Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-17
VIRTUE AND HER0|SM
How They Are Rewarded by
the French Academy
WITH GIFTS OF MONEY
LIVES OF SELF-SACRIFICE DE-
VOTED TO DUTY.
Men and Women in Humble Walks
Whose Lives Have Been
T. -uly Great.
hal Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
PARIS, December 5, 1904.
The French Academy has just awarded
Christmas presents Of $500 cash to each of
five young girls and six old maids thus
recognized as being the most virtuous young
girls and old maids in all France.
The French Academy has also given
Christmas presents-always of 5000 each--to
six OF the most virtuous men, reported to it
through the past year for their lives of
virtue, that is to say, for their sustained
courage self-sacrifice, patience and energy
under trying circumstances.
These are the winners of the yearly in
terest of the celebrated old Montyon founda-
ton, increased to noble proportions by sub
sequent requests from various sources. An
tome Jean Batiste Robert Auget, Baron de
Montyon. intendant of Province in 1853,
chancellor of state IN 1915 and chancellor of
the Comte d'Arto:s Cater Charles X in
1880, amassed a colossal fortune in the pub
lie service, emigrated to England at the
breaking out of the French revolution. re
turned to Paris in 1915 and lived until lS-o
always occupied in good works.
Even before the revolution Montyon had
given great sums to hospitals, poor houses
and institutions of learning; but these We're
swept away in the upsetting OF all Things
and the fOundaIi ions that cJHtlHut " bCti
his name are the virtue prizes, with WHICH
he endowed the French Academy by Will,
devoting to them all his fortune
Year after year since 1920 the "foTtY I'M
mortals" who compose the French Acad-
envy, meet a month before Christmas time.
In solemn conclave they listen to the re-
port of their investigat ting committee ana
a formal speech which celebrates the liYes
Of extraordinary virtue the committee has
discovered in the length and breadth Of
France Then, solemnly, they vote these
big sums-these undreamed-of Chrlstmas
presents-to the humble heroes of plain viz
tue They are always humble-no one ever
heard OF a. rich person being virtuous
enough to win such honor.
l say plain virtue. This year the orator
of the academy, the dramatist and novelist
Paul Hervieu, defined what the FRENCH
Academy thus understands by virtue
Meaning Of the Word.
"rhe etymology of the word" said the au-
thor of "Flirt," declares virtue to have
been originally a virile quality Now its
meaning has been softened, some Will say
weakened. In any case we are far from
the state of mind of the Lacedaemonlan
general who discovered virtue in the mouse
who bit his thumb while he was runmaging
in a basket of figs. You see,' he observed
there is no animal so weakly that he can
not save his life, if he have but the virtue
to defend HIMSELF Thus virtue, at that
pnOph.
AT present. continued the most arlsto-
cratic-Iooking of the Forty Immortals, tine
Montyon prizes tend, on the contrary, 10
recompense the sacrifice of self and the
most perfect abnegauons. Inc virtue we
celebrate demands moral idlhei eiie'a pi9S
ical force"
This was Paul HerVieus excuse for the
men of France in view of the starting tact
that while one hundred peculiarly Vituous
women were reported to them this year,
there were but twelve men to choose from
When the Forty Immortals do n thing they
do it well-they have been one hundred ana
nine years making dictionary, ana Iney
have not got beyond the letter ID. Thus
when they start out hunting virtue in men
we may be sure OF something strong.
A Deserving Case.
Really. does not the case of poor Au-
euste Peigne bring a lump into your
throat? He is peasant farmer, having
inherited Jointly with his three brothers
something less than four acres of land
from their father. These brothers, though
they are now over forty years of age, are
all three so feeble minded and feeble-bodied
that they are helpless. From morning till
night therefore. the elder brother tills the
four acres, working. like four men--to sup
port four men. When at night he craWis
to the house dog tired there is no supper
waiting for him. He must get the supper
for himself and his three feeble minded
brothers; and the bfedKIaSt. ana the din
ner and the keeping OF the house-because
no woman in the country side will work
beside those feeble-minded cranks.
For fifteen years AugIste Peigne has
acted as father mother, sick nurse, servant
girl and hired manAto those three trouble
some and gocd-for- nothing degenerates. He
has never complained, never sought to shift
their responsibility ito the community.
Years ago, while his father and mother
lived. he was engaged to'a farmers daugh-
ter They never married. but she still ex-
lists. The French Academy, when it does
things. does them well. 1t has removed
the three brothers to asylums and handed
Auguste 5000 cash. He is only forty-five
years old-perhaps he will yet marry the
farmers daughter. $3.50
First Crown Of Virtue.
Though all get the same sums. some are
crowned, with greater honor than others.
The first crown Of virtue this Christmas
goes to a blind girl. 1t is FRANCHISE Mar
tinheim, a pupil-teacher of the Young Blind
Institution Of Paris. Up to the age of ten
she could see as well as anybody; therefore,
as she says, she has great advantage
over born-blind girls In that she knows
what the outside world is like She has al
ways made 1t an excuse for taking on her.
self the meanest jobs. Years ago she was
made a teacher, but she never got time to
run a regular class. The sickly the stupid
and the tinid call for her continually.
There are blind-deaf and blind-mutes. even.
who can learn only from FRANCHISE paul
Heryieu declared to the assembled forty
of the most cultivated minds of France
MI