THE BARON AND "BARONESS."
_The Romance of Baron Henri Arnous de Reviere, and "The Buckeye
Baroness," Helene Stille_.
During one October, our offices were visited by a lady who had achieved
considerable distinction, as well as notoriety, in Parisian society.
This was Mrs. Helene Cecille Stille, otherwise the "Baroness de
Reviere," and sometimes designated "The Buckeye Baroness," She came for
the purpose of prosecuting a charge against the Baron de Reviere of
"wrongful conversion and unlawful detention of personal property,"
arising from circumstances which will appear further on.
The "Baroness" was then, as she still is, a handsome woman. She was then
somewhat on the youthful side of thirty. Highly attractive and
fascinating, her every movement and gesture bespoke a vigorous physical
organization and perfect health. While the curves of her fine form
partook more of Juno's majestic frame than Hebe's pliant youth--while
the full sweep and outline of her figure denoted maturity and
completeness in every part, the charming face, the large, gazelle eyes,
the voluptuous ease of her attitude, the gentle languor of her whole
bearing, constituted a woman which few susceptible young or even mature
men could have looked on without misgivings that they might but too soon
learn to long for the glances, the smiles, the witcheries which had made
Helene Cecille Stille, in many respects, a counterpart of Helen of
Troy.
We were not acquainted with the lady's antecedents nor with her
remarkable history; but she told a plausible story, and was very fluent
and indignant, as may be gathered from the following extract from the
affidavit which was drawn under her instructions at the time:
Superior Court of the City of New York: Helene Stille, plaintiff,
against the Baron Henri de Reviere, defendant. City and County of New
York, ss.--Helene Stille, of said city being duly sworn, says that she
is the above-named plaintiff, and that she has a good cause of action
against said defendant for wrongful conversion and unlawful detention of
personal property, arising on the following facts, namely:
In the summer of 1865, in the French empire, the above-named defendant,
giving himself out to be a French nobleman of princely fortune, and then
representing himself to deponent as an unmarried man, but being in
truth, as deponent has since discovered, then a married man and a common
plebeian, swindler and common _chevalier d' industrie;_ by divers arts,
devices, false pretences and allurements, gained this plaintiff's
affections and confidence, and did, by false, wicked and fraudulent
devices, debauch this plaintiff and induce her to live with him as his
wife; and having thus basely obtained ascendancy over her and won her
confidence, did, by trick and device, induce this plaintiff to deposit
with him for safe keeping on the tenth day of September, at the city of
Paris, in France, the sum of twenty-seven thousand five hundred francs
in gold coin, and of the value of seven thousand five hundred dollars of
American money, belonging to this deponent; and said defendant then and
there promised and agreed to return the same property to this deponent
on request.
And this deponent says, that having ascertained the defendant's real
character, she demanded the restoration to her of said money by said
defendant, when said defendant absconded from France and is now in this
City and wholly refuses to return said amount of seven thousand five
hundred dollars to deponent, or any part thereof; but said defendant has
wrongfully converted said property to his own use, and now unlawfully
detains the same from this deponent, at said city of New York, and is
now, as deponent is informed and verily believes, about to quit this
city, said defendant being only a transient boarder at the New York
Hotel in this city.
Judge Freedman granted the application for an order of arrest; the
warrant was placed in the hands of Sheriff O'Brien; and Deputy Sheriffs
Laurence, Delmore and the present elegant police court clerk, John
McGowan, proceeded to the New York Hotel, and just as the guests were
assembling for dinner, the haughty aristocrat was made a prisoner,
despite his indignant protests.
In the newspapers of the day Mrs. Stille was described as "a beautiful
woman, twenty-eight years old, who has seen more life all over the globe
than any woman of her age now living." She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,
the daughter of respectable and well-to-do parents. Superbly developed
and precocious, at a very early age Helene began to sound the chords of
feeling and to taste the Circean cup that promises gratification and
excitement, mingled with so much after-bitterness. When she was yet
seventeen, she was married to George Stille at Philadelphia, after the
briefest kind of an acquaintance. With him she came to New York, living
in a style of careless gayety. Early in 1867, she gave birth to a child,
named George after his father, and in June of that year Mrs. Stille, and
Georgie, and his nurse, Mrs. Demard, were living in Saratoga. The
dashing young wife's flirtative proclivities led to a quarrel with her
husband, and he left her in a huff. His desertion did not perceptibly
disturb the serene elasticity of her mind. She possessed expansive
tastes and a capacious heart, and she was speedily consoling herself by
the attentions of George W. Beers in the gay watering-place. When
Helene, Mr. Beers, the baby and the nurse returned to New York in
September, they occupied a suite of rooms at the Prescott House. Not
unnaturally, the presence of the dashing woman in the hotel created a
sensation, as such a presence always will, as long as men continue to be
the weak, erring, susceptible creatures they are. So Helene was
flattered, and courted, and admired; and as usual, some she fancied,
some she liked, some she laughed at, and some she reserved for her more
precious favors. Then, of course, Beers mounted up on his ear, and there
was a quarrel, which resulted in the party leaving the Prescott House
for quarters over the club house at the corner of Prince and Mercer
streets. More quarrels for the same cause eventuated here, and then
Beers left her for a while. Not at all disconcerted, she took the child
and his nurse to the St. Denis Hotel, where Beers again returned,
magnanimous and forgiving. But alas, it was no use. Helene's craving for
admiration, masculine attention and money were insatiable. So Beers
became wildly jealous and indignant, and left her for good. When next
heard of, she was in Paris, where she had succeeded in making the
acquaintance of the Due de Morny, and sometimes figured as _la
Duchesse_.
Baron Henri Arnous de Reviere was the eldest son of Baron William Arnous
de Reviere, Counsellor-general of the Department of the Loire Inferior.
The title is hereditary; the family estate is situated at Varades; and
the ancestral records are kept in the archives of the ancient city of
Rennes in Brittany. The Baron first cropped up in this country about the
outbreak of the rebellion, when people here and in England were in great
excitement over the steps taken by the general government in securing
the arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell. He had apparently made one of
the elder Dumas' heroes his exalted ideal, for at the period we speak of
he had set the fashionable world of Gotham agog by making a romantic
conquest of a Mobile belle, who, after becoming thoroughly infatuated
with him, eloped to a prominent watering-place. The interference of her
friends prevented the consummation of a wedding; but his escapade formed
the subject of a book, afterwards dramatized, and acted at Wallack's
Theatre. Subsequently the Baron married Miss Blount, the daughter of a
rich Southern lawyer.
When he returned to Paris, his fame had preceded him. Society in the gay
capital under the empire was of the kind to appreciate his exploits and
to exalt him into a sort of rivalship of Monte Cristo. He assiduously
attended the theaters and salons, receiving homage everywhere-even from
the emperor himself. Finally he mounted the rostrum, and his lectures on
_L'Amour_ were the talk of the gay city.
Among those who had rushed to listen to the Baron's impassioned
eloquence was Helene Cecille Stille, now the proprietress of the
handsomest hotel on the Rue Mont-martre. It need scarcely be premised
that the wandering and appreciative eyes of the lecturer had rested on
the beautiful American, as she sat before him in an attitude expressive
of dormant passion, tinged with an imperious coquetry which was one of
the most alluring of her charms. The Hotel Montmartre was then the
fashionable resort of Louis Napoleon's dissolute nobility, and the Baron
de Reviere soon found himself a worshiper in the luxurious retreat. He
was not a man who courted by halves. He fell madly in love with the
voluptuous Helene, and yielding to an irresistible penchant, the soiled
beauty threw herself and her accumulated francs into his arms.
The Baron was one of those few men whose manners were perfect and whose
dress never strikes the eye, but which seems to have developed on them
as the natural foliage of their persons. He had a high appreciation of
the enjoyments of life--vanity, ostentation, good eating, and even the
austere joys of the family. At home with his wife he illustrated the
tender assiduity of the young husband; abroad he was the personification
of a youth just freed from parental discipline. While his wife was the
happiest woman in Paris, he was rendering Miss Stille equally
felicitous. The dinners he gave at home were unexcelled except by those
banquets which he gave at the hotel in the Rue Montmartre.
So complete had become the Baron's infatuation with the fair Helene in
September, that he took her to Biarritz, and, according to her own
story, introduced her to the Emperor Napoleon. "Then," to use her own
language when examined under oath, "I came back to Paris; stayed there
about a week, and then went to London with de Reviere. After spending
ten days in London, we went back to Paris and stopped at the Hotel de
Louvre. We then went to Bordeaux, where I remained a few days, and
whence I went to Lisbon, Portugal, staying six weeks, and went back to
Paris by way of Marseilles, traveling part of the distance in the yacht
of the Bey of Tunis. From Paris, I went with de Reviere to Nantes,
thence to Nazarre, where I stayed two days with de Review's sister."
At this time the lady described her possessions as follows: "I had two
hundred thousand francs worth of furniture, fifty thousand francs of
_objects de vertu_, nine horses, five carriages, a hundred thousand
francs worth of jewelry, many India shawls, twenty thousand francs worth
of furs of every kind and description known in the world, any quantity
of laces, twelve velvet dresses of different shades, and a toilet-set
worth eighty-thousand francs, besides an income derived from my family
in America of sixty thousand dollars," received regularly through the
hands of her banker Mr. John Monroe of 5 Rue de la Paix.
Helene Stille then disposed of her _maison_ and started with the Baron
de Reviere on a trip to South America. A full account of that trip would
read like a supplement to the Arabian Nights. For the purposes of this
tour the lady became the Baroness de Reviere, and the pair traveled
through the land of Cortez and Pizarro like some fabled Eastern
conquerors. A courier rode ahead, and engaged nearly the entire
apartments of every hotel at which they condescended to stop. Postilions
and outriders accompanied their entrance. In the hotels the Baron and
"Baroness" had their magnificent court dresses unpacked to impress and
bewilder and confound the guests, while the gaping domestics would
spread the news abroad until the entire population of the town would be
assembled open-mouthed in front of the Baron's hotel, watching his
movements and admiring in no stinted terms the statuesque beauty of the
"Baroness." This extensive triumphal procession cost a lot of money,
every cent of which is said to have been paid by the infatuated woman.
It was during their progress through Peru that she seems to have first
made the discovery that the Baron already possessed one legal wife. From
that hour, it is related to her credit, she stopped all marital
relations. She parted from her companion then and there, and returned to
Paris. She had two children by the Baron, as she testified in the legal
proceedings brought by her. The eldest, a boy, was named "Monsieur le
Comte Edmond Viel d'Espenilles; the girl, Santa Maria Rosa de
Lenia--names given them by the Baron; for," added the lady, "he is fond
of long and sonorous names."
After the separation the Baron and Helene Stille were at daggers drawn.
They had some virulent litigation in Paris, and when the Baron came to
New York with his family, consisting of his wife, two children, two men
servants and three maid servants, she quickly followed. The Baron and
his establishment were sojourning at the Clarendon Hotel, when he
received the following letter:
"MONSIEUR HENRI DE REVIERE:
I wish to know whether you intend doing anything toward the support of
your child? She is a poor, delicate little thing, being afflicted with
curvature of the spine. I have had her under treatment of Dr. Taylor for
the last three months and his charges are five hundred dollars, which
for me, with my other expenses, is a great deal. I hope you will
consider my claim a just one and act accordingly. Rosa de Lenia is one
of the most beautiful children in the world, and I love her with such a
love as you could never dream of.
Reply by bearer, or send reply later in the day, just as you feel
disposed; but a reply I must have. I should think your _amour proper_
would not allow you to abandon your child, as you have done for nearly
three years.
HOFFMAN HOUSE, Sept. 26 HELENE DE STILLE"
The rejoinder was insulting, and so she had him arrested in order that
"he might disclose those dreadful things he pretended to know about me."
There was a hearing of the lady's case before Judge Jones of the
Superior Court, when most of the foregoing particulars of Miss Stille's
history was drawn from her in cross-examination by the defendant's
counsel. At a subsequent hearing the Baron contributed an affidavit
containing many startling assertions accompanied by big figures.
"I left Paris in April for Madrid," he began, giving exactly the same
route already described by Miss Stille. Continuing, he said, "Further, I
have had an office as government contractor for artillery and ships of
war. I also contracted with a Liverpool ship-builder (Laird) for two
iron-clads and four steam corvettes for twelve million francs. I acted
as agent and partner of L. Arman of Bordeaux and Vous of Nantes, and
received in one year for my share eleven hundred thousand francs profit.
I sold forty guns to the Danish government, receiving as my commission
forty-five thousand francs. I sold in 1884, to the Prussian government,
an iron-clad and two steam corvettes for seven million five hundred
thousand francs, and received five per cent, commission." Then he
professed to have had gigantic contracts in Chili, Peru and other parts
of South America for artillery and guano. Altogether his story was of
the Brobdingnagian type.
The case, however, never came to trial, the friends of both parties to
the action suggesting an amicable settlement of their differences, which
being adjusted to everyone's satisfaction, the Baron went his way,
lecturing on "Love," a theme on which he was most conversant, and the
fair Helene spent her time flitting between this city and gay Paris, in
both of which cities she is thoroughly at home. And so the somewhat
famous episode ended, so far as the office of Howe and Hummel was
concerned.