Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1913-07-24

M NEE
King OF the French, lived for seVera
years at Bardstown, KY, and even PAL
court to a pretty maid of Frankfort
the State capital, lis related in an arti
Gle in the National Waterways Maya
zane. published in this city by the Ma
tional Rivers and Harb0rs Congress
ny the Countess Spottiswood-Mackin
! The article is profuse in illustration
OF scene identified with the asylum
found by the Bourbon exile during Z
most trOubulOus period of his event
ful career, when Marat had proposed
the setting Of a price upon his head
and Of priceless objects Of art present
ed by him to st. Joseph's Cathedral a
BardstoWn after he became Sovereign
OF France and. still later, following the
downfall of his dynasty. Among the
art works pictured are several vest
nents of exceeding beauty and great
intrinsic value, embroidered by. Louis
Phllippe's queen, Marie Amelie. and
his sister, Adelaide. after the flight OF
the court to England, which still re
pose in the Bardstown cathedral.
Returning from the recent world
peace conference at st. Louis, wheth-
er she had been sent as a delegate by
Governor Herman Sulzer, of New
York, and by the President-General OF
the Daughters of the American Revo-
luton, the Countess Sp~ottiswood-
Mackin made a pilgrimage to her alma
mater, the convent-academy at Naza-
reth, and while there she obtained ma
terial evidence of the sojourn of Louis
Philippe, which has been shrouded IN
mystery and doubt by historical writ
ers of the past. Photographs of the
rectory of Bishop b. ]. FIaget, at
Bardstown, where Louis Philippe was
frequently entertained by his comics
o and spiritual advisor. and of the
sacred objects to the religious COM
munity at Bardstown, including a bell
which still hangs in the tower Of the
Cathedral, are published for the first
time.
The stay of the Bourbon duke in
Kentucky vas not without a sugge
ton of romance, the Countess relates,
continuing:
While visiting Frankfort, the ducai
party vas entertained at the Love
House, which has ever been associat-
ed with Burr's conspiracy, where a
gala ball was rendered in their honor.
The stately minuet was danced and
Louis Philippe invited a young lady to
dance with him, but she declined, fear
ing to wound the feelings of a plain
young nan with whom she had but a
short while before declined to enter
the minuet. That the loyal maiden
made a more than superficial impress
sion upon His Highness is apparent
from the fact that, when, three decades
or more later. he found himself King
&C the French, a gentleman from
Frankfort who had known him during
the period of his exile called upon him
at Paris. The Kink inquired for his
Frankfort queen and chatted pleas
emily of the ball at the Love House
and the incident Of the minuet.
SIN a centennial ode to the City of
Frankfort, in 1886, Major H. T. Stan
ton, of that place, penned the follow
ing verse;
THE Love House stands no longer here
Where from the crowd secluded
The cold ambitious Aaron Burr
His scheme of empire brooded,
But some are mindful of the dance
In stately grace perfected,
Where once the proffered hand Of
France
A Frankfort. queen rejected
"ftUpon his return to France and his
elevation to the throne of the Bour-
bons, Louis PHILIPPE was not unmind-
full of the kindnesses that had been be-
slowed upon him while he tarried in
the Kentucky hills. The material evil
dences of his gratitude are many
about Bardstown and happily thees
- oU&on@ today TT nav inANoHN he l
said that a potent are influence was
exerted in the academic circle of st.
Joseph's college at Bardstown and of
the Nazareth Academy, which is in
corporated in the same religious COM
munity, by the donation of priceless
of painting, statuary and OBJ
jects dart by Louis Philippe after he
became the Sovereign of France.
Among the pictures which yet hang IN
the cathedral church at Bardstown are
est. Peter in Chains" and "A Winged
ST. Mark" by Vandyck, "St. John the
Baptist" and 1.-THE Playing of st. Bar !
tholomew," by Rubens, "The Corona
ton of the Blessed Virgin" by Muril-
10, and an unknown painters "The
Annunciation." Such a group of mas
terpieces, these, as might grace the
transept of an Old World cathedral
and might be coveted of a Continental
city. They are large pictures and are
hung high in the silent nave, where
the light from upper windows illu-
mines them and where, at eventide.
IL ey assume a wondrous systicism of
form and color"
An amusing episode is told of a pleas
ure-craving landlady who declined to
care for Louis Philippe, when he fell
i'll at her hostelry, preferring the at
fractions of a travelling show. the first
to- reach the town, to waiting upon a
scion of the royal house Of France.
THE party visited George Wash
ington at Mount Vernon in 1897, and ii
was the First President of the United
States who planned for Louis Philippe
his brothers, an itinerary OF
travel through the more settled por-
lions of the young country that took
them through to Pittsburgh anu a.
the Ohio and into the morn+air