The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-16

thus reported insinuated that she went to tell the Prussians how things went on at Metz
 In the early days of Monaco Mile. Frois- sard married a M. Lecomte, croupier there. She thought this a mesalliance, but she had been. plunging and losing, and found in Lecomte a present help in time of trouble. Perhaps she may have felt a grateful impulse. but 1t Is to be feared that she only regarded him as a conven- fence, he and the daughter that she bore him so soon and so completely slipped from her mind. The croupier had longed for an angel of the hearth and domestic happiness. She grew tired of being re- garded as a darling little wife by such a person, and deserted him for Colonel Per agallo, a man of fortune bearing the title of comte, whom she had known at the Tulleries He there commanded a house. hold regiment. The Colonel allowed Mme Decomte to bear his name. and intro duced her as the Countess Peragalio He and she forgot that Lecomte and the lit- tie daughter existed Perhaps the Colonel knew nothing about the child. Lecomte, chained to the roulette table, could not be about, and nobody in society knew any thing about him.
 Colonel Peragallo allowed the Com tesse" to spend freely, and when she plunged and lost. paid her gambling debts with a good grace. As no fortune could stand this, he soon fell into poverty. He, however, was so provident as to buy for his fair friend house at Monaco. which she afterward sold in return for a lump sum and an annuity, and he also obtained for her a bureau de tabac worth $220 a year. Bureaux de tabac being. only given to highly respectable ladies' widows of I-, source gave a stamp of credibility to the title of Comtesse de Peragallo. The Col onel, without a full pocket, found life dull. and fell i'll and died
 Instead of giving hersef up to vain la- mentations the comtesse snatched young bridegroom of fortune from his bride and brought him to Paris, where they settled down in a hotel. He, how ever, ended by feeling ashamed of him. self, and stole back to his family. The charmer who had captured him must have been 7S when she did SO The deser- ton placed her in a terrible situation, but she faced 1t, and went to live in the small fiat in the Rue des Martyrs, where she came last week to the tragic end of a long tether. The annuity from Monaco and the bureau de tabac brought her just $540 a year. As niece of General Frois- sard and widow of Comte Peragallo she obtained admittance to the Ladies Club founded by Mme de Marsy. There she dtned three times week at the cost of three francs, made acquaintances, and ceased to feel lost in Paris, which had ceased to be the Paris of the empire. The other four days she dined at tables d'hote carried on in connection with card tables Directly dinner Is over the diners go to play. The luck of Mme Peragallo when she played astonished the others. She be- came the friend of dierent young men who frequented these places. It may be that she helped them by some hocus-po- GUS to win. However, these evenings filled her pockets and she continued to dress elegantly and to shine as CO., quette. It also appears that she took brokerage for introductions This part of her career Is one to leave to future Zolas. She had the example before her of the widow of one of the biggest per- sonages of the second empire, who now deals in the cast-off clothes and the beauty of others. And yet we talk of Ninon de rEnalos as the only woman who preserved in old age the charms and fas- cinations of youth! Is not my Paris a world of itself?