Drama in Real Life

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 702, 29 June 1929, Page 18

Drama in Real Life

Rival Performers Stage Tragic Episode in Paris Street

Bn ASSERS-BY in one of the 1 central boulevards of Paris witnessed a terjj rible love tragedy on a y recent Sunday. Three young people, two men and a pretty woman, were walking up the boulevard engaged in an angry dispute. They were Mile. Andree Maryse, a danseuse with an international reputation, a young man named Young Francis, a boxer and dancer, and Alfred Bousserln, a dancer at the Opera House, and at one time Mile. Maryse’s partner. Suddenly the woman turned to a policeman and said, “Take me home. This man is mad,” and she pointed to Francis. Francis shouted that she was not to leave him, and then in a fit of rage threw himself in front of a taxi. The driver pulled up just in time to prevent the young man being crushed under the wheels. Bousserin. then pulled out a revolver and fired half a dozen shots at Francis, wounding him severely. The policeman, who narrowly escaped being shot, managed to disarm.

Bousserin, whom he took to the police station. Francis is in a critical condition in hospital. Affections Transferred According to the story of Mile. Maryse and Bousserin, the young woman had long been in love with Francis, with whom she had toured in a dance number. Recently she had appeared to transfer her affections to the other young man. In spite of this the three had arranged to put on a dance sketch at one of the music halls there. “Francis and I,” said Mile, Maryse today, “were to be dancing together, when Eousserin, as a faun, was to enter and try to take me from him. “The two men were to fight for me, and when the faun was finally beaten my victorious lover was to cover m 9 with flowers. “Oh! it would have been a lovely number, but instead there has been this boulevard tragedy.” Mile. Maryse went to the hospital to see Francis, who had just enough strength to say that he would nor bring a charge against Bousserin, and to ask her not to dance with him (Bousserin) again. In tears the young woman consented.