The Washington times., 1919-05-04
nary Career Of Jacques Lebaudy. R


tanned splendid Paris house near the Are de Triomphe
in the fashionable Avenue de la Grande Armee They
also owned several wekept country seats where they
entertained on the most lavish scale
The smart swift steam yacht which few their flag was
well known the Mediterranean and other waters Their
art gallery was filed with medieval tapestries and
collection Of CorOts Messoniers and other masterpieces
of painting, valued at more than $25OO00.
At the Opera they occupied the box formerly reserved
for the arstOcrac Haussmann family Its rental cost
them 5000 year.
And the basis for all this splendor with which the
Humbert family dazzled Paris was phantom inheritance
"a safe containing nothing Of any value
With nothing more substantial than the ingenious Rg
mentS of their Imagination they succeeded by series Of
extraordinary in dupng not only the greatest banks
and mercantile houses in France, but also the nations
law courts and legislative bodies.
It Nine. Humbert in whose brain was hatched the
gigantic conspiracy that kept pouring into the pockets Of
her family millions Of dollars in return for which they
gave only the airiest Of promises
She invented the mythical American millionaire Rob
ert Henry Crawford whom she was supposed to have
nursed in bis last illness and who showed his gratitude
for her tender by bequeang her his entire fortune
of $20OOOOO0
Later when necessity required she created out Of thin
air two nephews of the deceased Crawford Their role
was to contest the viii and claim their fictitious uneles
fictitious fortune for their equally fictitious selves
contest at once begun in the courts By appeals,
reversals Of verdics discovery of evidence and all
the other means which Of wen-paid attorneys
could DEVISE the case dragged through the courts year
after year its interminabe way.
It occurred any Of the learned judges to think
it strange that the two young who trying to
wrest their uncle's millions from Mme Humbert
appeared in court Only after the swinde was exposed
did anybody think Of looking up the Broadway apartment
house in New York which entered IN the court
ords their address Then it learned that such
persons as the Crawford brothers had ever lived there
In the meantime, while the legal battle was being
waged from court to court the bundles Of securities
posing the fortune dispute supposed to be locked
in massive steel safe In the Humbert mansion IN the
Avenue de la Grande Armee And opening Of the safe
was forbidden by the courts.
This fiction formed the foundation Of all the decepOns
which shrewd Nine Humbert practieed to keep herself
and he family in prneey aluence That she was able
to make her victims believe it implicitly for many years
shows the eOnsummate skill and almost unbelievable dar
ing Of this Queen Of Swindlers." J"
Jacques Lebaudy's mother was by means the only
innocent person whom Nine Humbert made to her
dishonest ends On than occasion she relied on
the prestige Of the late Perpont Morgan the famous
New York banker to help pull the wool over her victims
eyes
Once when certain Paris bankers were showing
hesitation about increasing Mme Humberts Indebtedness
to them by matter of $150OO0 they received invita-
ton to pass the weekend at of her country estates
TO meet my friend, j. Plerpont Morgan that was the
way the invitation read.
The bankers accepted with alacrty. This would give
them Just the opportunity they had long sought of be-
coming better acquainted with the great American king
of finance
But on the day named when their carriage rolled up
to the door of the country house their hostess met them
with expressions of the most wellfegned regret Mr.
Morgan had been Unexpectedly called to Paris urgent
business she explained He had left not five minutes
lained of the great Lebaudy sugar factory after the
rs invaded the neighboLhoOd early in the war.
"a
E.l y. g.