The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-21
MAN WINS FAME
 IN HIS 0LD ACE Also Wins Fortune at Age of
 81 Years PAINTS GLOVE BOXES Clouds of Disorder Threaten the High Governments of Europe-House of Lords May Have to Dis
 solve or Submit.
BY MARQUIS DE cAsTELLANE.

the painter Harpignies now in his
 eighty-first year. Leaving valenciennes
 for Paris as raw youth, he lived on
 horse flesh cooked over little stove in
 the Latin quarter, where he earned
 meagre living by painting glove-boxes for
 the Magasin du Louvre.
 Those were in the days when Chauch-
 ard, the subsequent owner of the big
 gest shop In Paris, worked for six dollars
 week. Harpignies painted landscapes
 and water colors all his life without at tracting any attention until he was
 seventy. Then he painted two pictures
 entitled: "A Morning in Autumn" and "Olives and Evergreens" at beautiful
 Beaulieu, on the French Riviera, near
 Monte Carlo, and became suddenly famous.
 From that time fortune smiled on the
 old painter. He is now the very foremost
 among the French painters, secretary of
 the Society of French artists, and
 Commander of the Legion of Honor. His pictures bring enormous prices and
 his fame Is worldwide.
 Harpignies is an extraordinary man in
 every respect. For instance, he seems
 quite juvenile in spite of his great age.
 He loves dancing, society, ladies-espec- ially young ladies. He entertains contin- ually at his country house, which does not prevent his being one of the hardest
 workers among the French painters. Tragedy is in the air and the thrones
 of Europe seem to be crumbling away.
 Formerly Turkey was the only sick mon-
 archy, but now 1t seems England Is
 threatened, to say nothing of half dozen other powerful states They tell
 me the House of Lords, proud Englands s
 proudest institution, will have to go. Submit or dissolve Is the stern notice that has already been served upon 1t And when it is shorn of It's strength or | shall have disappeared, the poor mon ! archy will be poor indeed.
 | Russia is so sick that It's Czar cannot | eat or sleep or go to church or take | a train without the deadly fear of the | assassin in his heart. The people in- habiting the outlying provinces of Tur- | key do not even know the young Turks | are in power Constantinople and the old 1 order of pillage changes not. | Spain sits upon a seething volcano and Portugal has toy king. The Balkan 1 states, as in the fable of the Frog and | the OK, are liable to burst themselves 1 trying to achieve independence. Already | the Duo dAbruzzi is talked of as a pos
 sible successor to King George of 1 Greece.
 Yes, tragedy Is in the air, and the l thrones are threatened.
 The recent inauguration of the new | American Hospital, the president of l which Is the well known banker John H.
 Harjes, calls attention to the many | benevolent works due to Americans in 1 the city of Paris.
 1 After the aforesaid hospital is the hos | nj ita1 hui htr K nd l his charming wife, devoted especially to ! the cure of poor people suffering from | rheumatism. Not less important is the Miller Gould Hall built by Anna Gould, the present Princess de Sagan, as a
 memorial to her mother, the late Mrs.
 Jay Gould. This is fre-proof and there | can never be repetition of that horrible catastrophe of the Bazaar de la Charlie, | when over a hundred of our noble and charitable ladies were burnt to death. | The donation of over five hundred thousand dollars by Mrs. James Stillman to the world famed Ecole des Beaux Arts, is a practical recognition of what America owes to our Accademy of Fine Arts The American Art Association owes much of it's success also to the sus- taining hand of Mrs. Rodman Wanna maker.
 Then there is the American Girls Home, founded by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, wife of tho American ambassador. to Great Britian There Is also the British American Young Womens Christian As sociation founded by Mrs Whitney
 Hoff, daughter of the late Commodore Whitney of Detroit. These are only few of the good works, which Paris owes to the charity and generosity of
 the Americans.
 Public opinion Is trying Alphonso XIII of Spain, on the charge of being the as- oF Ia defense say that according to the laws of his country, he could not have acted otherwise. It Is true that he has the power to pardon. But the Minister of Justice mustafrst present the case to a council of ministers, who proceed to ex- anime it. If this body of eminent men concludes that there has been an error
 of Justice, they carry the petition to the king. and ask him to exercise the royal
 prerogatiye In the present case no such recommendation was ever made to the king. Hence his defenders declare ! be was powerless to act in~the matter. His opponents, on the other hand, most emphatically declare that if his most Christian majesty had really wanted to
 save Ferrer he could easily have found
 a way. It seems rather hard upon the
 young King, who has twice narrowly
 escaped assassination at the hands of
 these very men.
 Can 1t be that Alphonse is nearing the
 climax of his chequered life? From the
 very beginning he has had struggle
 He came into the world before his time. and was only kept alive by the tender
 care of his little Austrian mother, Queen
 Christiana 'TIe lives, but he is quasi
 dead.' the court physician once re-
 marked.
 When affairs of state forced him to seek an En~'sh wife. the beautiful and whole
 some Princess Patricia of Connaught promptly turned him down. My, but he
 Is dirty" said this naughty princess. His nose Is too long, his lips are too thick, his chest Is too fiat and his chin too weak" s'What! said the ambitious little Ena of Battenberg, "You refuse a
 King? Very well, then. I'll take him. He will learn how to wash himself
 And so the little Ena Is now Queen Of Spain But who knows for how long? Perhaps the republicans, Carlists and an- archists know; certainly the young King and Queen cannot tell.
 The career of daring and danger pur- sued by Gen. Arthur Tcherup Spiridovich, the fiance of Mrs. William Hayes Chap man of New York, is perhaps not alto gether known in America. It Is said that a telegram from him to the Grand Duke Sergius. to the eFect that England and Japan caused the revolution in Russia, was responsible for the assassination of the grand duke by the anarchists. Spirid- ovich himself was condemned to simi- lar fate but he fled to the mountains of Macedonia It was by threatening re- volt of the Slavic Catholics Especially the faithful Poles) against the church, that he prevented the Pope rom pro- claiming the Emperor of Germany pro- nf 0rin npf