Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1885 — Cinderella’s Slipper. [ARTICLE]

Cinderella’s Slipper.

The origin of this nursery tale is sufficiently curious. About the year 1730 a French actor of equal talent and wealth, named Thevenard, in passing through the streets of Paris, observed upon a cobbler’s stall the shoe of a female, which struck him by the remarkable smallness of its size. After admiring it for some time he returned to his house, but his thoughts reverted to the shoe with such intensity that he reappeared at the stall the next day, but the cobbler could give him no other clew to the owner than it had been left in his absence for the purpose of being repaired. Day after day did Thevenard return to his post to watch the reintegration of the slipper, which proceeded slowly, nor did the proprietor appear to claim it. Although he had completed the sixtieth year of his age, so extravagant became his passion for the fair one that he became (were it possible for a Frenchman of that day to be so) melancholy and miserable. His pain was, however, somewhat appeased by the appearance of the little foot itself, appertaining to a pretty and youthful girl in the humblest class of life. All distinctions were leveled at once by love; the actor sought the parents of the damsel, procured their consent to the match, and actually made her his wife.— London Globe. I never knew a man that lived upon hope, but that he spent his old age at somebody else’s expense.