Evening star., 1923-12-29
BY THE MAHaUIsE DE FoNTENoY.

u
On the demand of the Princess
Minutolo di Bugnano, wife of sem
ator of the Kingdom of Italy and by
birth a lineal descendant of that
Count Won Fersen who, a Swedish Of
ffcer on the staff of Gen. de Rocham-
beau, at Yorktown, was associated,
until a few months ago, in a roman
tic fashion with the history of the
Ill fated Marie Antoinette of France,
the body of her only brother, Count
Jacques Adelsward de Fersen, has been
seized by the police authorities at
Rome a few hours after its arrival
from Capri, at Rome. for the pur-
pose of cremation. The princess
claims that her brother succumbed
to poison, administered TO him by
one OF his questionable friends who,
imme diately upon the counts death,
on the island of Capri, produced
count's) entire fortune, amounting
to over half a million dollars and the
handsome villa on the island where
de Fersen had made his home Tor
several years. The circumstances or
the seizure of the body by the police
for purposes of investigation and the
strict surveillance which has been es-
tablished over the man named as
chief beneficiary In the Will, as wen
as the influences involved by the SIS
ter and senatorial brother-in-law or
the Count de F'ersen in the matter,
have created an enormous senSatloi,
throughout Italy and have attracted
attention to the strange ana unhappy
career of the dead man.
X X X X
Just about twenty years ago the
columns of the newspapers in Paris
were filled with the more or less
veiled details of a scandal in which
a certain Count jacques AdelsWard
de Fersen was concerned. He was
charged by the police with maintain
ing. at his large and richly furnished
bachelor apartment in the Avenue de
Macmahon, a sort of temple where
the so-called "black masses" and
other analogous rites OF a forbidden
and unholy cult were solemnized in
defiance Of the laws of God and man
These odious and infamous cere-
monies were attended by number
Of young men of much the same stripe
as the Count de Fersen, and also by
several elder men, who fastened to
leave France for a prolonged voyage
abroad when they learned of the sud
den descent made by the police upon
mahon and the arrest of the count
and a number of his associates, IN
cluding two young men who styled
themselves Counts de Warren, and
the seizure of all sorts Of parapher-
MALTA. of tapestries and the paintings,
etc, adjoining the black mass temple.
The trial resulted. in spite or the
eloquent defense of the count by the
eminent lawyer Henri Robert, who
has just been elected to membership
of the Academy, in a sentence or SIX
months imprisonment against the
count, who was the subject or greater
leniency than his associates by rea-
son of his delicate health and also be-
cause of his name, while the two de
Warrens and certain of his other as
sociates, in whose behalf no such
mitigating circumstances could be
put forward, were condemned to a
couple OF years Imprisonment.
Additional importance was given
to the entire affair by the discovery
that tho Count de Fersen was en-
gagged at the time to be married to
q young girl, bearer Of a historic French
name and whose great
had held the offlce of grand chan
cellor of France. Naturally this
scandal had the result of the i'm
mediate breaking off of the match
within a month Of the date fixed for
| the wedding and in the deportation
Of the count from France as soon
as he had served his sentence.
Utterly desperate; Ias, the count t,dtanas deter,
which. condemned ~ he was to So
| ctai ostracim, had become intoler-
k-Abla and hG shot himself, 1ndicting