The Washington herald., 1912-10-01
FOREIGN GOSSIP.

! Charles de- Bourbon. Prince Of Mantua
and Montferrat. who died in 1904, was one
! of the most extraordinary charlatans
that ever gulled the ever gullible. but his
| imposture reached its zenith in 1888. His
| real name was Charles Ottley Groom,
but early in his career he adopted the
title Of Napier of Merchiston. under which
name he published a strange book in
| 1870 entitled the Book of Nature and
| the Book of Man" Five years later. be-
fore the British association, he read a
paper upon a new cure Of intemperance
by vegetarianism and claimed TO have re-
deemed twenty-seven drunkards. putting
them back upon the moral path with
absolute success.
1t was after this exploit that he as
| sumed the title of Prince of Mantua and
Montferrat, basing an altogether imagi-
nary claim upon a bogus pedigree, start
ing with Adam and by way Of King
David and many famous historic person
ages TO Cadwallader. Prince OF Wales.
The most amazing thing about the man
was that he never seems to have tried
to make any money out of his impostures
hut simply played the prince to indulge
his vanity and to confer make-believe
favors and decorations upon other people.
There is a detailed account of a BAN
quet given at Greenwich on March. 1873.
when no fewer than 1000 persons as
sembled to do honor to the Prince"
who treated them to a vegetarian meal
served on gold and silver plate which in
its values, so II is recorded, rivaled the
famous service at Windsor Castle. Three
hundred of the guests, many OF them
from distant parts of the world, had their
travelling and hotel expenses paid. in
volving an expenditure of some Elf, 900
on paper.
That banquet was as imaginary as was
the breakfast given to $50 Welsh visitors
in the same year, who out of the fulness
OF their hearts presented His High
ness with a beautifully illumined ad-
dress and nuggets valued at $4,000, the
proceeds of Welsh gold. What hap
pened in reality was that this Prince"
had an ingenious press agent-perhaps
the first of the ilk-who prevailed upon
certain newspapers to print accounts of
these marvellous. imaginary ceremonials.
Another enterprise in which this Mr.
Groom engaged was to discover the
existence of the Mantua and Montferrat
Medal Fund, alleged to have been found
ed in the fourteenth century by an an
cestor, Louis GonZaga, captain of Man.
tua, with the object of comforting recog-
milton upon men eminent in arts, letters,
and science In the past this distinction
had been conferred, among many others.
upon Raphael, Michael Angelo. Dante,
Calico, Columbus, Milton. Shakespeare,
Bacon, and Rubens. At a meeting of
the fund held at Exeter Hall in 1888, a
letter from Shakespeare acknowledging
the receipt of a medal was actually read.
At that meeting it was announced that
the Mantua medal had been conferred
upon most of the Englishmen then fore
most In the arts, sciences, and litera-
ture.
That it was sent to them is cert 7'nly
true. and several of these eminent men
acknowledged the honor. Sir Richard
Owen wrote: II cannot sufficiently ex-
press to you the agreeable and grateful
surprise with which found awaiting me
this morning at the British Museum the
beautiful and costly evidence of your
grace's estimation of my services to
science" Ruskin expressed 'the extreme
jcy'' given him 'in being received into