Blondel

a French minstrel and poet of the 12th century, a confidential servant and instructor in music of Richard Cour de Lion. While his master was the prisoner of the Duke of Austria, Blondel, according to the story, went through Palestine and all parts of Germany in search of him. He sang the king’s own favorite lays before each keep and fortre till the song was at length taken up and answered from the windows of the castle of Loewenstein, where Richard was imprisoned. - Blond in, Charles, a French rope dancer, born at St. Omer, Pas-de- Calais, in 1824, was trained at Lyons, where he made such rapid progre that he was designated “The Little Wonder.” After making a_ several years’ tour of the United States, on June 30, 1859, before a crowd of 25,- 000 persons, he cro ed the Falls of Niagara on a tight-rope in five minutes; on July 4, he cro ed blindfold, trundling a wheelbarrow; on Aug. 19, he carried °a man on his back; on Sept. 14, 1860, he cro ed on stilts in the presence of the Prince of Wales. His last appearance was in 1888. He died Feb. 22. 1897.