The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-29
BLuEBEARp NO FICTION.


 Scientists Say That He Was An Actual
 Personage-Was a French Nobleman
 Lived Near Nantes More Than
 Three Centuries Ago-Finally Execu-
 ted for His Crimes-He Murdered No
 Fewer Than One Hundred and Forty
 Persons-A Criminal Monster Who
 Held the Baton of a Marshal.
 Everybody has read about Bluebeard. and, having relinquisheo the confidence of childhood in fairy tales has set him down as 0 figment of imagination. Nothing could be more unjust A smithsonian scientist, Colonel Thomas Wilson, has investigated him, and has round out that he was a real parsonage. His authentic history has thus been raked up out of what might have been oblivion, and it is proved with a fair degree of certainty that he was even worse than he was painted in the blood-curdling romance of Perrault.
 To get at the facts of the case, Colo mel Wilson recently visited the French city Of Nantes, where the records of the veritable "Barbe Bleu'' are officially filed. Skeptical at the start, he was surprised to find that the inhabitants of the town were well acquainted with the history of the criminally disposed original of the storied monster. They showed him the chateau wherein he was imprisoned; they pointed out the cathedral which was the residence of the bishop who presided at the ecclesi astical tribunal by which he was tried; they indicated the place where he was condemned to death by a civil court, and finally they took him to the spot where Bluebeard was executed.
 There was no proof of facts in these allegations; so Colonel Wilson started in to look up the evidence. He would not have got far if it had not been for good luck. It happened that certain Abbe Boussard had newly written, as a prize essay, a translation into every day Latin of the almost undecipherable Latin records of the Bluebeard case, preserved at Nantes in the archives of the Department of the Loire Inferieure. NO ordinary scholar could have con- strued the archaic text; but, thanks to this assistance, Colonel Wilson was en- abled to peruse the documents intelli- gently.
 What the documents revealed was startling enough. They told the tale of the real Bluebeard-a human f1end, compared with whom the ''Barbe Bleu" of the French romancer was almost mild and amiable. His true name was Giles de Retz, and he lived about two hundred and fifty years before the time of Perrault, the story-teller. Be it understood that his identity must not be confounded with that of the Cardinal de Retz, who lived two hun dred years later, and was imprisoned in the same Chateau de Nantes. His family was a great one, and was allied with many of the noblest of Brittany. The famous warrior, Bertrand du Guesclin, was a collateral ancestor of his
 Giles de Retz was one of the most fortunate men Of his time. He inherl- ted numerous chateaux and estates, to- getfer with immense sums in ready cash In fact, there was scarcely any nobleman of Brittany richer or more powerful than he His father died early; his mother married again, and he was placed under the guardianship of his maternal grandfather, Jean de Craon. This Jean de Craon, by the way. was descendant of the nobleman of the same name who suddenly en- countered Charles V. in the forest and, being himself esteemed a madman, predicted for that monarch such dire woe that the latter became insane on the spot and never recovered.
 Jean de Craon married his grandson, Giles de Retz, to a very charming young woman, whose name was Cath crime de Thouars She brought to him several valuable estates, and among them the Chateau de Macl1ecoul, where he afterwards lived and where many of his horrible crimes were committed. The chateau was situated not far from Nantes. Perhaps the most interesting element in the whole narrative Is the contradiction expressed by the life or this man, who was first a loving hus- hand and finally fiend; who was the bravest of the brave, and yet coward of superstition; who was a patriot, and wat could murder innocent children wholesale, and apparently without re- morse.
 The old man, Jean de Craon, was a gallant fighter. and he took his grand son with him in his campaigns. When f5illes was only sixteen years old the TWO took their seats together in the rres+ military council at Vannes.
  when England was trying to wipe France out of existence, and the Hun dred-Years' War was in full swing. From 1420 to 1424 the grandfather and grandson fought side by side. In l4S4 came a. meteor across France-Joan of Arc. who landed at Orleans, not far from the residence of Giles de Retz. Giles himself became captain of Joan own guard, and did duty as her escort through the siege of Orleans and on the march to Rheims, where the king was to be crowned
 On the occasion of the coronation the baton of a marshal of France was be- slowed upon de Retz. History tells Of the events which followed, culmfnating an the trial and execution of the heroic Joan. Giles went back to his estates in Brittany, and so far as it known he lived a peaceful and happy life, with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, his nature was restless one, and his
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