Death of a Venerable Lady.
On Saturday morning the Picayune referred briefly to the death, in Paris, of the widow of the late John R. Grymes. This venerable lady was an historical character, and the news of her death will revive many reminiscences among our older families with whom she was wqell known in former years.
Mrs. Suzette Grymes, the daughter of Gen. Don Bartolomo Bosque, was born in Catalonia, Spain, in 1794. The General came with his family to Louisiana in the service of Spain, and was one of the last Spanish officials retained after the transfer of the colony back to France.
He is represented to have been a genial and hospitable man, of easy dignity, clear judgment and liberal views, so that naturally he and the young American Governor Claiborne were drawn into intimate social relations. In the first five years of Gov. Claiborne's administration as territorial Governor of Louisiana, he buried two wives -- Miss Lewis, whom he brought with him from Tennessee, who died in 1804, and Miss Duralde, who belonged to an eminent French Creole family, whose death occurred in 1809. In 1812 the Governor married Miss Bosque, and the union was a fruitful and happy one.
Gov. Claiborne died in this city in 1817 -- a few months after his election to the United States Senate -- and was buried in the old Protestant Cemetery on Treme street. His widow -- beautiful and accomplished, superbly endowed by nature and charmingly cultivated, could not be permitted to wear forever the weeds of widowhood, and in a few years she was sought and won by the famous and erratic lawyer, John R. Grymes, a man the memory of whose wisdom and wit is still held as a sacred legacy by the bar of New Orleans. The death of Mr. Grymes occurred not long before the war.
For many years his widow has resided in Paris. Possessed of great wealth, she maintained her establishment there in elegant style, and her home was the resort of scholars and famous men, of the gifted and those of gentle blood, attracted thither by her wonderful charms of mind and person. She conversed freely and correctly in the seven leading languages of Europe, and age seemed scarcely to impair her attractiveness. She occupied the highest social position in the city of her youth, as well as in her later home, and maintained it to the hour of her death.
She died quite suddenly, at the residence of her daughter, on Monday last -- the 1st inst. She had not been sick for a single day for many years. A letter, of three closely written pages, was received from her a day or two ago, by a party in this city. It was written ten days before her death, and it showed her mind undimmed and her wit as sparkling as ever.
This venerable woman leaves to mourn her death three children. Her oldest daughter, Mrs. Mandeville de Marigny, is the only surviving child of Gov. Claiborne. She is now residing in Mandeville, in the parish of St. Tammany.
Of the issue of her marriage with Col. Grymes, her daughter, Mrs. Von Hoffman, resides in Paris, and her son, Alfred Grymes, is a banker in New York city.
She leaves her children a large fortune; but nothing can compensate them for the loss of a parent so tender, wise and gifted.
