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Show !P ((f)) 61. )T ib''o ' ZOPYflGHr BY THF MFcieR .rVJ.:A? JSrfp.'CATF ; OF WHICH SEX? ! "LTISTUKY, particularly that portion j which deals with the intrigues I and plots that honeycombed the courts J of Europe during tlie Eighteenth century, cen-tury, is tilled with tlie accounts of a Cumber of unusual personages but It Is doubtful If any of these are quite as remarkable as the ones connected with the career of the Chevalier d'Eon, whose exploits were directly responsible for much of the glory which surrounds the name of Louis XV. Born at Tonnere, France, in 172S, Charles Genevieve Louis Auguste An-dree An-dree Timothee dTvon de Beaumont de-1 veloped a talent early in life for impersonating members of either sex with a facility which appears to have been little less than marvelous. In fact, the mystery which surrounds the true sex of this adventurer or adventuress adven-turess becomes more startling with the examination of each exploit. According Ac-cording to contemporary historians. d'Eon was able to appear either as a man or as a woman, with an ease which rendered penetration of his disguise dis-guise Impossible, and his ability in this line gained for him (the masculine mascu-line pronoun being used advisedly) a position at the head of the secret agents employed by Louis, and It was not long before he became the most j accomplished spy w ho ever delved into the secrets of a court or divined the intention of a ruler. 'Part of the time he would be the Chevalier d'Eon, dashing, debonair and fearless. Then tlie chevalier would allow It to be known that he was going somewhere on a visit, and a beautiful woman versed in all the arts which make men open their hearts and their lips, forgetful of the seal of secrecy which they would never lift to their closest male friend would appear, and another report would soon be on its way to the private sanctum of the king. No one suspected that the dashing chevalier and the flirtatious coquette we're one and the same, though when the exposure was finally made, even his enemies had the grace to say that d'Eon had "fought over half of Europe and flirted over the other half." In Paris, In London, in Borne and in Genoa, the chevalier added success after success to his long list of vie- j tories, prying into secrets and ferret-1 ing out the truth when the greatest spies of five kingdoms had utterly failed. j But It was while at the court of the Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, in the feminine role, that the chevalier achieved his crowning triumph. Europe Eu-rope was then on the verge of the Seven Years' war, and Louis desired an alliance with Russia. One after mi-other mi-other the veterans of the diplomatic service returned to Paris, stoop-shouldered stoop-shouldered and beaten. The imperial palace, they said, was closed to them. The empress would have none of their advice. She was adamant in her decision de-cision to stand aloof in the struggle which was approaching. As a last resort, d'Eon was dispatched dis-patched to Moscow, and before many weeks had passer, it began to be rumored ru-mored about the Russian capital .fhat her majesty had a new maid of honor who appeared to have a strange bold over the queen. The girl, as charming as she was pretty, was careful not to play her cards too rapidly, but she lost no opportunity to shift the conversation con-versation to a discussion of diplomacy and at first to suggest nnd then to prove the wisdom of an alliance between be-tween France, Russia and Austria against Frederick the Great. Little by little the decision of the queen began to crumble, and, some two weeks after the new maid of honor disappeared from the palace which was about the same time that d'Eon was making his report to Louis it became known that the alliance would be ratified at an early date, thus completely altering the map of Europe. Tills, however, was destined to be the chevalier's last success. He was growing old, and lilies were appearing in his face which it was difficult to hide by the application of cosmetics. Following an almost total collapse of his plans at the Court of St. James, in London, d'Eon retired from public life, and, during the 33 years which elapsed before his death, he dressed continually contin-ually as a woman, using the name "lime. d'Eon." This would appear to lend weight to the belief that he belonged be-longed to the feminine sex, but beyond the fact that he was one of the world's super-spies, nothing definite has ever been discovered about the ambi-sextrous chevalier. THE BORDEN MYSTERY THOUGH there have been crimes which stirred the public feeling more deeply, the mystery connected with the murder of Andrew J. Borden aud his wife, wealthy residents of Fall River, Mass., contains elements of the unusual which lift it far above other similar problems and make it a fit subject for a critical examination by the most distinguished detectives of fiction sleuths who are always far more successful than those of real life. Andrew Borden was seventy years of age. His wife was sixty-four, and. although they were afterwards found to be worth some $300,000. they lived modestly in a comparatively small house, and employed only one servant, serv-ant, Bridget Sullivan. This maid of-all-work, and Lizzie Borden, Mr. Bor den's daughter by his tirst wife, were the only persons iu the house at the time 'lie murders were dici"ered, and ; suspicion naturally attached itself to tlie stepdaughter, as Bridget had not the slightest motive for the crime. After breakfast, on the morning of August 4, KMI.i, Mr. Borden left the house to attend to an errand In the neighborhood, and Mrs. Borden went upstairs to arrange the guest room rn preparation for some expected visitors. Mrs. Borden, as was .afterwards brought out at the trial, left the tirst tloor at 9:30, and it was the last time that she was seen alive. Both Lizzie and Bridget Sullivan were in the kitchen at ten o'clock when Mr. Borden returned to tho house, and, finding the front door the only other entrance locked, came in through the back way and went up to his room which coinmutiicated only with the back part of the house and could not be reached from the front. It was about fifteen minutes later that j Lizzie Borden worn upstairs, and a moment later, shrieked out that her father had been killed. Both the old man and his wife had been murdered, practically chopjyd to pieces, for there were no les-t than twenty-nine wounds on the two bodies, while the rooms In which thy were found were spattered with liquid almost to the ceiling. Investigation showed that Mrs. Borden, whose body was discovered dis-covered in the guest room, had been struck down while Lizzie Borden was talking to the servant on the first floor, only a short time before; while Mr. Borden had had time only to reach his room before being felled by a blow- that severed his skull. In spite of the lack of evidence against her, Lizzie Borden was arrested ar-rested and charged with the two murders mur-ders but was acquitted on the firvt ballot of the jury, as it was shown that it would have been Impossible for her to have killed her step-mother, changed her blood-spattered clothes, returned to the first floor where she talked to Briirget Sullivan for half an hour, and then to have gone upstairs, up-stairs, killed her father and again change her clothes before giving the alarm, to say nothing of disposing of the weapon which she had used. On the other hand, as the prosecution prosecu-tion pointed out, there was no other person who possessed both the motive and the opportunity. Lizzie Borden had quarreled with her step-mother some time before. Her father's will left the major portion of his property to his wife, unless he survived her, in which case it was to go to his daughter. The front door and all the windows on the first floor had been locked. Therefore no one could enter without passing through the kitchen, where both Bridget Sullivan and Lizzie Borden were at work. Finally Lizzie Borden had discovered the crime which at once led to the suspicion that she had committed It. But even the counsel for the state had to admit that the blood-spattered walls and the total to-tal lack of any blood stains on' Miss Borden's clothing presented an In-surmountable In-surmountable obstacle, so far as hef guilt was concerned. Her acquittal, however, not hly added another classic to the mysteries of crime, but presented two questions apparently Impossible of solution by any reasonable hypothesis: How had the murderer entered the house when the only available entrance was through the kitchen where the two women were working? How had he managed to commit two crimes of this nature nnd escape, with clothing which was certain to have been thoroughly blood-stained, without attracting the slightest notice? |