Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-26
French Scholar Loves
Work Better Than Wife

Special Correspondence of The Star.
PARIS, May Is, 1907.
kx EN- Of genius generally make bad
Nv husbands, and too much learning
is apt to beget indifference to fam
fly obligations, of which the latest proof
Is furnished by M. Leon de Rosny, the VEN
cradle French savant and one of the most
distinguished Of living oriental scholars.
His wife finds him SO hard to get along
with that she has begun proceedings for
judicial separation plus an allowance of
500 month. According to Madame de
Rosny's story, he is SO absorbed In his
studies that he cares for nothing else, and
arranges his life without the slightest re-
gard to the convenience of the other men,
bers of his household. In consequence his
nearest relations have been compelled to
leave him alone in his fiat in the Rue MAJ
arine, near the French Academy, and to
retire to q country estate belonging to him.
He goes to bed at shutdown and rises be-
tween Il and 1 in the morning. Then he
works at home until 8, when he usually
goes out for his lectures at the School of
Oriental Languages. He returns home at
noon, and again goes to bed Tor some
hours. He suffers from insomnia and
adopts eccentric methods to overcome 1t.
He insists that maid servant must sit in
the bed room while he Is wooing the
drowsy god. She is required meanwhile,
to remain absolutely motionless. She is
forbidden to read because the noise made
by the turning of the leaves would jar on
the sensitive nerves Of the savant. She
must not sew, because the rustling of
calico or cloth might disturb him. In what
way her passive endurance of martyrdom
can help M. de Rosny to go to sleep is his
own secret.
So great Is his horror Of noise that he has
bought an entire apartment house and
keeps every fiat in 1t vacant except that
occupied by himself. Not sound must be
heard in it while he Is within doors. All
the bells are stopped up with cotton wool.
No member of his family dare intrude on
his presence unless summoned by him. His
son, youth of nineteen, calls every day,
but is forbidden to enter beyond the por-
ter's lodge. There he receives 6S cents, a
daily allowance which his father makes
him for pocket money.
Madame de Rosny complains further that
he Is allowing his property to go to wrack
and ruin. Therefore, she wants a commits
sion appointed to look into that matter
too. that steps may be taken to prevent his
fortune being lost.
Was Joan of Arcs hair fair or dark?
That perpetual and palpitating subject of
discussion has come to the front once more
/ in consequence of the quarrel between M.
Clemenceau and the people of Orleans
over the annual fetes. A writer in the
Figaro has summed up the evidence, which
seems to be as follows: number of
writers have concluded that Pucelle's hair
was dark: but their conclusions are all de-
rived from two sources-the testimony of
writer who was not born until after
Joan's death, and the famous single black
hair, found in 1874, attached to the wax
seal of document addressed by Joan to
the town of Riom. Authorities. however,
declare that the practice Of sealing with
hair was very rare, and that it had quite
disappeared before the fifteenth century
On the other hand, portrait exists in the
museum at Orleans which in all probability
dates from about 1850, or less than twenty
years after the heroine's death, and in that
portrait she is represented with fair hair
Other paintings and writings of but little
later date bear the same testimony so that
on the whole the balance of evidence goes
to show that la bonnie Lorraine had fair
not dark, tresses.