THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF PRASLIN.

Emilia. This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven,

Than thou wast worthy her.

THE family of Choiseul-Praslin is of origin almost coeval with the sovereign line of Bourbon itself. The old bloodroyal of France flows in its veins. Raynard Sieur de Choiseul, Count de Langres, married, in 1182, Alix de Dreux, granddaughter of King Louis VI. Their descendants have been great for ages. Charles de Choiseul, Marshal of France, died in 1626, after having, in his country's service, commanded nine different armies, assisted at forty-seven engagements, and received thirty-six wounds. Stephen Francis de Choiseul, Duke of Choiseul and of Amboise, who died in 1785, was successively ambassador at Rome, at Vienna, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of War, and Minister of Marine. His influence for good or evil had much to do with the destinies of France; for he it was who first subjected Corsica, the land of Napoleon, to French dominion, and who counseled the assistance given by King Louis to the colonies of America, when

achieving their independence under Washington. To this Duke of Choiseul the French navy owes its rise into importance. The duke, who died in 1817, wrote a celebrated, and, in its results, very effective, work on the emancipation of Greece. This then was the house, upon which its representative, Charles Laure Hugo Theobald, Duke of Choiseul-Praslin, was to cast a stain of the blackest die for ever. Despite of all antecedent glories, the name of Praslin cannot be mentioned in future without bringing remembrance of one of the most wicked and cruel, the most heartless and cowardly murders that bring additional disgrace to the annals of crime.

But the story needs no comment. The simple facts, as gathered from the various pieces of evidence adduced, are terrible and startling enough in themselves. To begin the narrative with the conjugal position of the duke. He was born in 1805, and, in 1825, he married Fanny, danghter of the late Count Frances Horace Sebastiani, a distinguished French general, since a peer and Marshal of France, by his wife Frances Jane de Coigny, sister of that Mdlle. de Coigny who inspired the unfortunate poet, Andrew Chénier, (already of record in this volume,) her fellow-prisoner in St. Lazarus, with his touching elegy of "La Jeune Captive."

The Duke and Duchess of Praslin had by this union three sons (of whom Gaston Louis Phillipe, born the 7th August, 1834, is the present duke,) and six daughters. At the period when the dreadful tragedy happened, the two eldest of these children, who were daughters, were married. The one next in seniority, also a daughter, was in her eighteenth year. The youngest child, a boy, was eight years old. Fanny, Duchess of Praslin, was at this time in her forty-first year, some two years younger than her husband. She was born

in 1807, at Constantinople, during the embassy of General Horace Sebastiani, her father, to the Ottoman Porte.

A short time after her birth, Mdlle. Fanny Sebastiani lost her mother, whose in-urned heart, according to custom, was transported to Olmetta, in Corsica, the home of the Sebastiani family: the motherless child was brought up by her aunt. When her marriage was arranged, Baron Pasquier, since a Duke and Chancellor of France, was the Duke of Praslin's first witness at the signing of the matrimonial contract; he afterwards sat as judge upon the murder. The husband inherited the honors of his house in 1841, on the death of the Duke of Praslin, his father, formerly Chamberlain to the Empress Josephine, and colonel of the National Guard, in 1814. By this succession he became chief of the third branch of the ducal house of Choiseul; and he was made a member of the Chamber of Peers on the 6th of April, 1847.

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From the time of the death of the old duke his father, he and his duchess and family lived at their Château of VauxPraslin, near Melun, in the department of ihe Seine and MarThis Château of Vaux had once been one of the most sumptuous of the residences of Fouquet, the princely but unfortunate minister of Louis XIV. The duke and duchess were latterly not happy in their union. Grave discord had arisen between them. Their dissensions had become matter of public notoriety both in town and country. One serious cause of quarrel had been the influence which the governess of his daughters, a Mdlle. Henrietta Deluzy-Desportes, had gained over the duke. The duchess objected to the continuance of this lady in the family, and particularly complained of her estranging from her the affections of her daughters. This subject of discord increased with years, and eventually grew

to such a height, that at last Mdlle. Deluzy had to quit. She did not, however, leave France, as the duchess expected, but went to reside in a boarding-school near Paris. Here the duke visited her, and here she was about to get an appointment as instructress; but the principal of the establishment required a prior letter of recommendation from the Duchess of Praslin. Such a letter, therefore, became vital to Mdlle. Deluzy, and the duke undertook to procure it. He was to have obtained it the very morning the duchess was found murdered. The departure of Mdlle. Deluzy from the Praslin family took place at Paris, the 18th July, 1847, just about a month before the occurrence of the fatal catastrophe. The duke and duchess were then apparently reconciled, and they went from Paris to their country Château together with their children. The people, assembled at Melun for the celebration of the patron festival of St. Ambrose, saw them there together arm in arm, and were glad in consequence, for the family of Praslin was popular with them; it was believed that they had become perfect friends for the future.

The duchess herself was much and generally beloved for her active charity and benevolence; the peasantry about her surnamed her "the good lady of Praslin." This semblance of concord between the duke and duchess was, however, a mere shadow; she still had her sorrows; she would often feel and express a kind of presentiment of her approaching end. One day the duke requested her to descend into the funeral vault at Vaux, which had recently been repaired; she refused, saying, "Shall I not soon go into it for ever?" It was under this state of circumstances that on the 17th of August, 1847, all the Praslin family left their château, and came to their superb residence in Paris, in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré,

No. 55, at 8 o'clock in the evening, by the Corbeil Railway. After their arrival, the duke, with three of his daughters, and the youngest of his sons, went to Mad. Lemaire's, the mistress of a boarding-house mentioned, to visit Mdlle. Deluzy Desportes; he saw her about the letter, and left her at ten o'clock; he arrived at his house a little before eleven, then conducted the young ladies to their apartment, and immediately retired to his own.

While the duke was out, the duchess with her two eldest sons took a hackney-coach, drove to a bookseller's in the Rue Coq-Saint-Honoré, and after staying a short time there returned home at half-past nine; the duchess then retired to her sleeping apartment where she put on her night-apparel, ordered and took some orgeat, laid herself down tranquilly, and beginning to read in bed, dismissed her maid with a desire that she would call her at six o'clock the next morning. The maid never saw her alive again: at five o'clock on that morning the duchess had ceased to exist. Her body thrown down near the chimney, with the head and back against a sofa, there she lay deluged in her blood, and pierced with more than forty wounds. The news spread like wildfire, and all Paris was excited. An investigation instantly began. According to the opinion of the experts called in, three kinds of weapons must have been used in the perpetration of this crime; one a cutting, one a pointed, and one a bruising weapon; or at least they said, the assassin made use of an arm which had at the same time a point, a blade, and a stout handle, like a yatigan.

The blood had spurted on all sides. It formed itself into pools, gutters, drops, and various stains. It was seen upon the bed, upon the curtains, on the bell-rope, and indeed upon almost all the furniture of the room.