FICKLE FORTUNE.
DUKE DIES IN POVERTY. A remarkable instance of the fickloAess of fortune in family history is brought to light by a telegram received in Paris from Buenos Aires' announcing the doatfi of Paul Fouche, Duke of Otranto, says the Daily Telegraph. Until he went to hospital to die penniless the duke had been working as an agricultural labourer. Ho was a grandson of the famous Joseph Fouche, a schoolmaster, who, after many adventures during the French Revolution, won the favour of Napoleon, and was appointed Minister of Police with the title of Duke of Otranto. Of this first duke Lamartine wrote that he lacked nothing in skill, little in common sense, but everything in virtue. The one ■who has just died had a career as eventful as that of his ancestor so far as changes of fortune were concerned.
In 1895 he went to Argentina with n comfortable fortune, and made such good use of it that he soon became a millionaire. But in 1913 his luck changed, and shortly before the war he was utterly mined. He then became a man of many trades, and succeeded so ill at any that, despite his title and famous name, he ended his days as a labourer living a hand-to-mouth existence.
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Otago Daily Times, Issue 21267, 23 February 1931, Page 14
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211FICKLE FORTUNE. Otago Daily Times, Issue 21267, 23 February 1931, Page 14
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