Show BARONESS FAHRENBERG GCDlinbccnccs of a Noted Noble AVoinaii I notice writes a contributor to The Lousville Courier Touma in the cor respondence finding its way into eastern journals bearing upon the bequest of the late Baroness Fahrenberg not Fan nenburg that by implication this lady is made party to the publication that she was unhappily mated to the baron This leaves room for the casual reader to dwell upon the perhaps that the baron was not altogether to blame In 1860 the writer was visiting the city of I I Brussels and remained in that city during dur-ing the summer of that year becoming intimate with Hunt Strother the brother of the baroness nee Sallie Strother An introduction and an establishment into the domestic as well as social circle of l1me Le Baron and her mother followed Mrs Strother was one of the kindest women I ever knew forbearing forgiving and motherly to a fault but it was the central figure in the family circle that I love to picture Baroness Fahrenberg was as perfect a picture of womanlv loveliness loveli-ness as ever had the entre of the court circles of Europe tall beautifully formed graceful as the fawn of her native Kentucky hills with a clearcut face each feature perfect a blue eye that spoke volumes of love pride selfpoise and courage a head that Venus might have envied in its courtliness of poise resting beneath a canopy of brown tresses that in a simple toilet of a single coil added to the Grecian outline It was such a woman who was united to a man intellectually her inferior and as well unfitted by his habits for happiness in the circle of which his bride was the I shining central star Baron Fahrenberg was a young man who rarely tired without a quart flagon of beer at his bedside He loved his pipe and beer his switzer and his sausage with their results re-sults better than his wife On one occasion oc-casion the Baroness remarked as a pleasantry The Baron loves you because be-cause you eat sausage with him He was of good blood of gentlemanly bearing bear-ing but his tastes unfitted him for the society that his lineage claimed as a her itage and demanded of their equals a subordination which could not be canceled can-celed when their inherited rights in blood were degraded by bestial indulgencies The Baroness secreted her unhappiness in her heart It was not given to the public in the gauze of complaint or the roiling of expression She was conciliatory concilia-tory forgiving and ever ready to make any advance that womanly modesty conserved served by hope and affection could permit per-mit I remember an instance Mother daughter and writer ivere riding on the boulevards The Baroness had been with her mother and brother at the Hotel de France for three days having left the Baron in one of his moods we were wi1hn a few squares of the Barons residence resi-dence on the Boulevard Waterloo I sug I gusted Mine Le Baron let me order Jules to drive to the house step out go in and forgive and check this growing unhappiness un-happiness Oh no No I can not It will be better Mine Le Baron Oh no The carriage was opposite the house Jules turn to the curb It was too late then Now I must and this charming woman with forgiveness in her beaming eyes tripped to the steps then into the house We drove on to the dismay of Mrs Strother and the satisfaction of the writer The next evening we met at Mrs Strothers hotel and this paragon of her sex forgave my coup de couer and said We are reconciled But this could not be maintained What was love and forbearance for-bearance was tortured by the baron into concession and trifles became serious offenses and as a good woman the baroness knowing nothing but misery could result from the continuance of this alliance justly separated from him Surrounded by the influence of corrupt courts hedged in by conventional rulings that savored of all the evil passions this model of her sex stood like Caesars wife above suspicion Not by word or deed did the spirit of Shakepeares terse senti m nt approach the skirts of the Baroness Fahrenberg Wert thou as pure as snow and as chaste as ice thou couldst not escape calumny No the malevolent malevo-lent tongue of slander was never poised nor the pen dipped in envy or malice never stained the paper with even the faintest allusion to the spotless name of i this one of the brightest of all the pure womanhood that gathered daisies from I the fields or saw their bright faces reflected re-flected in the purling waters of her native State Kentucky In 18G6 and again in 1867 I met the baroness and her mother in Paris Hunt having died meanwhile and then met the same unalloyed greeting that I did years before |