A French Love Affair

Manawatu Herald, 4 January 1894, Page 2

A French Love Affair

Our correspondent writing in November says : —

A very romantic affair took place the other day in the Quavtier of the Champs Elysees. A young lady of prepossessing appearance waited upon the Commissary of Police of that Quartier and told, him a most singular story. She was she said an art student, and her father occupies a high position. Some months ago as she was leaving the Academy she was accosted by a stranger and, though she refused to speak to him, he followed her home, and waited for her on each occasion that she went to take her lesson. So much perseverance at length overcame her scruples, and amicable relations sprang up between the ..two parties?. The young man told her that hig name was Maderna, that ho was a rich merchant of Milan. She several times visited him in the Rue de Bern. At length the young woman became tired of the Italian's jealousy, and proposed to break off the love affair. He prevailed upon her to come and see him once more, and when she entered his apartment, she found six charcoal stoves all burning, and her lover proposed that they should die together. Not being tired of life, the young lady objected to asphyxiation, and the loalian then proposed another method the revolver. He produced a pistol aud even fired it ; but she jerked his arm at the moment and the shot failed. Thinking he might be more successful with another shot she "laid low " and pretended to comply with his request, but wished first to be allowed to go home to make her final arrangements. After some hesitation her lover consented to this, and eseoited her home, and she very wisely, as soon as she arrived home, locked him out, and did not reappear, though he waited long for her. The next morning she went to the commissary of police, and he immediately sent to the residence of M. Maderna who was out but was arrested at his return home at night. On being examined, he ultimately confessed that he could not live without the young woman, and had attempted to assasinate her. He was then locked up and a search made at his rooms. The principal discovery made was that his name was really Theodore Garacaglia and that, he was a deserter from the Italian army in which he had been a lieutenant of Bersaglieri. In fact there seem to ba several mysteries about the affair, not .the least of which is why the young lady's father did not keep a better guard over her.