Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-09-01
! Relic That Has a Stnrx

tory of Paris, has identified q relic oi Marle Antoinette, which tells a pathetic tale, and contains probably 'he last word written by her before 'ef execution. It is her private pray or oooK and entitled: Office de Ia plNlhe Providence TJTsaee do Ia Nieison Royale de Saint Louis q Saint
 " ot oe tous les Fideles.' It was plin'ea Tn Paris by Prault in 1757 in hA'iio ana Is bound in colored moroo- oo With Delorme lace ornaments , ' ooSer and cross in the center
 HIS hook has been the pronortv If 'ie museum of Chalons for oo,
 sioeraoie tune, and nobody til1 ,o,, 'ooA the trouble of examining it's value. The Prayer Books hasrs, o,,;
 dehce of many mutilations dnrino +ha revolutionafss period. The flonn ao lys on the binding has been clumsjlv scratched out, and certain ornanon+s have been defaced On the hack of page 219 the Queen wrote in ber o,., hand what may be translated as fol- lows:
 This day, Oct. 16, at 1:3o in the morning. ny God, have pity on mo. My eyes no longer have any tears to weep for you, my poor children. Adieu. Adieu-Marie Antoinette." The date had been written as October l., at first and was corrected by the Queens own hand, to October 16. It is curious that the only other doc ument, the letter written to Madame Elizabeth on the same morning. con- talns the same initial mistake of the date, and the figure 15 is corrected by that of 1G ill a similar way. In this letter to her sister-in-law she wi!tes: slt is to you, my sister, that l write for the last time. I have just been condemned, not to a shame 1t; death for it is so only for crim- lnals, but to go and join your broth CT The two autographs are writ ten with tae same ink, so that there is no doubt whatever of the authen- tlclty of the prayer book. It's exist ence was mentioned to M. Georges La n, only a short time ago, and he went with an expert, NJ. Charaway. to Chaions to examine it. They then inquired how 1t came into the posses sion of the museum, and learned that It was part of a collection which M. Clarinet bequeathed to the museum. M Garnet had purchased it at the sale of a number of old souvenirs and relics of pr. Dorin, of Chalons. Dr. Dorin had probably received it from Mdlle. Courtois, who lived with ~'m tii] her death, and who was the oaughter of the Courtois of the Con- ventlon to collect and take an inven- tory of all papers and documents of RoDesplerre in the house of Carpen- ter Duplay, at No. 39S, Rue St. Hon. ere. The prayer book had proba bly Teen handed to Robespierre by Fou- suier, who collected the Queens he- longing after her eXecution and Courtois, when they fell into his hands, put aside anything that might later on interest the royal family. In January, 1916, the Due Decazes, on his private authority, had the house of the eX-Conventiona searched bv the police, and a great quantity of documents were seized. Courtois himself bad been eXi1ed to Belsium as a regcide. ard in the deign of Louis Philippe his son applied for the restitution of the documents, and obtained partial satisfaction. From his hands the prayer book probably passed into the possession of his sis ter, who kept it, with other relics. til her death, when they became the property of Dr. Dorin, her friend, ard finally reached the hands of NJ. Garlnet, who made his collection over to the museum of Chalons
 The French Bourgeois.
 Studying the French bourgeois of today, writer in the Grande Revue comes more or less to the conclusion that the French bourgeoisie has hard ly changed at all At least, the changes he notes are very slight. He observed tlat the workingman's wife looks less after her house, her linen, her servants, than she used, and. for instance, squan .eraG sugar during it's recent low price. On the other hand, she looks more after her children, who go to school much later than formerly. Finally, he records that on the whole the French bourgeoisie keeps lu it's old traditions in two ways. The tCl:solis family still has two or three children, and is still thrifty however, family limitation and tNtravagance may be practiced