de la Charite, in the Rue
Jean-Goujon, on the 4th of May, 1897,--the most terrible catastrophe of
this nature that had been seen in Paris since the fire at the ball given
by the Austrian ambassador on the 1st of July, 1810, in honor of the
marriage of Napoleon I and Marie-Louise, and the burning of the
Opera-Comique in 1887,--offered, in the long list of its victims, a most
tragic demonstration of the fact that the women of Paris of the highest
society knew how to occupy themselves in works of practical benevolence.
Of the hundred and seventeen victims, all but six were ladies and young
girls; and the roll of illustrious names was headed by that of the
Duchesse d'Alencon. This philanthropic institution was founded in 1885
by M. Henri Blount, its honorary president; its annual bazaars, for the
benefit of the poor, were held at first in the Salle Albert-le-Grand,
then in the hotel of the Comtesse Branicka in 1888, in the following
year in that of M. Henry Say, and from 1890 to 1896 in two houses in the
Rue de la Boetie. In 1897, M. Michel Heine placed at the disposition of
the managers, gratuitously, a large open space in the Rue Jean-Goujon.
The new bazaar was here inaugurated on the 3d of May, and the receipts
exceeded forty-five thousand francs. On the day after the catastrophe,
some charitable person donated, anonymously, to the OEuvre de la
Charite the sum of nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand francs,
representing the amount of the sales of the preceding year, that the
poor, also, might not suffer by this catastrophe. A subscription opened
by the _Figaro_ for the same charitable purpose, and for those who had
distinguished themselves, at the risk of their lives, in saving victims
from the flames, realized the sum of one million two hundred and
eighteen thousand and fifteen francs, and another, by the _Rappel_, more
than fifteen thousand francs. And, finally, the Comtesse de Castellane,
who had been the American Miss Gould, gave a million of francs for the
purchase of another site and the construction of another edifice for the
work of the organized charity of Paris.

Among the lighter details of information concerning this illustrious
society may be mentioned an article by the Vicomte A. de Royer in a
recent number of the _Revue des Revues_ (October, 1898), which
undertakes to demonstrate, by means of documents, that, of the
forty-five thousand "noble" families in France, only four hundred and
fifty are in a posi