DUCHESS' DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

DUCHESS' DEATH.

KILLED IN SUMPTUOUS PALAQE. ■ • HUSBAITD TRIED. A terrified servant entered the apartment of the Duchess of Piaslin, in Paris, one August morning' in 1817, to find her. mistress dead, with blood flowing fromfive terrible WQunds. The Duke and Duchess of Praslin were important persons at the court of Louise Phillipe. He was the heir to great wealth and she. had a large fortune in her own right. They lived in a sumptuous palace on the Rue-Saint-Honore and entertained in lavish style. The bedroom of the Duchess was a reproduction of the chamber of Marie Antoinette at Versailles.

It was in this room that the murdered noblewoman was found on this fateful day in' 1847. The furniture was upset, the ourtains disarranged and the' splendid walls contained blotches o£ blood. On the floor was a pistol stained with blood. It was perfectly clear that the. woman had died while defending iherself. ■ .-'■ • , ■ •

The screams of the maid- aroused the other servants, and they 'were standing there in a terrified attitude when the Duke entered in a state of agitation. He threw himself on-his knees beside the bed and gave way to unrestrained grief. As soon' as he recovered he sent for a physician and the police. .-■ > •■'.'•

The doctor , was useless because the ■woman was already dead. : '

When the police began to question'him the Duke admitted that ho knew of his ' -wife's death, before being summoned by the servants.. ■.'-'.<■■ ■-, • / He said he had been aroused, by cries 'from her room and that, on going there found .that .she'had been killed. He said the pistol oh'the. floor belonged to him and '•• that he had carried it in the room "to defend the Duchess.'' '' An examination of the house disclosed a Wood-soaked dressing gown in the Duke's room.' A short knife, a sword.-and a poniard irere alsofound there, and , all of them contained blood-stains. ; * •:,'■■■ ■"'. ■ ' To add to the circumstantial case that :was being constructed against him it was discovered that his hands were scratched and one of his arms bitten. Finally, to cap the climax!; the police looked in the fireplace of his room and pulled out a number of half-burned letters from his wife to him, •protesting ■ against his attentions to. the ,jroung governess'of their children. ' ■ :' f piatonic" f Friends. ■'. '■ It was proven afterward that 'Mile. Deluzy had attracted his 'attention because of her intellectual qualities. He'-was her friend, but ihe protested that it was only a platonic friendship. That the Duchess was ■wildly jealous of ,_the-relations between the Duke and the,- governess was proven by ' .many letters which were produced. ■■' l . One of them read as follows:— | '"I am dying of grief! For. five long years T have spent all my nights in tears, in conTTilsions of sorrow. Often I have had to bite my pillow to stifle.my sobs, jny cries. I have lost not only my husband, but my children. I suffer the tortures of Tantalus. I-am close to you all, and yet I am apart from you all!'"* . - ' ~' With some reluctance • the King . consented, to the arrest of the Duke, but before he could, be , taken to prison he swallowed a dose of poison.. This meant very slow death and it was decided that the trial should take place in his bedroom. There six of his fellow peers listened to the • evidence -which has already been given. In response to all of the questions that were asked'of him the Duke kept repeating:— '■ "1 am innocent! lam innocent! Before God lam innocent!" ■': /'. ■ There is'ai queer story: concerning the > end of the suspected husband.. He was ' supposed to have died from the poison, but it is claimed that he was smuggled out-of the country in disguise and that he.lived in-exile'in England for years, receiving his income from..'his son. _ . ", . , The market women of Paris threatened to lynch.MUe. Deluzy, but she managed to escape and is supposed to have gone to America. Popular opinion was against the Duke, but for years his' close friends insisted that he was an innocent man, caught in a maze of circumstantial evidence. :