DARING ADVENTURESS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 140, 11 June 1909, Page 6

DARING ADVENTURESS.

MAKING DUPES OF PARIS SHOP- . MEN. Everybody is talking about the adventures of a woman, whose handsome person and commanding presence will at once be realised when it is explained that she was known to her intimate friends as "Son Altesse Royale la Grosse Melie" (writes a Paris correspondent to a London paper at the end of April). Emilie had set herself to make dupes and a fortune, and it cannot be denied that when she drove down the Avenue dv Bois de Boulogne, arrayed in gorgeous costumes, and seated in a fine carriage drawn by a pair of spanking horses, her coachman and footmen being in very correct livery, people turned round to gaze at her in admiration, -wondering who she might be. Such a sight is often to be witnessed in Paris, but Emilie "cut out all competitors eager to create a sensation. What is much more distressing, she contrived to impress the tradesmen whom she honored with a visit to such an extent that they forwarded all the goods which she condescended to order to her abode without hinting at very punctual payment, and when they sent their bills round they found to their consternation that she had flitted. The handsome equippage was simply hired, and each of her furnished flats was only taken for the brief space of a week, so that she experienced no difficulty in moving about. But the tradesmen had been completely dazzled.

When Emilie walked into ther establishments with a dignified air, her servants settled her obsequiously in a chair, and as she inspected jewellery, lace, furs, and other luxurious articles, she frequently exclaimed that they were very good, but were hardly suitable to a personage of her exalted position. So when at last she designed to accept something which, after all, as she observed, was not too inferior, the luckless shopkeeper was in high delight, and humbly escorted the princess, the marquise, or the millionaire American, for such she gave herself out in turn to be, to her carriage wth a profusion of bows. At last the complaints of* her numerous dupes led to a warrant being issued for her arrest, whereup on "La Grosse Melie" went off a little further than a newly-furnished flat, and betook herself to foreign parts. This was in November, but with the approach of spring and the season, Emilie felt a longing to return to the gay city. She accordingly came back to Paris, but, being wise in her generation, she took up her abode with a female friend, dwelling on a remote boulevard, and only sallied forth at night, her face hidden by a thick veil— another "veiled lady." So great was her surprise when the police, who had somehow discovered her whereabouts, called in the early morning and took her into custody, but she soon recovered her spirits, and when she was questioned by M. Hamard, the chief of the Criminal Detective Department, she gave full vent to her mirth. "Ah!" she exclaimed, laughing until the tears ran down her rosy cheeks, "what a beautiful country France is! What a country of dupes! When they thought that they had a Eoyal Highness for a customer, the tradesmen were ready to entrust all their goods to me, and their shops into the bargain. It is true that I was stylish, and fsvould have dazzled all the diplomatists at the European Courts." Then she went on to relate that, although she was not a Royal Highness, she had lived royally with the money derived from the sale of the goods sent to her by too-confiding shopkeepers. Emilie had not much cash about her, but M. Hamard had ascertained that she lately pawned various valuable articles in London. She is now at the Saint Lazare prison, and under the same roof as Madame Steinheil. This is the end of her audacious adventures for the present.