It is said that the pretender died at last in absolute penury in Paris, leaving an only daughter as the result of the marriage with Chevalier d'Aubant. The story has been related in different forms by different writers, and at one time was quite prevalent as a sensational romance in the literary circles of Europe. The particulars of this rare adventure may be found recorded in much of the literature of that period, some insisting on its accuracy, while others deny it. Duclos, a prolific writer of European romance, furnishes the amplest details of the affair, while such writers as Levesque, in his Russian history; Grimm, in his correspondence, and Voltaire, straightway repudiate the genuineness of the story on the basis of its improbability. The incidents of the time at the Russian court, the career of d'Aubant, and much else afford some reason for believing that there is at bottom, some occasion for a romance so remarkable. Without here insisting on its genuineness, such is the story, in one of its forms, as it has come to the present. However, this, as well as much else, indicates how much of interesting matter lies in literary mines unworked in connection with our primitive history. The literary spirit of the South has never been properly encouraged by due appreciation, with the consequence of a scant literature. The industrial spirit seized our fathers in other years, and the fabulous fertility of our soils, the cultivation of which beneath fervid skies, in an even climate, has largely materialized our thought, and still does. Who now reads a book? If so, what is the character of the book? We scan the morning daily, or read at sleepy leisure the evening press, skim the magazines, and this usually tells the story. From sire to son this has been the way gone for generations. Permit the bare statement without the moralizing. EARLIEST AMERICAN SETTLERS In advance of the territorial construction of Alabama, this region had been sought as a refuge by adherents of the British crown during the stormy days of the Revolution, while others who were loyal Americans, also came to escape the horrors of war in the Carolinas. All these filed through the dense forests which covered the intervening distance at that early day. Across Georgia, the most western of the thirteen colonies, they fled, putting the Chattahoochee between them and the thunder of war, and buried themselves in the obscurity of the Alabama forests. These forests had remained unbroken from the beginning, now pierced here and there by the wide beaten paths of the Indian. Several of these paths became, in subsequent years, highways of primitive commerce, running from terminal points hundreds of miles apart.