Les Nobles Bêtes · Folio I · The Riviera Archive
Baron von Humphrington
Retired Cheese Ambassador of Northumberland · Esquire of the Riviera · 1898–1925 (approx.)
Photograph, hand-coloured · Inscription: "To My Baron, we'll always have Corsica… Ben" · Stork Archives of Plop-sur-Mer, Accession #NOB-1921-04
Dossier — Cognancy Institut des Plumes Disparues
Name: Baron von Humphrington, Esquire of the Riviera
Title: Retired Cheese Ambassador of Northumberland
Known Associations: Lady Bon Bon Bonobonono (constant companion); Viscount Clatterhorn (yachting rival); Ben of the Flying Famiglia Bonobonono (Corsica, 1921)
Active Dates: 1898–1925 (approximate)
Status: Whereabouts unconfirmed following the Ligurian Sea Incident. The Institut maintains hope.
Once celebrated as Northumberland's only Cheese Ambassador, Baron von Humphrington presided over the Grand Truffle Tribunal of 1903 and negotiated the Fondue Accord that temporarily united feuding Alpine fromageries. His diplomatic career ended abruptly in the wake of the Unaged Stilton Incident — a scandal whose details remain officially classified but are whispered with relish in Riviera salons.
— Baron von Humphrington, personal correspondence, c. 1904
In self-exile along the Côte d'Azur, he reinvented himself as a Riviera gadabout: racing Hispano-Suizas, dueling yachts with Viscount Clatterhorn, and sipping Château Doo Deaux 1917 at a rate the Institut's archivists describe as "heroic." His constant companion was Lady Bon Bon Bonobonono, famed aerialist of the Flying Famiglia Bonobonono, often traveling incognito in drag.
The Baron's personal letters — written on monogrammed stationery embossed with his crest and bearing a faint monocle watermark — reveal a life dedicated to adventure, scandal, and fromage in equal measure. His well-worn Cheese Index, a diplomatic ledger cataloguing over 317 varieties of European cheese with wine pairings and scandalous asides, remains one of the most annotated documents in the Institut's collection. Pages 78–81 bear the infamous redacted notes on the Unaged Stilton Incident. The redactions are in the Baron's own hand.
In a letter from his villa dated late summer 1921, Humphrington recounts what he describes as "a perfectly reasonable attempt to motor to Corsica." The plan involved a driftwood ramp, Lady Bon Bon in the passenger seat, and a kazoo rendition of La Marseillaise as a send-off. For approximately six and a half seconds, they were airborne.
— Baron von Humphrington, Corsica letter, 1921 · Humphrington Papers, Accession #NOB-1921-04
The kazoo score of La Marseillaise is preserved in the Stork Archives of Plop-sur-Mer. The driftwood ramp has not been recovered. The umbrella declined to give a statement.
The Baron was a devoted collector of monocles, a passion he traced to the forgotten Order of the One-Eyed Gentry and their discovery of truth-glass in the Dune of Clarity. His most prized acquisition — gifted by a blind astronomer who insisted it showed moments before they happen — was set in white gold with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, and was said to reveal trans-dimensional silhouettes on the night of a full moon.
— A Brief But Fantastic History of the Monocle, as told by Baron von Humphrington
The Flying Famiglia Bonobonono · Hand-coloured photograph, c. 1921
"To My Baron, we'll always have Corsica… Ben" — inscription, lower right
Les Nobles Bêtes: A Retrospective · Exhibition poster · Musée des Arts Perdus, Paris · 1909–2025
Jefferey Giraffieri depicted raising a glass. The Baron is believed to have approved this choice.