colors, and piled the distaff among the
women and brought the moon from Garth
age, and given her a mystic marriage TO The
Sun.
Over and over again Dorian used to read
| this fantastic chapter, and the chapter inn
mediately following in which the hero de.
scribes the curious tapestries that he had
woven for him from Gustave Moreau's de-
| signs, and on which were pictured the aw-
full and beautiful forms of those whom Vice
and Blood and WEAKNESS had made mon-
strous or mad Filippo. Duke Of Milan, who
slew his wife, and painted her lips with q
scarlet poison; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian,
known as Paul the Second, who sought in
his vanity TO assume the title Of Formosus,
and whose tiara, valued at two hundred
thousand forms, was bought at the price Of
a terrible sin; Clan Maria Visconti, who
used hounds to chase living men, and whose
murdered body was covered with roses by 9
harlot who had loved him; the Borgia OF
his white horse, with Fratridide riding be
side him, and his mantle stained with the
blood Of Perotto; Petro Riario, the younl
Cardinal Archbishop Of Florence, child ant
minion Of Sixtus ", whose beauty wa.
equaled only by his debauchery, and wh'
received Leonora Of Aragon in a pavilion o
white and crimson silk, filled with nymph'
and centaurs, and gilded a boy that h,
might serve her at the feast as Ganymed,
or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose melancholy coult
be cured only by the spectacle Of death, an,
who had a passion for red blood, as othe
men nave for red wine-the son of the fend
as was reported, ard enc who had cheate,
his father at dice when gambling with hin
for his own soul Giambattista Cibo who il
mockery took the name Of Innocent, an,
into whose torpid veins the blood OF thre
l. J. - -