A PARIS MURDERERS CONFUSION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1218, 3 July 1885, Page 3

A PARIS MURDERERS CONFUSION.

[Evening Star's Loudon Correspondent.] Loudon, .May 7.

I'm is hns just been furnished with a do 1 sensation in the shape of a murderer’s confession. The criminal in qncsMon is a somewhat remarkable villian, Three months ago he was found living in great splendor at Oompiegne with a circus-dancer who passed as his wife, and charged with the murder of Madame Cornet, a wealthy widow, who used to live in t.bo Kuo tie Sszo. Marclraudon was in Madame Cornet’s service, and as lie disappeared after the murder , together with a quantity of

valuable plate and jewels, suspicion foil upon him. For eighteen months the police could obtain no clue to his whereabouts; but by a singular fluke, the head of the detective force hit upou one. Aftei his capture, trial, and conviction, Marchandon repeatedly denied cutting Madame Cornet’s throat. Just before his execution, however, he said in a weak voice : “ I shall make a clean breast of it. I alone committed the crime. I hid behind the drawing room sofa, and, after robbing the desk there, stole into her bedroom, where the creaking of her wardrobe door betrayed my presence. She jumped out of bed to get a revolver which she kept on the table beside it, and I rushed upon her and out her throat. I had no accomplice. I opened the window to make believe I had escaped through it, but hid in a latrine, and slipped away in the morning alter the street door was opened.” This confession is that of any vulgar murderer. What is extraordinary is the career of Marchandon alias Henri Martin, and the circumstances of his arrest at Compiegne ? He is only twenty-two, and is an old ciminal. At eighteen he entered a drago hi regiment, where his gentlemanly deportment won the officers’ favor though his mother is a concierge and he is thoroughly illiterate. He has, owing to his refined manners, handsome face, and distinguished air, passed in tho best and most reactionary society at Compiegne for a young man of family, who was keeping quiet there for domestic reasons. Marchandon deserted after six months’service, and became a professional thief. In 1881 he was convicted of theft, and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and later on in the same year to thirteen months, and in 1884, by default, to ten years for a robbery in Dr Lacharriere’s house in the Rue de Marignan, whence he carried away 15,000 francs and a quantity of valuable plate and jewels. It is now found that he was associated with robberies in the environs of Paris.

He was in the employment of Worth, preparing doubtless to rob his villa at Smesaes, when a policeman came there to arrest him for the Lacharriere affair. Marchandon, who was thought a model domestic, offered no resistance, but when he was near the railway station, tripped up the constable and knocked him over with such violence as to stun him. He jumped into the first cab he met, drove back to Worth’s, told them there that his innocence having been ascertained ha was released, and, feigning to be upset by emotion, went upstairs for his luggage, with which he escaped. As the famous male mantua-maker then hired a stable at Madame Cornet’s house, Marchandon was probably acquainted with the theatre of his greatest crime before he sought employment of the murdered lady, In the week in which she engaged him he went to Neuilly to offer his services to the Princess Pouiatowski, and gave her as references a fictitious Count to whose address she wrote, and received an answer so ill-spelt that she went to inquire who the writer really was, and learned that Marchandou had come to ask for letters directed to him. She was asked to confront the murderer and did so. He impudently said that ho did not return to her villa because ho had learned in the neighbourhood that there was nothing worth taking in her house. It is also a curious circumstance that after the Worth affair the police informed the concierge in the Rue de Seza about Marchandim’s antecedents, and left him a photograph. Wuen the hold villain came to offer himself to Madame Cornet as valet, the janitor wondered where he had seen him before, but the fact of the police warning escaped his iccollection. The mur lerer’s track was thus discovered. The letter he wrote to the concierge saying he was leaving Paris bora the postmark of the Northern Railway. I c also occurred to a detective when he heard that Marchandon had hnnowed thirty francs from Madame Cornet’s cook to procure an evening coat to wear in serving dinners, that he had got it at an old clothes dealer’s who has many ill famed customers. So the police agent went to her and asked would she mind if he waited iu her shop until Marchandon, with whom he had an appointment, came. She said : “ He has been already here to return a hired coat, and gone to Compisgne.” “The scamp” cried the detecs tive, “ that’s the way he leads his chums a fool’s dance; hut surely you are mistaken.” “No, it’s not the lirst time he spoke of Compiegne.” With this clue the head of the detective force, M. Kuehn, went to Compiegne. At the Northern Railway he showed the photograph at the ticket office, and heard that a man resembling it went a few hours before first-class. At Compiegne the station master said : “Why, Martin cannot be the same person as Marchandon, who lives in a villa near the forest with a charming wife. They are models of propriety, see the best company in the town, are charitable, neighbourly, and the lady often goes to mass.” Kuehn asked to be directed to this gentleman’s villa, where he found Marchandon and the lady, Mademoiselle Blin, an excircus rider, dining on roast chicken and salad. Both were arrested, but she is now free. A search was made, Madame Cornet’s revolver, bearing her name on tha stock, her trinkets, and a great quantity of plate and watches were found. Blin has since explained that she was under the impression that her lover was the son of a wealthy old lady, a countess, who often gave him money and jewels, and that he had a mania for collecting watches. The house stood in large grounds, was handsomely but showily furnished, and coronets were engraved on many articles of furniture. The beds were in Henry 11. style, covered with luxurious crimson sitiu quilts, and had sheets of black foulard silk, intended doubtless to show off the white arms of Mdle. Blin, Her grief at his arrest was passionate and doubtless genuine, as she had been with him eighteen mouths, and had been treated by him with the utmost kindness.