A Tragedy in Corsica.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 158, 19 November 1872, Page 7

A Tragedy in Corsica.

The Paris Figaro reports a remarkable trial in the Public Court of Assize at Bastia, in Corsica, held on the Bth August, under the presidency of M. de Bohelli. The accused was an interesting person in spite of her crimes and of the overwhelming charges brought against her. She is a young and pretty woman, " allied to several of tire best families in the country, well educated, of irreproachable morals, known to possess a dreamy and tender nature, and yet this scarcely more than girl killed her husband, in an excess of jealousy, with a ferocity perfectly savage."' Her counsel, M. Ferni, pressed her hand, and took up his station in front of her ; the public prosecutor, Advocate-General Kossi, also assumed his official position behind a table bearing on it a six-chambered revolver. The magistrate addressed the accused, in order to settle the question of her identity. She replied firmly, and with a slight Italian accent, " Lucia Bonavente, 21 years old, living at Castelmore, near Ajaccio." Lucia Modelli married in 1869 Carlo Bonavente ; she was then scarcely 18 years old, and her husband was 25. They were both rich. During two years there was perfect harmony in the household ; Lucia became a mother, and inhabited with her husband a house and domain at Castelmore, on the road between Ajaccio and Corte. Carlo Bonavente was frequently absent from home on alleged business. His wife's temper changed in course of time. There were jealousy scenes ; she followed and spied upon him ; and her reproaches were incessant, even in the presence of the servants, and towards the close of the year 1871, her suspicions assumed a palpable form. She had long suspected that her husband carried on an intrigue with Maria Fanti, a young girl, the governess of her little child, ! and she insisted upon her dismissal. M. ! Bonavente opposed the driving away of the young lady, and the wife resolved to take her revenge. Fiom the middle of January, 1872, she was meditating the crime until she perpetrated it months later in the year. On the ,Bth of February, she went to Ajaccio ami ■ procured of several chemists a quantity of arsenic. On the Bth of March occurred the assassination of Bonavente. About nine in the evening, Lucia wished her husband good night anil retired to her chamber, taking her little daughter with her, whom she had not so tenderly treated during the last two months. She put the child to bed, but did not lie, down herself. About an hour afterwards Bonavente went out; later he returned, and > read or worked in some way until close .upun midnight. Lucia extinguished the lights in her own apartment at 11 o'clock. At Indian hour after midnight she heard Bonavente pass the landing, and mount to the upper floor, where Maria, the cause of the win do tragedy, reposed. The servant waited for hir master ; her door was open to him ; Lucia watched the two lovers ; she waited full two hours ; the man did not come down again ; and at half-past two, Lucia, armed with a ; pistol, which she had procured from her husband's study, muffling her footsteps as she i went up-stairs, found herself outside Maria's door. She entered the room, and was recognised by the young servant girl. The girl shrieked when she saw her mistress. Bonavente awoke from a sound sleep. Lucia approached the bed, raised the taper in her left hand the better to direct her aim, and tired twice, so precisely and so quickly that her husband, wounded in the head by the first shot, instantaneously followed by another in the left breast, died immediately. When the people of the house, alarmed by the twofold detonation, readied Maria's room, they found the girl kneeling by the side of the bedstead, which was covered with blood. M. Bonavente was dead, is for Lucia, she had put out the light which had witnessed this sanguinary scene : and, still holding the revolver in her grasp, stood impassively at fhe couch upon which her husband lay murdered. A unanimous verdict of " Acquittal" was returned ; Lucia Modelli was instantly ordered to be set free ; an immense crowd shouted its joy over the decision ; and the exonerated murderess dropped swooning into her mother's arms.

During the debate in the Legislative Council upon the Deceased Wife's Sister Marriage Hill, the Hon. Mr Taylor thought it would be advisable to examine all the ladies in Wellington upon the subject. Captain Fraser suggested the postponement of the matter until news could be received from the spirt world as to what the deceased themselves*, thought about it. The f?ill was thrown out by twcntv-three to nine.