A DARING IMPERSONATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2742, 8 February 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

A DARING IMPERSONATION.

A strange drama, with a tragic ending, has just been enacted at Rome. There arrived lately in Rome a certain Monsignore of rather youthful but dignified appearance, who took rooms at the Minerva Hotel (which is mainly frequented by clerical society), and gave his name on the hotel books as "Monsignore le Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, Domestic Prelate to His, Holiness." Naturally he was treated with much distinction. Among others, he made acquaintance with an Australian Catholic Bishop, said to be Bishop Murray, of Maitland, with whom he appeared to be on very friendly terms. Strolling one morning" together at the portals of the Propaganda Fide, they were suddenly confronted bv an agent of police, who declared that the soi-disant prince w?s his prisoner, and, to the horror and amazement of his clerical companion, marched him off theu and there to prison. Once in the presence of the police authorities, the wretched young man confessed that his name was Michel Hallais, the son of poor people at Mouville, in France. He had been as a seminarist in the college of the Trappiet Fathers at Vestemos, in the district of Anvers, and by means of false keys had etolen 2600 florins from the treasury of the convent, besides a gold watch and chain and other objects of value. With these he fled, first to Marseilles, where he provided himself with the ecclesiastical attire of a Monsignore, and assumed the name of the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, He caused himself to be photographed in this guise at Marseilles, and succeeded in completely deceiving those persons with whom he came In contact. He was a tall, goodlooking young man, with small hands and feet, the latter well set off by the violet silk stockings and gold buckled shoes of a Monsignore. He wore light gold spectacles, and maintained to admiration the serious, composed demeanor suitable to his assumed character. After the preliminary judical examination, he was removed to a cell at the Carcere Nuove, but the courage which had sustained him while so cleverly and successfully acting his part, seems to have deserted the unfortunate young man immediately on the revelation of his real personality. When the gaolers visited him on their rounds a few hours later they found him dead, strangled by his own hands. He was only 21. That a young man of his age should have dared to come to Rome for the purpose of acting out such a play, and should have succeeded, even for a short time, in deceiving eclesiastics of high rank, and mixing undetected in select clerical society as a personage of not only ecclesiastical, but also high social rank, makes it altogether one of the most curious and daring impersonations ever attempted.— Standard,