A £200;000 HOTEL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 84, 18 July 1910, Page 2

A £200;000 HOTEL

SISTER OF CHARITY'S SPECULATIONS.

Paris, May 24. The arrest of Sister Candide, the exnun; the suicide of her associate, Dr. Leon Petit; and the disappearance ot £150,000 worth of jewels which the sister obtained from Paris' firms are the all-absorbing topics of discussion in Paris. i One of the morals of the fantastic case seems to be that in the Paris of the twentieth century untold thousands can be had for charity for thp asking. At least, no one seemed to te able to resist this little old lady, whosjj. ambition to do good was as vast as hei'' •business ability was small. i 'Sister Candide's present difficult* are due to her ambition over-reaching itself. She wanted money, and it seemed to her an obvious thing to obtain £ 15(1000 worth of jewellery in the Rue re tfa Paix on credit and pawn it under ap assumed name in London. f "Don't you recognise that there was a of delicacy in ,your wq(y of going to woVk'V Magistrate asked** 11 -" I '"' ' ' v>; <'"' w '-'' > "I was only thinking of the good <|f my/nfctttks simply. "I #ay back the ms- - '| ! .The-good faith and devotion, of Sister CaiidMe impressed everyone Who came ni cor Mcl ''with' her. r She ■" had -'relations with number's of charitable people of wealth and well known,, r jn Paris society, and ,she seemed to be able to draw subscriptions from them inexhaustibly. s ' ''".'.. One estimate of the money which passed through her bands in connection with hamfthojies'!" puts it at..£l-,2GOjOOOv; TIJLe great .-where the St.. Salvador #O- - is,'situated was bought by, one Oi these'wealthy friends in''l9os. , The chateau and "the mineral spruigs'. were handed over to Sister Candide, kiwi'on a magnificent site in the grounds Dr. Petit planned to build a. secomfrflanatsorium for consumptives. The spot was ea/i-ed; Mont-aux-Oiseaux, and patients were fc> be admitted at nominal rates.

The philanthropist approved of the idea'--'and provided the doctor with the sum'of' £160,000. Of this £60,000 was to be spent on the building and the) rest to endow the institution. As a matter of fact, it is said that the whole of the sum was spent on the building. Patients were received at very moderate rates at first, but later the, doctor had to charge as much as 16s a day. Meanwhile Sister Candide spent some £200,000 in transforming the chateau into a magniflfeTit hotel. Her notion was to attract wealthy patients to the mineral springs and thereby make suf | cient profits to carry on side by side with j it the institution for consumptive child- | ren. I

The project might have been successful had it' not been for the prodigious extravagance of the management. But though the hotel attracted visitors the number of children had constantly to he reduced.

Estimates of the Sister's indebtedness vary enormously. Apart from the question of the jewels, it must be very great, for one Toulon creditor alone is said to claim £250,000. But M. Charles Roche, a barrister representing some of the creditors, does not seem to think the position desperate. He reckons that Sister Candide owes £320,000, and he considers St. Salvador to be worth more than that. "Everyone will be paid," he declares.