Blandford, Wimborne and Poole Telegram. — 1875-09-10 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

THE ROMANCE 01' PARISIAN LIFE. . . .  ..... One of the most striking features of Parisian life is summed up bi the following aneodote r--"A couple of days ago one of those miserable-looking hearses Which convey paupers to their last resting-place was slowly wending its way towards the cemetry of Ivry. The Attendance was solely composed of the stony-faced driver, with his cocked hat regularly Jerking from right to left and from left to right, and of two coffin-bearers, who trudged behind, and occasionally removed RD old clay pipe from their mouths to expectorate or exchange some jocular remark on the briskness of trade. When the dismal procession reached the cemetery, the coffin, which was of white wood, and just as thin as the most hungry worm might have desired, was lowered in the _fosse commune, that extensive charnel ground, the 'workhouse of the dead. As in `Hamlet,' a gravedigger stood ready, and made very short work of the burial. The remains, being gratuitously interred, dispensed with the Latin oration and the few drops of holy water which generally constitate the last link between dead and living Catholics. And yet this woman—for the corpse was that of a female—this woman who was being hurried into a friendless, prayerless, pitiless grave—once occupied the throne of fashionable life, and was recognised 40 years ago as the queen of Parisian society. Her name WV then Conntess Boriani ; her beauty WM peerless, her toilettes excited envy in every salon, and her emblazoned carriages dashed through the Bois and disdainfully splashed the modest coupe or the old-fashioned brrline. The Count, her husband, was quite as popular. The clubs, racecourses, watering-places, chateaux, echoed his name as that of a grantiseignsur who dealt out gold as freely as though it had been copper, and who never asked or knew the price of the mansion, the horse, or the diamonds he wished to purchase. One day, however, high life was startled with the announcement that the Count was a Spanish convict, that the Countess had murdered a priest at Saragossa before she came to France, and that both had just been arreirted on a charge of forgery. This naturally created some scandal, but it WRS of short duration. The belles who had languished in the background during the reign of the beautiful Countess triumphantly resumed their old position, and delighted for a short while in tantalising the admirers of the Spanish beauty, and declaring that they had always seen through the rascality of the wealthy couple as Mr. Grimwig through the villany of Oliver Twist, But Parisian circles get wearied of even the most sensational topics of conservation, and this, like all others, was exhausted and dropped in a few days. The Count was tried and sent to the gallows, and the charming Countess locked up in a prison. When she breathed the pure atmosphere of liberty again she had hardly attained her 26th year. Prison life had not abstracted anythingfrom her beauty, Which once more served her as a passport through the world. The salons of high life were naturally closed to her, but she was received with open arms on the second step of the social ladder, the demi-mende, where she soon assumed the sceptre which she had formerly swayed on the upper storey. This lasted for a few years, but roguery seemed to have a peculiar attraction for those bright and beaming eyes. The queen of the demi-monde again fell a prey to temptation, returned to prison, and emerged from prison over and over again, until her luxuriant locks of hair began to turn grey, her face to grow pale and furrowed, and her eyes dim and glassy, until she was compelled to earn a few pence per day by selling bait to fishermen, until she became toothless and hideous, and Was finally buried in a pauper's grave, a loathsome wreck of the fair Countess of other days Ric.traneit gloria mundi.  • MR.