A PARISIAN TRAGEDY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1294, 24 January 1885, Page 3

A PARISIAN TRAGEDY.

An extraordinary tragedy occurred in Paris on November 27th, The wife of M. Clovis Hugues, the Radical Deputy for Marseilles, has shot her traducer in tho very Palace of Justice. To explain this unprecedented act, it should be staled that an elderly woman, now dead, married to a young man named Lenormant, conceived suspicion two years ago that Madame Hugues was. her husband’s (Lenormant’s) mistress, and she employed as a spy a man named Morin, of that nondescript class styled “Agents d’affaires.” Morin had a reputation for unscrupulousness, and in order to continue drawing money from Madame Lenormant, he pretended to have discovered facts criminating Madame Hugues. The latter took proceedings against him for defamation, and purposely did so in a way which gave him every opportunity for substantiating his assertions. Morin, however, did not appear to take his trial, and was sentenced last December, by default, to two years’imprisonment. He has since been taking advantage of all the loopholes afforded by French procedure for lodging appeals and obtaining postponements. The appeal was to have been heard, and the parties were in attendance for the purpose. Morin’s advocate, however, having owing to his own indisposition asked for a postponement, the case was set down for hearing next week. M. Hugues appeared to be vexed at this, and bis wife was seen to console him. He and bis wife left the Court, but remained in the Salle des Pas Perdus in conversation with different advocates. Suddenly, as Morin passed them to descend the steps, Madame Hugues moved aside, drew a revolver from under her mantle, and fired its contents at him in rapid succession. Three balls struck him. One lodged in his head, another in his neck, and the third in his lungs. The man fell dying, and was removed to the Hotel Pieu, where all hope of saving his life was abandoned. Madame Hugues was at once disarmed, and arrested with her husband. M. Hugues protested, on the ground of his immunity from arrest as deputy ; but (his does not apply where the person is arrested in flagrante (Hicto, and M. Hugues did not resist after a word from his legal advisor. As he passed through the assemblage of onlookers he remarked, “ My wife has killed that villain ; she has done well;” and at the police commissary’s office he embraced and congratulated her. M. Hugues has written poetna, and is a man of very excitable temperament, while his wife is said to have been complaining that for two years Morin had been morally killing. She is a finelooking and accomplished woman, and has two little girls, one of whom was named Mireille, by desire of her godfather, the Provencal poet Mistral. M. and Madame Hugues were taken to separate rooms, and were separately interrogated, the result being that the formw was liberated. Morin, on arriving at the hospital, made signs that he wished to write, and with the left hand traced on a sheet of paper the words “Je suis innocent.— Morin.” Extreme unciion was administered to him this afternoon. [Morin died next morning’]. The affair lias, of course, made a great sensation. In the lobbies of the Chamber there was some talk of questioning the Government as to the necessity of putting down State detective offices of the class to which Morin belonged.