THE ORIGINAL DON JUAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 49

THE ORIGINAL DON JUAN.

Apropos of the marriage of Don Fernando Diaz de Mendoza, a correspondent writes to an English paper from Madrid :—: —

" The comedian dilettante, Count of Mendoza, who married, by special permission of the Queen-Regent of Spain, la Sefiora Guerrero, of the Madrid Theatre, begged from their general manager a few weeks' holiday for his wife and himself, which sounds quite , natural. Bat how will the two artists enjoy this short time of honeymooning ?t1

Dlreotly after the wedding they started foi Rome, to see about the affairs of a nobl* ancestor of disreputable memory, Don JuaaManara y Mendoza. Don Juan Manara, tha real hero sang by Byron and Merimee, and evoked by all tha poets of many generations past, was born at Seville in 1Q26. His father was Don Tomaso Manara Vincentolo de Lsca; bis- mother, Assunta Anfriano. Both bad left the island of 'Corsica to settle down in Seville, for all thi members of the Manara family had foe centuries marked their way with murder and drenched it with blood, having been tha terror of husbands and lowers. Their fortune, which bad been amassed in India, was go) considerable that Matteo Vasquez de Loca waa able one day to count down five million; f rancs as a loan to King Charles V, asking him if be would have it in gold or silver.

" The Don Juan of Bjron had inherited all the passions of his ancestors, to which were added a perfect beauty of form and an extraordinary wit and cunning ; therefore of bis youth as little as possible is said.

"At last Don Juan itguel Manara met his fate. Ha was 30 years old when he saw, for the firat time, Girolima Mendcz*, his own second cousin, and a violent love, suoh aa he had inspired so often in others, took hold of him. He married Girolim*, who w»s snpefrb and sweet, proud and tender, and who loved him without the servile adoration of the women he had known before, and for fiV« years his bliss was complete. Then Girolima sickened and died, and the despair of Don Juan beoame pitiful to behold ; hii mind gave' way, and he was haunted by terrible hallucinations. One day he met a funeral, and asked whose it was, but as people did not answer directly he jumped on to the hearse and knocked with his heels on tha coffin, pretending that his Girolima had been put in it alive. Another day a woman having the gait and figure of bis wife passed him ; he followed her, and, suddenly taking bold of her arm, he made her turn brusquely; then he fell in a swoon, crying, ' Her face if already a skeleton.'

" However, his madneiß being harmless, he was left alone, till the violence of his sorrow having given way to a quiet %nd deep sadness, Don Juan Mfguel Manara set oat on errands of charity, becoming the brother of tho sick and the wretched ; shrinking from no act of meroy, and founding that order o£ charity which is still the hope, of the destitute and tbe criminals in. Spain. The remainder of bis days were spent in attending to the bodies of men and women who had been hanged, beheaded, or shot, and bur j ing them with his own hands. It is he who gave orders and directions for the celebrated and frightful picture by Valdeo Leal, called tha ' Triumph of Death,' which is in the nauseam at Madrid, and of which Murillo said, • You cannot look at it without having your handkerchief near at -hand.' When he died bis own body, deprived of shroud and coffin, according to his will, was followed to the grave he had dug himself by a string of beg-, gars (sick and mangled), whose voioe* seemed, to cry to heaven, askirg not only for forgiveness for the sins of his youth, but for tha everlasting beatitude of a saint. Hi? only known descendant from Glrolima's side is the husband of Senora Guerrero, the gentleman comedian. And thoy, like a true, devout-, and superstitious Spanish couple, are going to try and have their prayer* answered.