MARQUIS OR IMPOSTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 336, 24 June 1911, Page 10

MARQUIS OR IMPOSTER.

STRANGE STORY OF A "DEAD" MAS. The Marquis Reiss de Roquefeuil, tor whose arrest it warrant was issued recently on charges of fraud and bigamy, surrendered himself this afternoon to the French authorities (reports a Paris message of April 7J. The marquis, who made his departure from Paris a week ago, and lias been sought for in England and Belgium, presented himself at tlie Pilais de Justice and surrendered to the Procurer of the Republic, lie was elegantly dressed, and handed tlie usher a gilt-edged card bearing his name surmounted by a coronet. Tlie accused man was denounced to the authorities as a vulgar adventurer, who had no real claim to the title of marquis. His real name is said to be lleiss, and he is alleged to have appropriated the title of the genuine .Marquis de Roquefeuil. The latter died in Algiers some years ago, and it is asserted that the prisoner attended the dying man in the capacity of a friend, afterwards taking charge of liis papers and appropriating his title of nobility. The accused subsequently turned up in Paris, and there married a wealthy widow, who at all events believed that she was marrying a genuine marquis. The ( pair lived in a handsome Hat in the Etoilo quarter, and entertained largely. They also appear to have had an apartment in Brussels. The marquis was very popular in Paris society by reason (if the i charm of his manner. His wife and himself were invited everywhere.

Now there appears also to be living in Paris a brother of the man who (lieu in Algiers. Recently he read in the society news of an important Paris paper the, to him, somewhat startling intelligence that the Marquis and Marquise de Hoquei'euil had attended a fashionable "at home'' on the previous day. This could only refer to his brother, whom be had always understood had found a grave in Northern Africa, so he, called upon the marquis at his town house, and gave expression to his doubts. The accused man was not in the least perturbed, and insisted that he was the missing man, and the long-lost brother who had been reported dead. The police were then called upon to intervene, and confronted with a copy of the death certificate of the Marquis de floquefeuil, the man who is now under lock and key waized it airily aside, and said sententiously to the police ollicial, "[ am the -Marquis de Koquefeuil, and I did not die in Algiers. I disappeared for a time, that is all." lie produced documents' purporting to support his claim. The police ollicial was dumbfounded, and he hesitated, without further instructions, to go to the extreme lenW.li 1 of making an arrest. liut as he was quitting the premises of the real or pseudo marquis he said: '-Monsieur, if j your story is untrue, then you are a very fine actor indeed." Definite instructions were subsequently issued to arrest, the "marquis." but when some police officials visited his Hat the second time it was found that their man had left Paris. This was five days ago, and since then and until his <utUlvn and wholly unexpected appearance at the Palais de Justice this afternoon, nothing had been heard of him. Pciss, and not the marquis, as lie says, then the authorities say he will be found' to have gone through" the ceremony of marriage with a young woman living near Bordtfauv, abandoning her soon' afterwards, and taking with him what was left of her dot.

After this Reiss is supposed to have come 10 Paris, and shortly afterwards to have espoused the woman who to-dav believes herself to be the Marquise d'e Roquefeuil.