A Remarkable Adventuress.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 3

A Remarkable Adventuress.

Oni: of the ablest and most remarkable adventuresses who havo ever appeared before the Paris tribunals has just been tried for a series of clever swindlings. She is a thin, delicate, amber-\ isaged woman, about fortyyears of age, who described herself as a descendant of the famous First Grenadier of France, whose name is still called out at the muster parades of his regiment, the reply being dramatically given, " Dead, on the fluid of honour." Her name, in short, was printed on her cards as Henrietta de la Tour d'Auvergne, and she passed as an [illegitimate daughter of a prince of that house, and accordingly as a niece of the late Archbishop of Bourges and of General de la Tour d'Auvergne, who died in Algeria. Assuming this title and name, tho sham princess bamboozled a lot of pious people, priests and parvenus who liked to hang on to a scion of nobility, and she had actually lived luxuriously and in great state on the donations which were sent to her for the poor. Strange to say, the present Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne knew that the woman was passing herself ofF as his natural sister, but never took any proceedings against her. Ix> appears that the woman had been a nun, and while engaged in hospital work was criminally assaulted by a relative of one of the patients. The man was condemned "to ten years' solitary confinement, and tho nun, who became seriously, ill had to leave her convent and return to the world. Then she began her career of adventure by pretending to make a matrimonial match between the daughter of a Madame Bigot, whom she had met at church, and a Gascon gentleman. Madame Bigot had been mulcted for a sum. of Ll6O, which she lent as a friend to the self - styled princess. Af ber this the murder was out. Madame Bigot discovered that the gentleman from Gascony was a mythical personage, and she accordingly commenced proceedings to vq~ cover her money. During the trial the prisoner's mask was thrown off, and she stood revealed before the gaze of the public as one Emerancienne Boudeau, whose only relatives were a brother who keeps a wineshop, and a sister who occupies the responsible position of concierge in a Paris house. The sentence on the prisoner was deferred.

Mr Matthew Brodie (who was here with Miss Marie De Grey) was the subject of a very funny stage interruption at Oldhani recently. The play was " Sophia," and in a garret scene in the third act Mr Matthew Brodie as Tom Jones has to say to Miss Maude Millett as Sophia, " I have nothing left to offer you, not even the hope of better days to come." Judge of the consternation of this engaging couple, and the shriek of laughter which came from the audience, when Mr Brodies landlady, who was^ in front, cried out on the top of this line, " Never heed, lad ; thee hast gotten a reet good sooper at home ; bring wench w th "