Middletown transcript., 1901-04-06

I III
Garter. 1t has none of the
confounded nonsense of merit
VI about it. Medieval and mag
nificent, it was originated by
Philip of Burgundy. Why he originated
it no one knows. A German tried to find
out. He devoted the whole OF his wretched
life to the subject. On his death-bed he
chartered Eureka" 1t had driven him
insane.
Students less pertinacious, and possibly
better equipped, have assumed that the
motive was wholly gallant. Philip, to
his eternal glory be it recorded, paid
what we think we have seen described
at addresses to twenty-four young women
at once. Then came the twenty fifth.
The latter was Ysabel of Portugal. Mean
while, from each of the others he had OBJ
tanned coils Of hair. These he had his
coiffeur braid together into sort of con-
glomerate souvenir. Through it there
struggled an amber curl; it had come
from the bright blonde locks of Marie of
Rumbrugge. The sheen of it delighted
him. From it, from that girls empty
head, the idea of the Golden Fleece
emerged. On the occasion of his mar
riage to Ysabel, thirty knights were
chosen. Whether he required that, like
himself, they should be sans pudeur ct
avec reproches, we may surmise yet never
know.
What we do know is that self-chosen
knights of different order with the same
name have been parading about ever
since. In philosophic circles their order
is generally, if fguratively, regarded as
the insignia of the carpet highwaymen
and other adventures with whom the
great capitals of this little globe abound.
High on the list of them is Lauzun.
Insolent, INDECENT and illiterate, the son
of nonentity at that, he yet managed to
make himself Marshal of France and the
husband of the Grande Mademoiselle.
And not merely her husband, but her
master, ordering that princess, who was
the cousin of one king and the grand
daughter of another, to pull off his boots,
and beating her when she refused. The
story of his career would read as ro-
nance were it not that from it the prob
able is absent. Men don't dream any
more as that man lived. Emerging OBJ
scurely from an obscure hamlet, the
highroad led him to Versailles, and
chance, into the presence Of the King.
There he made himself so entertaining
that the fourteenth Louis raised the ad-
venturer from one grade to another, and
so monumentally, that one day, angered
at the withdrawal of promised promo
ton, he whipped out his sword, broke it
across his knee and tossing it with fine
clatter at the feet of the King, bawled
loudly that it was disgraceful to serve a
monarch who could not keep his word.
Women admire the brave, but they
prefer the aQdacious. Some women at
least, and Mademoiselle de Montpensier
was one of them. Tie melodrama Of the
proceeding delighted her. Archroyal and
possessed in her own right OF
twenty million and four duchies, she was
then thirty and passibly disillusioned.
By reason of her birth and wealth she |
had expected to be Queen. She had had
her eye on the Dauphin, another on the
King of Spain, both on the Emperor
Ferdinand III. Yet none whatever for
Charles IL, who, in his exile, had asked
and who, because of that exile, had been
refused.
Heights appeal to women, SO do ex-
.remes. Failing throne, the Grande
resolved to accept foot
tool. Lauzum appealed to her as even
he closed crown of state had not. The
adyenturer understood it thoroughly.
But at every step she made toward him,
le retreated two. He could have asked
md it would have been given. He pre-
erred to be asked and to accord. Finally
he did. So also did Louis At the formal
request Of the lady, he consented to the
and there was this nobody
almost lifted into royalty-almost, yet not
luite. For reasons which we won't bother
,ver, the King withdrew his consent.
Iauzun was thrown into prison, whence
he issued years later and then only be-
,ause of the supplications of the princess
whom he had bewitched, who then be-
,ame his wife, whom he ordered to pull
IF his boots, and who, annoyed perhaps
it the beatings which she got, gathered
Ter millions and her duchies and left
lin to twirl his thumbs. There you
AYE true picture of the untrue knight
An instance more modern and rather
more modest is that of Baron Harden
Hickey. Born in San Francisco, the son
# eminently respectable yet perfectly
,lain people, he evolved, entirely to their I
and perhaps little to his
wn, a dream of monarchy. His title
also. Where he got it no one
new and, except Inspector Byrnes, no
ne, TO our knowledge, ever asked. 1t
nay be that the Comte de Chambord,
whose henchman he had been, gave it to I
i'm, or, as is more likely, it may be that s
t was self-bestowed. After all, why not?
n any event, dozen years ago he
cquircd in addition to the title the for {
nidable reputation of being one of the {
sittiest men in Paris and the crack duel {
st of France. A poet at his hours and I
lways scholar, he was doubly danger
'us His pen stung as promptly as did ]
lis sword. AS a consequence he was {
veil supplied with enemies. He had
more than he knew by sight. But their I
Inality was superior A stranger to them, {
le was stranger to his friends, a stranger
o himself, yet most conspicuously +,
tranger TO his epoch. He was at odds 6
With it. In an age less complex he t