SUICIDE OF MISS ST. DENIS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 408, 20 November 1868, Page 3

SUICIDE OF MISS ST. DENIS.

Mdle. St. Denis was the assumed and favourite name of a young lady named Maes, bornin Malines, Belgium, in 1848, her father a surgeon in the French army, and her mother an Englishwoman. Four years ago the widowed mother and daughter were living in Melbourne in poor circumstances. The daughter becoming impatient of poverty, at once set about her own living. She was very accomplished, spoke several languages, was a good musician and pianist, and consequently commenced as a governess, first at Chines then at Greelong. The tedium of such a life soon disgusted her, and she developed a passionate desire to enter on a theatrical career. In this she was eventually gratified. Her debut was successful, and her subsequent progress was rapid. How so promising a career was fin raked so disastrously can only be told in the outline. She had long lived apart from her mother, and after she went to Adelaide she greatly deteriorated in general repute. Her private life, in fact, would not bear rigid examination. In this respect she was not to be judged as other women are, for her mental and moral condition was out of the common way. In religious matters she professed to be an atheist, and in social life her course was made eccentric by strange characteristics. Three months ago, when she returned from Adelaide, she attempted to kill herself with laudanum apparently because she could not pay a large bill. She recovered, and for some time all seemed well again. But the end was at hand. Something happened in that mysterious life of hers. A friend who had supplied her with money held his hand, and she resolved on suicide. .On Friday Oct. 23, she seemed to have settled her affairs—she bought the poison two days before. In the afternoon she sat down in her lodgings to write notes, chatting meanwhile with her landlady. But in those notes she avowed her suicidal intention; asked her medical adviser to stop an inquest, if possible; wrote farewell notes to two or three friends ; and, lastly, a letter to her landlady, whom she regarded as her best friend. She asked her to help in keeping the secret of the suicide, adding, " if all goes right, and I am buried, be kind enough to sell all my wardrobe and jewellery to cover expenses. I should like my own and my stage name on the grave, with these lines—" ' One who loved not wisely but too well.' " Further on she entreated that she should not be thought mad, and declared that she could not live without

" him,'' meaning a certain married gentleman whose name had been improperly associated with her own. The matter excited great interest, and the Victorian Government were eagerlyinvited to have the body exhumed, and a fresh inquiry made ; but better counsels prevailed, and the grave of the unhappy girl has not been disturbed,