The Brownsville daily herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1897-1910, 1906-11-05
MONKS ENGAGE
IN LAWSUITS
To Check Imitation of Famous
Chartreuse.
Liqueur Once Made By Carthusians Alone
Sold Under Same Trade Mark by
French Company Since Monks
We're Expelled from France.

commenced by the Carthusian
religious order of the Roman Ca
tholic Church in a dozen different
countries to protect their market
for Chartreuse, the liqueur which
bears their name and of which they
have enjoyed a monopoly for 800
years, writes William E. Curtis
from Paris for the Chicago Record
Herald. One of the suits is pend
ing in New York, where they have
applied to the United States Dis
trict Court for an injunction to
prohibit the Compagnie Fermier
from using the name, trademark
and distinctive pattern of bottles
which the monks have always used.
Testimony is being taken in Paris
before Consul General Mason.
Eugene Kelly, the American law
yer, appears for the French Co
vernment, which is not nominally
a party to the suit, but is vitality
interested in the litigation because
the Fermier Company is operating
with its authority. The trouble
grows out of the suppression of the
religious orders in France and
involves the legality of the conhs-
cation of monastic property, not
only that of the Carthusians but of
all the 90, 900 monks and nuns who
have been expelled from the Repu-
bic. Proceedings in Germany,
Belgium, Italy, England and in
other European countries and wher-
ever else Chartreuse is sold, will
follow those in the United States,
which are expected to establish a
precedent in the international use
of trademarks and other commercial
rights.
The 1iqueur known as Chartreuse
has been manufactured by the Car
thusian monks for 800 years, and
for a century and a half at a great
called the Grand Char
treuse, near Grenoble in south
eastern France. There have been
many attempts to initiate it, but
none of them have been success
full, and until now the French
has been diligent in
protecting the friars from infringe
ment. They began to make the
Iiqueur in Paris in 1907, where the
recipe was discovered by Marschal
d Estrees, a chemist in the Luxum-
berg Gardens. He gave it to the
monks. Twenty years ago Friar
Jerome Naubec perfected the pro-
cess and gave the liquer the prop
critics which have since made il
famous. Owing to the difficulty
of getting the necessary herbs and
roots in Paris, the Carthusians re-
moved 10 the monastery of Grand
Chartreuse i'll 1885, where they
since empoyed two or three hundred
peasants and women and
addition to about two
hundred lay brothers. growing the
grapes, distlIling the brandy, col
lecting the herbs, manufacturing
the liqueur, bottling, packing and
it to all parts of the globe.
About forty monks were engaged
in experimenting the business be-
tween their religious exercises.
They la an enormous plant, as
may be inferred from the fact
disclosed in the evidence taken be-
fore Consul General Mason that
they sold 100000 francs worth
of liqueur the year before they
were expelled.
The basis of the liqueur is a grape
brandy, very old, smooth and fine,
to which is added flowers, berries,
leaves and roots of plants which
grow wild upon the mountains sur
rounding Grenoble and have been
cultivated in the gardens of the
monastery for more than a hundred
and fifty years. Some of the plants
KEEP OIIT Of RIICKFT Ships