The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-07-20
A Philippine Romance.

About the middle of the present GEN.
fury, when Dumas the elder was at the
height of his career, and the origin Of
many an interesting piece of French
literature was delightfully."- uncertain, a
couple of works appeared that drew at
tention to the mysterious and far off
Philippines. In his Thousand and
One Phantoms," issued serially in the
Constitutional, Dumas made free with
fellow countryman who had been the
hero of certain surprising adventures
in the Pearl of the Orient, and the
hero thereupon, not caring to figure as
feuilleton, got out his adventures of
a Gentleman of Brittany in the Philip
pines" Some persons, however,
thought the hero would have been
truer to life as the creation of Dumas {;
that as real gentleman of Brittany he
was only another living liar, and that,
in fact, his romantic narrative was the
work of new Selkirk and Defoe COM
bination.
But the Selkirk, it was commended,
was we'll known in France, and had
been both well and favorably known in
the Philippines; serious and trustwor-
thy writers had recorded themselves as
eyewitnesses Of his exploits, and, at
least, the museum in Boston and the
Museum of Anatomy in Paris were the
richer for his having lived in the back
woods of Luzon. Briefly, here was
Frenchman, who, having doubled the
Cape seventh time, had then stayed
in the Enchanted Islands full score
years. He had been q Crusoe, with q
faithful Man Friday whom he had OBJ
tanned by reforming bandit chieftain;
with kingdom all his own, with a
family whom he had left in his little
island graveyard.
Paul Proust de la Gironniere was
counted in the pedigree of an ancient
Hiedmontese family that came over the
st. Bernard and into Brittany in the
days of Louis XIV, and soon became
rich enough to have access to the no.
bility and 10 contract "the most fiatter-
ing alliances" Paul's father was born
at Nantes, where his ancestors had held
high Office under the crown. His
wealth was swept away by the revolu-
ton; and he died ON little place owned
by his wife. Paul's mother gave the
boys such education as she could, and
then they went to seek their fortune.
One died at Madagascar; another re-
turned from Porto Rico to die in his
mothers arms; the husband of one of
Paul's two sisters died in Mauritius,
and another brother died while visiting
Paul in the Philippines.
Paul was born at Nantes; there he
studied medicine; and thence, mere
STRIPPING, he sailed as ships surgeon to
the far East, embarking for the fourth
time on October 8, 1919, and casting
anchor about the end of May, 1880, in
the bay of Manila. He landed at Ca
vite, enjoyed the whirl of Manila So
ciety, studied the Tagaloc, went among
the natives in the mountains, began
the career of craftsmanship that was to
eliminate in hunting the stag and the
buffalo and in killing caymans and boa
constructors, and finally allowed his
ship to go home and leave him in the
metropolis of the archipelago.
He had resolved to become resident
physician. He faced the fanaticism of
the cholera massacre of 1920, and he
had clean shirt in his hat and dol
lar in his pocket. Finding rich old
don nearly blind, he cured one eye and
made a glass ball for the socket of the