AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5295, 15 March 1878, Page 3

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

An action, in which the main question was whether £I2OO a year should be paid to Madame Megret, or to her husband, Monsieur Louis Nicolas Adolphe Megret, was concluded recently in England. The: Vice-Chancellor' said this was a most extraordinary case, and was brought forward in am inconvenient form. It was the suit of au infant, Mr.T. M. Davis, to carry into execution the trusts of the settlement of his father, dated 1856. There were two funds—one to the separate use of his wife, the other not. After the death the whole was to go to the plaintiff, who has also other property of great value. There was no reason for Mr. Davis to bring this action, as the funds were quite safe. The real question was between the two defendants. Monsieur and Madame Megret, each of whom claimed £I2OO a year. The circumstances of the case were most remarkable :—The lady was a Jewess, the widow of Mr. Davis, a Jew, by whom she had an only son. They were persons of considerable wealth. On the 17th of April, 1862, Mrs. Davis married Monsieur Megret, a Frenchman residing in England, a sculptor by profession, who for, the purpose of this marraage renounced the Roman Catholic religion, and became a Jew. He promised his wife to remain iu England, and was iu all respects an Englishman, so, that any claim in respect of the French law was, in his lordship’s opinion, excluded. He at length, however, induced his wife to go to France, and there she was confined. Her confinement brought on puerperal mania, a form, however, of madness which Dr. Turke and Dr. Bucknill had said was not likely to result iu any other form of madness. In 1870, at her own request, she was placed in an. establishment at Ivry, near Paris, under the care Dri Luys. Upon the evidence he was of opinion that within one year the lady .had recovered and ought to have been discharged, but in France there was no visitor to asylums, and she remained there from 1870 to 1876. Between that time she wrote entreating to be let out, but her husband neither answered her letters nor came to visit her. Her letters were those of a clear-headed business-like woman. Meantime an order had been obtained in this Court to pay £I2OO per annum to M. Megret, ou the ground that his wife could not manage her affairs. For four yekrs, therefore, Madame Megret, being sane, fretted in a lunatic asylum, than which one could not conceive anything more horrible. In 1875 her solicitor went to France, saw her there, aud on application to the French Court obtained her release in January, 1876. Madame Megret then came to England, but in August, 1876, she applied for a judicial separation from her husband in Paris. The French practice is first to exhort the couple to live together again, and, she was 1 persuaded to live again with Monsieur Megret. ( He, however, treated her 1 in an extraordinary, way, locking her in when he went out, and: on 1 the • 14th September, 1876,; ; on the pretence of taking her out for a drive, lodged her (though,perfectly .sane, and though slje prayed him on her knees not to do so) in thepublic lunatic asylum , at; Oharenton. Thu evidence all went to prove that she was perfectly sane, and thus to lodge a sane person in'' a n asylum was almost cruel, wanton, unjustifiable act.' Upon application to the French Court, she was once - more; released, and came to England.: The facts; being these, upon two grounds his lordship decided that Madame Megret was entitled to her whole income of £I2OO a-year—first, because M.'Megret had

.Uyed.upon her,, sold her things, deserted her, broken his promise by returning to tfie Roman Catholic religion;'::and; having hisi children baptised, while he never contributed towards their support; secondly, because, under the settlement - of 1862, made on the second marriage, a clause was inserted settling this income upon Madame Megret to her especial use. The £I2OO a-year, therefore, must be paid to Madame Megret, together with any arrears that had accrued.