The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-03


 to occupy his ancestral castle. He even invited a merry party to visit him there in the Autumn, and sent new furniture and many cases of choice wines from the collection formerly made by Boni de Castellane in the pink marble palace built by Anna Gould in Paris Once more the
 creditors refused to let him enter
 and basely seized the wines which he ~ had forwarded.
 H The Duke kept up the struggle for
 his German estates with much in-
 genuity and persistence. great
 deal of complicated litigation oc-
 cured. He succeeded in having his German relation, Count von Hatzfeldt re- moved as administrator of the estates on the ground that he was hostile to him. The Duke wished to take charge of them himself, but the Kaiser. to whom every measure had to be sub- mitted, barred the Parisian dandy on account of his stormy past
 Finally the. Duke hit on the very ingenious plan of turning his German titles and estates over to his son. So this little boy, with an American mother and French father, became, quite unknown to himself, German subject and German nobleman, with all the privileges that that implies. He is described in the Almanach de Gotha as His Serene Highness the Duke of Sagan, Prince of Courland, Semigallen and Sagan, etc." Presumably when he grows little older he will become Prussian officer and wear spiked helmet unless the angry Germans shall have taken his property away
 The little Duke formerly registered at the Prussian court, and Count Kanitz, one of the kaisers chambera1ns, was appointed his guardian in Germany. certain sum is set aside for the creditors yearly, and the estates are steadily increasing in value, they can bear this. It is said that when the Duke comes of age he will be very rich.
 Sagan is possession that came to the present a dpuf al rrqp pppp Qntc of Ina famous Talleyrand, perhaps the most adrot and versatile diplomat in all history. The Emperor Ferdinand II. of Austria gave Sagan to his great general, Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland who led his army during the Thirty Years War. This was ill 1637 and Wallenstein proceeded to erect the present palace. The space that suited him was part of the city of Sagan, but this did not hinder the terrible warrior. He simply gave orders that the inhabitants of the houses he de- c1ded to remove must leave within twenty-four hours, and at the expiration of that time the torch was applied and 400 houses were burned to the ground. Upon the ruins Waenstein built the castle which stands today, surrounded by one of the finest parks in all Germany.
 Sagan in 1787 came into the hands of Prince Peter of Kurland or Courland, a son of Ernst Johann. Prince of Biron, Duke of Kurland the notorious favorite of the Russian Empress Anna. Peter died in 1900 and left Sagan to his daugh- ter, Princess Katherine of Biron-Sagan, at whose death, in lS45, her sister, Dorothea, Duchess of Talleyranc-Perigord, inherited the estates. She was very remarkable woman, who had mar rled the nephew and heir of the great diplomat, Talleyrand. The Duchess Dorothea held court at Sagan for many years, and even when old and infrm, gave several receptions every Winter, to which the officers of the small garrison the landed proprietors of the neighborhood and the town officials were invited with their wives and daughters.