Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1910 — BOGUS TITLES IN FRANCE. [ARTICLE]

BOGUS TITLES IN FRANCE.

Number of Spurious Claimants to Nobility Said to Be Enormous. About 25,000 so-called noble families in France would be seriously embarrassed were they asked to produce their patent of nobility, writes Baron du Roure de Paulin in the Paris Revue. The number of bearers of spurious French' titles, according to the baron, is enormous. After exhaustive genealogical investigations he comes to the conclusion that while there are today 70,000 noble families in France, there existed before the Revolution only 30,000 noble houses, and since then no more than 15,000 new names have been legitimately added. - It is astonishing how many illustrious French disappeared during the nineteenth century. The oldest French nobility traces back to the Crusaders, of whom 6,000 bore French names and escutcheons. Today hardly 400 French families can boast with more or less justification of a Crusader ancestor. One single French family,' the cient house traces genuine direct desceht from William of that name, who was grand master Of the Order of the Templars and was killed in the battle of Mdnsurah In 1249. Of the half dozen premier dukes and peers of France who took precedence over all others no descendants now exist. At the time of the French Revolution, there existed thirty-nine dukes who ranked as peers of France, and fortyone others, but .of all these only twen-ty-three are left. Other noble families whose heads were direct grand vassals of the French kings have all but died out. A notable exception is the house of De la Tour d’Auvergne, always prolific In producing great men, among others the famous Marshal Turenne. There are still descendants living of the illustrious house of Lusignan and also legitimate bearers of the names of Guise and Richelieu, but the Colignys, the Montmorencys and the Mazarins, among others, have all died out. The writer has also traced the downward pedigrees of other famous Frenchmen. Nothing is left now of the families of Racine, Mollere, Montaigne, Rabelais, Boileau and Saint-. Simon. Only Beaumarchais and Corneille have still descendants' living. Not a single trace is left of the heroes of the Revolution except in the person of the woman novelist "Gyp,” who is descended from Mlrabeau’B Jbrother, Mirabeau-Tonneau. Napoleon created five kings, one viceroy, seven princes, three grand dukeshnd forty dukes, but all of theib splendor only twelve ducal names remain to-day.