Show GRUESOME TALE told of the french chateau vander hilt has purchased chasid it lg is difficult to conceive ot of a more royal abode than the chateau de la in muette which sir mr W ac K vanderbilt Is reported to have purchased says the chicago record ecord Il it Is a palace arid and park paik with trees hundreds of 0 ye years ars old and covering an area ot of some fifty acres within the walla wails of 0 paris situated at the end of the avenue victor hugo huge and facing the bols do boulogne the noble avenue of trees leading up to the entrance of the chateau was planted by TC le T C note nole who likewise laid out the grounds while there la Is I 1 scarcely a french kins king since the days of xing king charles IX who has not contributed tri buted something in the way of building to the chateau itself it la is full ot of historical reminiscences and among those who lived there were queen marguerite ot of navarre louis XIV ar louis XV the regent duke of orleans arid and tile the ill fated marie antoinette tol toinette nette it was there that this queen gave audience one day to a lowly german who craved permission to present her an invention destined to supersede the old fashioned or spinner ills his name was sebastian erard the father of what Is known in our day as a pianoforte it was due to tier her patronage that lie was able to achieve some success with his invention and when on the outbreak of the revolution the chateau and of la muette were put up at public auction along the me roya and noble property confiscated by the authorities he had acquired sufficient wealth to enable him to purchase a part of it the rest was occupied by the great talleyrand throughout the NI napoleonic era and it was only some years after the restoration that old alj erard succeeded in obtaining it all sine since e then it has remained in the possession of the erard family the present owner the comte de l member of the institute being the husband of the favorite niece and adopted daughter of the old widow erard who up tilt till was noted for tier her hospitality liszt and all the great composers of her ier day making tier her chateau their headquarters when in paris old mine erard had a daughter daught r ark an only child and a woman of great beauty to whom she was passionately attached the girl made a love match insisted on marrying a a very estimable and good looking young fellow of the name of scheffer yoho was everything that a wife could w wish ish a husband to be arid and enjoyed universal r respect aspect and good will in tact fact the young couple young scheffer was placed at the head of the great erard company and administered the fortunes and the at af autu B v ul ui tarl ul iti hamoui bia jo gailli ner calculated to give her the utmost satisfaction they lived with the old lad lady at the chateau and had a family ot or some five or six pretty children I 1 used to dine there r sometimes in those days and once or op twice had my attention called to the butler a rather imposing pompous looking individual clean shaven save for side whiskers who had been with time erard tor for a number of years indeed long before tier her daughters marriage and who 1 I may add was treated in that kindly familiar manner which people in the old world are accustomed to accord to old retainers then suddenly one day the chateau was shut up old mine aime erard was ill prostrated by some terrible shock the pretty prattling grandchildren had vanished so had their lovely mother so had the butler while ina M shelter sheffer had been borne to the grave grae and that without any funeral rites the authorities of the church of rome neither consenting to read the burial service over his remains nor to permit them to be interred in consecrated ground by arid and by we heard what had taken place it seems that one day when 11 scheffer came home from business he found a note from his wife saying that she could not bear to live with him any longer that her heart was bestowed elsewhere had in fact been so ever s since I 1 nee the day of their marriage that it belonged to the butler poor M scheffer might have thought thou glit and probably did so at first that his wife had suddenly become insane and that her self accusations were merely the of a disordered brain but when he found that site she had gone and that the butler had gone too and that she had carried her valuables away with tier her the horrible reality of the situation burst upon him and leaving a note for his mother in law imploring her pardon tor for what he was about to do he cut his throat threat with a razor |