TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1695, 27 May 1884, Page 2

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.

. An extraordinary trial is going on in Pans jus now. M. Lafonte, young, rich, and the .happy husband of a pretty wife, whom he had married against the . wishes of (101 . returned home alone one evening. M, . and.MadamoLafonte went .out early ■ m the afternoon, informing their ser- ' vants that they would not be homo to dinner. Neither on the. next day nor on any of the following days did Madame return. Soon this mysterious disappearance was the •• talkvof the neighborhood, and publicl opinion settled down to the conviction that Lafonte had killed his wife. People began to look askance at him, and one day a crowd assembled under his windows and'threatened mischief. The Oommissaire of Police arrived, and, instead of dispersing .the crowd, subjected Lafonte td an interrogatory. " What have you done with your wife?" he asked. Lafonte protested that he had,.done nothing, with her, yet he was arrested and seritvto the cabinet of a Judge destruction, who, bejng a Magistrate of higher rank than the Oommissaire of Police, began with, " so < sir, yoii have killed your wife?" Lafonte answered: "Nothing of the sort.' 1 " But his father-in.law was summoned, and a formal charge of murder was presented. • t Lafonte was arrested, and in duo time ho appoared before a jury to be tried for his life. The Court room was crowded, and as matters began to look serious the accused consented to go into fuller details on the subject of his wife's.disappearance. His -story was, that on the day in question before going out of his houso to 'dip ho sat down to write a letter. His wife then wished to know to whom he was writing, and on. his refusal to let her know she flew into a fit of jealousy, reproached him with having married herfor her money, and declared that she would at once leave him, He answered her coldly to the effect that she might do so as she pleased, and she left the roim in a rage. An. hour later when ho went for her to accompany him to their friend's house, she was not to be found, and since that day he had not set eyes on her. When asked whv he > had not told this story to the ConM missaire of Police, the Judge d'lnstruc-" tion, and the Public Prosecutor, M, LaFonte answered that he had been enraged by the gossip of the neighbors, aud did not think that as an innocent ' man, it was his plaee to gratify their curiosity. The prosecution was without foundation, there was not a particle of evidence against him before the Magistrates who had committed him, and he had made up his mind to stand his trial in order to show up the malevolence of his father-in-law %nd the faulty way in which the Magistrates had .invested this affair. Lafont felt so sure of his case that he conducted his defence himself, and this he did in. a short speech to the jury which was composed of twelve old moaof the average intelligence— that is to say a rich manufacturer, an architect, a drinking-saloon keeper, a retired Government clerk,, .an apothecary, a res-taurant-keeper, a gentleman of no profession, but who is the owner of several houses, an ex-army officer, a butcher, a cabinetmaker, a milkman, and a dancing master. To this cosmopolitan crowd Lafonte said briefly that there was no evidence against him except that his wife was absent,and he thought it would be a very good idea if the prosecuting attorney would " show that a crime had been committed. Thejury retired, and after a short absence brought in a verdict of guilty. Lafonto was apparently lost, and the Judges were about to pronounce sentence, when a handsomely-dressed lady rushed forward to the bar, and, with tears streaming down her checks, exclaimed, "I am Mdme. Lafonte, and I have not been murdored." In a (it of jealously and anger she had left her home and hidden herself in tho country with her nurse, and it was only when she read in the papers that M. Lafonte was to be tried as her murderer that sho made up hor anind to return to Paris in order to bo on hand : to save him, if necessary. This ought to have settled the case, but it did not. Poor Lafonte is not yet out of the prisoners' dock. It is true the Court then and there ordered a stay of judgment, and announced that the case should be tried over again at the next torm j but there is 1 no certainty that twelve wise men of France will acquit him again next time. The worst of it is all his inti--1 mate friends—they, of course, have confidence in his ultimate' release—are treating him as a man found guilty of murder.—J. H, Haynie, in the San Francisco 'Post,' ■■ ;