An Eccentric Baron.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 7

An Eccentric Baron.

One of the most eccentric of Parisians, the Baron de Joest, has recently died, bequoathing his property, worth more than £100,000, to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. As was to be expected, the baron's relatives intend to contest his will, and the revelations expected to be made during the lawsuit promise to be full of interest. The baron lived in a simple manner, attended only by a female servant, young and good-looking, like the soubrettes whom one sees on the French stage. He was in the habit of changing his soubrette once or twice a month. Dr Joest might be compared, owing to his eccentricities, to the mad Marquis of Waterford. On one occasion, after making his coachman §et his carriage ready, to drive him to the lois de Boulogne in a blinding snowstorm he countermanded the order, and towards ten o'clock at night repeated it again, going down to the stables to observe now the unfortunate coachman liked hia caprices. The Jehu, exasperated beyond measure, fell upon his master like a maniac, pommelling him without mercy, and, flinging him into the carriage, drove him off, nolens vohns, to the Bois, oringing him back half -dead from the cold at 4 o'clock next morning. Next day the baron, summoning his coachman to his presence, gave him a hundred francs, and commended the strength of his arms. The baron belonged to seventeen different humanitarian societies, but showed little proof of benevoleaco to man or beast during bis lifetime.