THE SUUV OKEtrOXlAX, l'ORTLAAD, JfOVKJIBKK 10, 1907.
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pjV EdmaKd Kellyb -Tower at Coucy-De-Chateau
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Chateau DuBreau -
. BY DEXTER MARSHALL
PARIS, Oct. 3. (Special corre
spondcnre of The Sunday Orego
nian) ConsplrnouB as lie was In
tiip United States for some time be
fore he expatriated himself for reasons
not entirely his own. James Ha en
Hyde Is not a very prominent person
age In the Amerlean colony today. His
house, at the corner of Boulevard
Cannes and Rue Adolph Yvon, Is in
the Sixteenth "arrondissement, ' which
mi ans that it is duo west of the city's
center: the western edge of the ground
is separated by the street only from
the fortifications which form the city'a
boundary line. Near by are Port
Muette deaf woman's gate the cha- .
eau and Pare de la .Muette. where
George Kessler. not altogether unknown
in New York, Is building a tostly resi
dence for himself.
Hyde"s house, pet flush with tlv?'
street line, as many fine Paris houses
are. is of white stone and decidedly
French: so Is the treatment of the
"corner lot" adjoining, which forms
his garden. The ordinary streel wall,
shutting in the beauties of the garden
completely. Is absent, to be Sure, but
the high metal fence and closely set
trees and shrubbery are as effective
almost In preventing, the wayfarer
Irom more than guessing at. the gar
den's deiig-hts as any wall could be.
Hyde himself has a much wider ac
'lUnlntsncM t among the French than
among the American colonists. His
name docs not appear often in the pa
pers, ho Is not seen often In public
places, he Is not much In evidence at
American socl.il gatherings. He seems
to care very little for his compatriots
and thty as little for him. and he
would bo as unlikely to accept an In
vitation to one ot Mrs. J. J. HofTa Y.
M. C. A. entertainments, of which t
shall sp.ak a little later, as she would
be to invite lilni. Nor does he pay
much attention to the races, or. in fact,
to any other of those things in which
he might be expected to be interested.
His arrival in Paris after the insur
ance troubles attracted some public In
terest, of course,- since the Equitable
and sevt-ral of the other big life insur
. ance companies of New York hav
branches here, nnd have Insured thou
sands of Frenchmen; but what little
attention his coming aroused soon dieil
clown.
Hyde Is a prime favorite In univer
sity circles.- however, as the founder
and former president of the allied
French and American societies organ
ized to promote the numerical Increase
of Americans who speak French and
the exchange of French and American
"culture'" through the university sys
tems of the two countries. It has been
Hyde's money that has paid the ev
pnea o? the various French lecturers
at Harvard and ("-oiumbia and of vari
ous American lecturers at the .Sor-
bonne here In recent years.
Although Hyde's college course was
taken In America, his preparatory
schooling was largely received in
France. Thus his pergonal point of
view and his sympathies are almost
vhollv French, and here, as in the
States, lie would be taken for a French
man nine timts In ten. ire Is ot a -.yp.
that Is often seen in the most exclusive
ralons of Paris; correct In dress an 1
manners, and of high cultivation In
a ililetlaiitrf way and accepted as such,
but without the slightest initiative or
V'.-, : . , v.! " - .Tfi
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old town.
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Occupied by Mr. and Hits. cJ. J.
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Room
ri-Jht
font
originality whatever. Some of Hyde's
personal friends on both sides of tlm
water might object to such a charatu
terization of him, but that Is exaotly
the sort of chap he seems to most of
his iellotv American-Parisians at the
present time. .
Ilke most Parisians, nearly all the
permanent American residents of the
French capital live In apartments. It
is much mbre of an apartment city,
even, than New York. Were It not o
it would be impossible to crowd its
3.000.000 ' or more population, only
about 1.000.000 less than New York's
Inside the fortifications, on a territory
much smaller than the territory of the
five boroughs that make up the Amer-1
lean metropolis a territory that cov
ers less ground, in fact, than the Bor
ough of Brooklyn alone.
r.tlntonil Kelly's Remarkable Place.
But the handful of Americans, who
do "own their own houses" In Paris
and within easy distance thereof, have,
very handsome places. To my' mind
the most interesting of them' all' is
owned by Kdmond Kelly, the American
lawyer, who acted as attorney for the
Fairs in settling the estate of Charles
Fair after the death of himself and
his wife In an automobile accident -a
few years ago, and of the Gould fam
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Photographed from the
. 'tsfiT v i
Hoff
--m.
in FxJ. Gardners HoHse, showing L'Ailons Music Box to the
of the picture.- with the, bird -cag-e. made from the "baptismal
of NapoHon HL
ily in conducting the action brought
by Anna, the Countess de Castellane.
:ii?rlnst her precious husband. You niay
remember that Mr. Kelly's clients won
In both these cases; he has been ex
traordinarily successful In many other
instances before the Parisian . courts,
too, although no others among bis cases
have attracted as much attention in
America.
Mr. Kelly's remarkable "chateau" is
located at Coucy de Chateau, a town of
about 2000 Inhabitants, on a branch of the
Chemin de. Fer du Nord. m the Depart
ment de 1 Alsne, about 100 miles north of
Paris. This queer town dates back to the
13th century. It was built and fortified
by a fine old Frenchman of the middle
ages, who was known as Enguerrand III.
and who bowed the head nor bent the
knee to no one, neither did he care for
a title. Vpon his great
thick-walled
castle he made this clear in
chiseled
announcement wlilch( freely
translated,
read as follows:
"I am neither King, nor Prince.
nor
Count, either: I just am Mr. Coucy."
Beyond a doubt, the history of Coucy
de Chateau, If it could be obtained, would
be full of thrilling Incidents, of desperate
tights and of determined sieges. But the
assailants must have been beaten off al
most Invariably, for Its walls and towers
today are practically intact. v magnificent
witnesses to the solidity with which the
2F
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cJames Hazen Hyde'5 Paris "Mansion
barons, of medieval France built th?lr
fortifications. Some of the walls of "Mr.
Couey's" castle were 30 feet thick ind
more. It stood .partially withrn the
walled village and partially out.iide. and
was fortified almost as strongly on the
village side as elsewhere.
In places the village walls are as thick
as the walls of the castle; the three vil
lage gateways are still In use and the
strong round ji lowers still stand firm
and gray and grim. rank, grass growing
on the soil-covered tops of all save one.
It is this tower, which faces to the
west, that Mr. Kelly has taken and
turned Into a home. It is his boast that
it Is the only 13th century structure in all
France now used as a human habitation,
though whether this be true or not I do
not know. At all events, the Kelly
"chateau."' if.lt may properly be so
j. termed, stands In a class by Itself.
It contains only two rooms quarters of
the guard in olden days and, therefore,
Kelly . also took two houses within the
tower wall, facing a street and backing
up to the tower. The houses are very
old also, though not as ancient as the
tower. One Is larger than the other, and
apparently they were built to serve, one
as the residence of a family of some pre
tensions and one for the servants of the
family. Bach has 10 or 13 rooms. Orig
inally they were not connected with the
tower, but Mr. Kelly has built passages
4
One
tliat make the three structures practical
ly one.
The tower is 40 to 50 feet-high and of
an oblong ground plan, the end which
projects outBlde the wall being rounded,
while the other end Is square. The outer
walls are 13 feet through, and the wall
between the two rooms Is of the same
thickness. The outer room In the roundv
end of the tower which Is now used as a
library, is lighted by three narrow win
dows; the inner room by two. The rooms
are connected by a door which resembles
nothing so much as a short tunnel.
The Inner room contains a wonderful
fireplace, high enough for a man to stand
upright In. and deep enough for one to
sit inside It and enjoy the fire on a cool
day without be,lng scorched, it is so wide
that sticks of American four-foot cord
wood would be too small to feed Its fire
with: It takes veritable logs, six to eight
feet long, and so cool is the tower, even
jn warm weather that a fire Is comfort
able in mid-July. Near the fireplace
j stands an organ, on which Mr. Kelly
'J Mm
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to 4
Z JF WwT ... f ". . .
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-.v.'- Vac. ,
fVr-
of mrs. HofTi Receptions. ITlrs. RorT. is near-the
micaie ot the picture.
often plays, and plays well. too. His
collection of books Ls so extensive that
they overflow the outer room and occupy
much of the Inner one's wall space.
Both rooms are very high, with groined-
arch ceilings, and although it might be
expected that they would be rather
Bloomy, lighted only, as they are. by
winuows cut through sucn tni.-K walls,
they are furnished with warm colors that
make them very cheerful indeed, especial
ly when the great fireplace Is aglow witii
burning logs. The fireplace, by the way.
Is supplemented nowadays by an up-to-date
American fireplace both Winter and
Summer.
Attractive as the owner or the tower
has made his two pet rooms, they are not
a Whit more so than the top of ' Uve
tower, the top of the town wall adjoining
and the terraced grounds outs-de the wall
which form a part of the proprrty.
This tower's top. like that of all the
umers which oncJ nt'iiieti pi uiccv uiti
town of Couey-de-C"hateau. Is covered
with several feet of earth. In this soil J
Coveys Chateau
near Versailles
WAS
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Mr. Kelly has planted trees. Part of Its
surface Is sodded, and there are winding
gravel walks. Flowering plants have,
been set out there. Under the shade of
the trees seat3 have been placed, and
there sometimes the meals are eaten,
nl frc?BCO- lne thick shade of the
1 trees, the delights of the lofty roof r-
,-.Fn i1(,inE. Knniemenied bv a wide view
ot the smiling, cultivated surrounding
plain, which la dotted here and there witli
prim French villages. The terraces are
treated in harmony with the tower's top.
At present Mr. Kelly is in America,
where he was obliged to go not long ago
i for his health, but while he has given up
i M- r.iHPn. in ParU nnd sold out his
)aw pva(.tj,.e, he has not relinquished his
I (nffpr hou.Be at Coucy-de-Chateau. He Is
I g,, VPars Pf.riiap,,. tall, dresses and looks
j jkp R genuine American, despite his long
j rpeinVnce In France, and. of course, has
j aniasSl,d a comfortable fortune since his
legal fees have been large. Unlike many
Concluded on Fage 3.)