The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-03
PRINCE DE SAGAN DYING
DESCENDANT OF TALLEYRAND WHO
WAS ONCE THE BEAU OF FRANCE.
His Trouble with His Wife, queen
Separated over Twenty Years.

London Letter in Chicago Times-Herald.
The Prince of Sagan is dying in Paris.
Helplessly and hopelessly PROSTATE. his
brain slowly hardening, his once brilliant
wit shattered his high elegancies of speech
and manner fallen into the soil and latter
of imbecilty, this descendant of Talley-
rand. this glass of fashion, this superb
beau is ebbing out of the world a vacant
mailman who plays dominoes with his
nurses.
For more than twenty years the prince
and his wife have lived apart. 1t was only
the other day that the princess, hearing
that her husband had been stricken down
with incurabe disease, sent for him and
had him conveyed to her house. In this Is
found the much-talked-of reconciliation"
between these two. In fact, it can hardly
be called by sucn name, for the husband
is as witless a baby, and his wife took
him in because she pitied him and did not
wish to see the father of her son, Count
Helie, die IN a clubroom. Indeed, the prince
might have been reconciled to his wife at
any time in the past score years had he
desired to do so. But he treated her with
that supreme contempt of which he alone
was capable ard never unbent to her. She
is immensely rich and lives in a mansion
hopelessly in debt but would listen to no
offer of aid from his wife When the
Prince and Princess of Wales visited the
Princess De Sagan In Paris the heir to the
throne of England hesitated about taking
his wife to the house of woman separated
from her husband. The Princess De Sagan
sent TO her husband and made him an offer
TO pay all his debts If he would preside for
Two hours over the establishment while the
lQraf L
Sagan simply ignored the proposition.
In point OF family, De Sagan is the equal
Oh any man in Europe. His name and title
are Bosom de Talleyrand- Perigord, Prince
Pe Sagan. The family goes back to the
days of Hugh Capet His father is the Due
De daiieyrand-P erlgord; Prince of Valen-
cay and Sagan. His mother was the last de-
SGenuant or that grand house of France,
Montmorency. De Sagan is or was
w MoT hin descendant of the old Talleyrand
II II ms prime, nay, even until he was struck
uoWn with disease, he was the grand seig-
neur. From Talleyrand he got his satanic
gestures, and his skeptical lip. He was,
ABOVE all, dandy-a finished type of the
end of the eighteenth century in the end of
me nineteenth; the anachronistic remains of
Il social order that is rapidly passing. He
was a man to be talked about and painted
IN portraits and preserved on china, and
made prints of in books and put away with
the Brummels and the Washes and the
there He did nothing of any real value to
anybody or anything. But he was the soul
VI VIII. ne was pOHSneu as Ilne as anV hu-
man being can be polished in this age of
railroads and telephones. His clothes were
or modern cut but on him they looked like
the laceS and the lOng-Skirted coats and the
shiny satin of two hundred years ago He
was in big demand in the drawing loom,
and even seriously minded men We're curl
Gus to meet him. De Sagan might have been
the French idea of Austin Dobson's archaic
ballads. He was as interesting to the cool
observer as would be Roman gentleman
of the time of Augustus resurrected, per-
TUNED and m
toga into Paris London or New York. He
was as interesting as bit OF papyrus or the
panied hie lace on an Egyptian mummy case 5;a
other things than being elegant He fought
duels. He took up insults from stage plays
which made material out of his family and
challenged one play writer, and even fought
a duel with him, in which the bullets, after
the usual fight through the air fell on the
ground Honor was satiated." He was a
savage in a civilized or semi-civiized COM
munity, and he could not bear TO see the
houses of Montmorency and Talleyrand
made sport of and unprecedented by the
sweaty palms of the vulgar. And, marvel
GUS to say at this duel were present twelve
reporters for daily papers with the consent
of the prince. One reporter was put out be-
cause he was so ineegant and undignified
as to climb over the fence.
The descendant of Talleyrand married the
daughter of certain baron The princess
was Mile. Jeanne Anne Alexandrine Sell
lere. Her father had made a tremendous
1 fortune as su5ler in the FRENCH army.
supplying the soldiers of France with shoes,
the soles of which were cardboard, and with
clothing that fell to pieces at the touch of
a hand. They found, too, that he had forged
the government stamp. He was indicted and
settled the case by merely blowing out
what brains he had Now, De Sagan had
flung mis- money away in handfuls and had
even originated new ways Of Squandering
the wealth he had. Was he not q prince?
And SO he married Jeanne, and the houses
of Taleyrard and Montmorency were Ere
stored" Which proved that ideas have
changed some of late decades for the Mont
morencys at least would never have in old
en- days, made Il meal out of the remains
of a thief. Times have changed indeed, and
so have manners, for the new princess be-
came the rage of Europe She set the fash
ion in everything. Her home hummed as the
very center of the very best society of the
continent. Disraeli said of her that what
she wore one day the world wore next day.
She made the fortune OF the man millner,
Worth Her husband began to fling her
money away as he had flung his own.
Presently scandal entered the fine man.
sion. The new princess had lost all sense of
her extremely high place. She believed that
she was royal and could do no wrong. But
De Sagan did not think so. One day he
called ali of the servants into the hall of
the house and asked them to be witnesses
of the fact that he left that house never
of his personal property but his umbrella.
This matter was talked of everywhere, but
it did not prejudice society against the brl-
liant princess She was tlinging the shoe
and the shoddy money just like her husband.
But after the prince left her she drew in
her purse strings and went to law with her
husband to prevent him squandering his
share of the wealth on the ground that she
wished to protect the future OF her son.
This an idle preteXt, because these sons
some day will get the wealth OF their ancient
grandsire on the fathers side-the Due de
Valencay-more than they can possibly
spend.
The princess now has her poor wrecked
and married beau safe in her keeping and
every resource of the faculty Will be drawn
upon to keep his brain from death in order
that he may be alive when his father the
duke dies. Should the son survive ne VIII
be very rich and will succeed to all the es-
tates and the full titles of the father. And
then these things will go down to his own
son and the princess's, the count. and not
to the princes brother, the Duo du Mont
morencv. De Sagan is now sixty-hve years
old and until his recent attack Of hemiple-
gia he did not look to be more than forty:
The princess is old, too. She Is withered
and gray. but she affects the airs of youth
and carries them rather well for so old
creature. The family is sad assortment
of humanity The young count was IN
volved In the late Max Lebaudy's forgeries
and was himself accused of forgery
The grand old houses are in a most pitia-
BILE state of decadence and decomposition,
and why not? France is republican.