A PARISIAN BUTTERFLY.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1480, 7 November 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

A PARISIAN BUTTERFLY.

A Paris correspondent writes of the late Blanche d'Antigny : She was nonothing of an actress; she was "Cupid" in Orphee aux Unfers, and this was her highest creation. It was a pink-tight performance, including a double-shuffle and break-down a Voncle Sambo or tante Chloe. Not very intellectual but very physical. It required fine legs, fine form and a handsome face. Blanche had all these good things, and, people imagined, good health into the bargain. But that was not the case. She went off in a galloping consumption, and after a few weeks illness there is nothing of her left but her name. To tell the truth, she was not an actress at all; she was " a daughter of joy," a' heroine of the demi-monde. Well, she repented of her sins, confessed herself, and got herself buried from St. Augustine's Church, where her requiem was attended by the largest possible congregation of sinners. She had her virtues, amongst which were thoughtless generosity and kindheartedness. She was the opposite of Desclee in more senses than one. The papei-s were full of her, and delight in telling pretty anecdotes of her goodness of disposition and temper. She had no father that ever anybody knew of, and her mother said she did not know the gentleman's name. Said mother took in washing, and poor Blanche was Cupid, and wore earrings worth 10,000 francs a-piece. She had laces, carriages, poodles and a Khedive of Egypt; but envious death came after her, and she is by this time forgotten. . So is her poor old mother, who had not a red cent to bless herself with, for Blanche died in debt. Sic transit gloria mundi. Paris shed a good many crocodile tears on the sheets of her leading papers over the untimely death of this poor thing, but M'lleTeo and Mme. Angot's daughter have doubtless consoled her.