Evening star., 1923-04-29
BY STERLING HEILIG.
BAGNER ES- -DE-BIGORRE,

South of France, April 10.
A MONG the fashionable women
n walking barefoot here-all
n barefoot!-one among them
owes her life's happiness to
her beautiful feet.
Her husband almost neglected her,
although she was nice looking and
had brought him money. Simply, she
had none of the noisy talents which
make a woman prominent in idle So
ciety.
Then she met q notable American
beauty on her travels. The woman
who had everything chummed up
with the neglected wife. One day, she
said:
I'm sure your feet are beautiful"
They were. But nobody knew it.
Now, everybody knows 1t. Word flew
through their set that the hitherto
uninteresting wife was a natural
barefoot girl-like Nine. Montpelier
and all the others. who. in Egyptian
boudoir gowns. receive their woman
friends barefoot, in Paris. The neg
lected wife-neglected, now. no more
did likewise!
The fad is called Egyptian. and GER
tainly Egyptian court DANES are seen
barefoot in the ancient frieZes. AS
fact. however. Paris papers have
been naming duchesses and countess
os and war profiteers' wives who are
certainly past thirty-five and who
show wonderful feet
Also the true barefoot girl has been
growing UP from childhood. these fif-
teen years past. Few knew IT but
her mamma and the massage special
ist and manicure: but for some years
mast mothers in Paris and London So
ciety have been giving immense care
10 the feet of their growing daugh-
ters.
Now, as everybody knows. the
| rosebud feet" are we'll nursed up at
Bigorre. After a trying London or
Paris season, they go "wading In the
dews" OF the sweet valley, close to
Spain and warm in April-where. on
plea of an astonishing new 'vigor'
discovery. il is quite proper to go
barefoot in public.
X j. x
DIGORRE has mayor eishty-two
ID years old. Monsieur Lataple
who himself has beautiful feet. has
! no true idea, to this day, why the
| native girls of Bigorre and Luchon
| have, at once, beautiful feet and
splendid physique. Years ago, he got
| IL into his head that it was walking
In the dew, barefoot.
THE women OF Bigorre always had
beautiful feet" says the vigorous and
yirtuous mayor of eighty-two. whose
father died at 104. and whose ances-
tors have been in this valley time
out of mind. I'VE took our womens :
feet for granted. and resented the
admiration of outsiders, who saw
them going barefoot for their pleas
ure in the warm season.
"One. day." continues Mayor Lata-
pie. "a Paris mother, with daugh-
ter OF twelve beside her, asked me
very earnestly how it was that our
country girls, driving in with the
oxcarts, had feet At for queens. l
told her that it might be heredity-
our people have a great deal of race
there have been but few marriages
with outsiders. Also, ! told her
that. time out Of mind. the women of
the two Bagneres have walked bare
foot, a part of each day in the pleas
ant season. 1t is a tradition, even of
the best families
Our own grandparents knew Bigore
and Luchon.
They had no more idea than Mayor
Latapie Of the wonderful but obscure
forces tapped by the bare feet of
these native girls.
Old families Of Boston. New York.
Philadelphia. Baltimore and the cot
ton-rich south found Bigorre and
Luchon paradise of flowers, chest
nut trees and blue sky. where the
eagle of the Pyrenees scars round the
silent peaks. They took radioactive
baths from the hot springs-and did
not know they were radioactive,
We learned the radioactive part,
some fifteen years ago-and imagined
that we knew the essentials in gen.
eraI way. AS a fact. we knew
scarcely more than our grandparents.
Like them. we get the radium
emanation, which we do not need.
except on doctors orders. and (still