FOTRY SEVEN YEARS IN A MADHOUSE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1278, 27 August 1886, Page 3

FOTRY SEVEN YEARS IN A MADHOUSE.

Jean Mistral at length, after 47 years ot imprisonment in a madhouse, is at liberty and master ot 65 millions of francs, which represent his inherited fortune and accumulated compound interest. He now wants to know what became of his wife, who, because she refused ot an annuity offered her of tiOO francs a year, to acknowledge herself a woman of improper character, was turned out of France on a charge of vagabondage. This was in 1837, when railways did not exist at Paris She was placed under police escort and marched from gendarmerie to gendare merie all the way to the Rhine opposite Kehl, where she was put into a ferry and sent across. For some years she wrote to friends at Tarascon, and spoke of a child a little girl. Then she ceased writing, and nothing more was heard of her. Misfral is a first cousin of the poet. He is now an old man very much bent, and has a beatendown and frightened manner. His madhouse experiences at different times were more dreadful than than which befell a leading character in one of Charles Heade’s novels. He did not believe that he was going to be taken before a tribunal to plead his own case until he was actually there, when he burst into tears, and was too much affected for a considerable time to speak, but on being gently assured by the President he told his story in a trembling voice, but in a perfect lucid manner, and answered a number of test questions put to him. Only one person in Tarascon his native town, whom he knew before he was incarcerated, is now alive. The story of Mistrol is as follows He was sent on leaving college to act as travelling agent to his father who was a rich manufacturer. There he fell in love with a Polish operatic singer named Dombrowska, whom he married at Fosen, He wrote to his father apprising him of his intention, and received an answer to the effect that the parental consent which Fx-ench law demands would bo given if there was fortune but not unless, Jean Mistral’s supplies were stopped when he apprised his parents of his marriage and he and his wife lived on the proceeds of her Ij ideal engagements. Her voice atter she came to France failed her. They got on as well as they could to Tarascon, where the door of the paternal house was shut in their faces. He and she then went about the country as wandering musicians. Measures were taken by the father to set aside the marriage, but as the son refusert to bene lit. by them there were many hitches. At last the poor wife agreed to temporary separation, in the hope that if her husband went back to Tarascon without her he would be relieved, and that he would by patience and his mother’s help bring his family to receive hex'. It was when he was away from her that lie was arrested as a furious lunatic and taken' to the madhouse where he Las been 47 year.;. A cousin ox his named Fournier, took up his cause a great many years ago, but the combination of the sequestrated millionaire was so strong that nothing could be done for liim. It was not until the Voltaire took the matter up three years ago that the Administration could be got to stir in the affair. The ncise caused by the Mistal case will probably lead to a repeal of the lunacy law of 1833, which for family reasons Louis Phillippe caused to be carried through the Chamber.— “ Daily News.”