TWINS TREACHERY

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1933, Page 8

TWINS TREACHERY

THIRTY YEARS ON DEVIL’S ISLE

INNOCENT MAN JUST FREED For over 30 yearg Henri Levasseur, a .native of Dijon, ’France,, endured martyrdom in one of the penal settlements .of the iPeyil’g Isle group. The horror of his incarceration was intensified, by the knowledge that lie carried with'him the curses of his.mother and sweetheart.

Yet this unfortunate man’s only sin was loyalty ty. a scape-grace brother — loyalty which sealed his Slips and per•mitted a gros fi miscarriage ,of justice. Ndw the .President of .the French Republic has decreed Levassenr’s pardon and immediate release, says the News of the World.

Levasseur is the twin son of a French father and an .English mother, the latter before her marriage being Miss [Rosina Marshall. She hailed from Barnsley, Yorkshire. The twins ,weres 0 ; much alike that few could tell the- difference, and as they grew up to manhood the mother developed an almost unnatural hatred for Henri, at the game time : .as a doting passion for his brother -Robert. If they resembled each other physically, the two youths differed greatly morally, and by the age of 22, when the real drama came into their lives, Henri was working hard to make a career for himself in French official life, while his brother Robert was leading, in his spare time, a life of riot and debauchery that became the scandal cf the town.

• The hyprocritical Robert had n 0 difficulty m persuading his doting mother that the culprit was Henri, and that lie himself had let -tongues wag because he did not want to give his brother away.

Ultimately, Robert, unable to conceal hi,- double life from his employers, was dismissed, and drifted into crime, (but always left a trail pointing to Henri, who had by this time incurred the deadly hatred of bis mother. One niglit over 30 years ago a motorist was stopped and murdered by a young man in a mask just outside Dijon on the road to Paris, but before the assailant could seize, his booty the alarm was given and he took,.to flight after throwing away liis revolver.

The revolver .was picked up and identified as one sold to Henri Leves--seur, known to be an expert user of the weapon., Henri was arrested, and witnesses testified that on the .night of the crime .he had been seen near the spot showing signs of great agitation. Henri accepted in silence all the charges made, against him, .and in clue course was sentenced to death } the bitterness of His condemnation being accentuated by the appearance, of hisi mother and former fiancee in . the wit-ness-box to recount . hearsay evidence about his supposed double life. The mother contrasted. -Henri’s “criminal” record with the blameless one of the .idolised Robert, the other twin, and the fiancee recalled that on the night,-of the crime she had broken with .Henri for ever .as the result of revelations liis mother had mafic, and was .about to become engaged to Robert, the paragon of virtue. Only the lawyer fo-r the defence suspected that Hehri.was.silent because lie loved his mother and wanted to spare Tier the pain of learning the truth about Robert, but in face of the stubborn, silence of the, accused nothing could be done beyond, securing remission of the death ■penalty. . .. ,

Henri Levasseur journeyed to the living hell at Devil’s Isle. During the war Robert Levasseur, fought bravely and fell an the field of. battle during the Champagne offensive in 1917. : The former fiancee of Henri Levasseur had become the wife of his brother, and died broken-hearted after his death, grill believing her former lover a villian and his soldier brother a model of virtue.

Eight or nine months ago the mother of the twins died, with her lsat breath blessing the hero twin Robert and renewing the curses she had uttered on the head of Henri over 30 years ago. Tn going through the papers she had left, a lawyer, the same who had had doubts about the guilt <>f Henri, came upon an envelope marked. “Not to be opened until after the death of my mother,” and initialled “R.L.” It proved to he a complete coufesgicn of the scape-grace brother, and the lawyer immediately communicated it to the proper authorities. An inquiry was ordered by the Ministry of Justice, and when this resulted in a report entirely favourable to the oresumption of the innocence of Henri Levasseur, a pardon was ordered at oboe, and Henri was soon 0 n his way hack to France. He is a broken man, go much so that doctors doubt if he will ever again have the mental and physical oualities necessary to take him through life. Tjnf'-rtunntplv, ns Henri’s own mistaken idea of loyally to liis mother was to blame for his condemnation, he cannot count on compensation from the Pl/itc, but a movement is on foot in Frajiee to open a fund to secure him an annuity as a mark of .esteem of those who know of his self-sacrifice for the sake of the mother who hated him.