TRIANGLE DRAMAS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLII, Issue 9473, 4 March 1922, Page 5

TRIANGLE DRAMAS

CASES IN FRANCE. LOVE EXCUSE THAT COUNTS LITTLE OF MURDER. Love is a disease in France; the law admits and absolves it. Should a man kill wife or lover out of jealousy, 12 of his fellow-countrymen will find their hearts beating in sympathy with him and find him innocent of crime. Love can do no wrong. If only Landru could have pleaded jealousy, and proved it, he would have been acquitted amidst the plaudits of those who have raised passion to a beatitude and feel that love covers a I multitude of misdeeds. Let me quote a few cases, says a correspondent of the “Sydnev Chronicle.” Marie Biere had fallen in love with a gentleman named Robert Gentien. Marie Biere was an artiste; she had had great ambitions, as most artists have, but she had not reaped all she hoped for. Then she lost her voice, which was indeed a tragedy. But she had her lover; Robert was splendid, and Marie had a great capacity for love. M. Gentien' travelled a. great deal, and the letters, which * had at first breathed the warm tones of passion, drifted into tepid friendship, and almost into frigid acquaintanceship. So Mademoiselle Biere took to the revolver and shot M. Gentien, fortunately without fatal results. The jury took five minutes to consider their verdict, ‘ and the foreman almost shouted it, “Not guilty,” while the audience thundered its applause. A Startling Crime. In the Fenayron case the view of a. French judge was made quite clear on this matter.

Fenayrou' was a chemist, who had married his master’s daughter and succeeded to the business. Wjth prosperity came a love of pleasure and a slackening of his, industry, with the consequence that his assistant in- the shop was thrown much in the company of Madame Fenayrou and practically carried on the business. A friendship sprang 'up between Madame Fenayrou and the assistant Aubert, though Fenayrou protested he did not know of it untiL Aubert had got a §hop of his own and was doing well. 'By this time Fenayrou was doing ill and had been forced to sell his business. When He heard of the relations between' his wife and Aubert, Fenayrou determined on vengeance, and made his wife aid him. She seems to have been a willing for she lured Aubert to a house in the country that Fenayrou had rented for the purpose, calmly led Aubert into the room where her husband was yaiting with a hammer, and then stood by while Fenayrou killed her lover. The murder was discovered because Fenayrou, assisted by his wife and brother, threw the body in the Seine. The corpse was recovered, and the Fenayrous were arrested. Now, had Fenayrou been able to make it indubitably clear to the jury that he had been actuated in what he- did by pure jealousy, it is almost certain he would have been acquitted and left the court a free man. . •• But the prosecution suggested other motives had entered into the deed; that Fenayrou was jealous of Aubert’s business success, and also, that Aubert knew certain things about Fenayrou which Fenayrou did not wish to come to light. Bombshell From The Judge, In the end Fenayou was found guilty and died in prison; but in the course of the trial this is what the presiding judge said to Fenayrou; “Now the care that you took to hide the corpse, that extraordinary care you took to destroy every trace of your Crime, all that is not the usual way of the husband who wants to avenge his honour; it is the method of the assassin. You could, since your wife was your accomplice, catch the two together, appear and kill Aubert; the law will excuse that!” That is from the mouth of a judge. It puts the theory clearly, bluntly, and horribly, the theory which says if a person in France can plead the excuse of love as the motve for a murder he or she will escape punishment. Mrs Deacon’s Lover. That this is a theory holding good for all sorts and conditions of people the French showed in the Deacon case. Mr Deacon was an American, whose wife was the daughter of Admiral Baldwin. He loved the Continent, as so many Americans do, and Mrs Deacon loved Paris, and its gaieties. Paris had its pitfalls, and Mrs Deacon was weak, Mr Deacon’s suspicions alighted, on a certain M. Abeille. Mr. Deacon went •to America after his first suspidions were aroused, and when he iietumed to France his suspicions were not abated Mrs Deacon stayed at .Cannes at the Hotel Splendide, and opposite to her was the Hotel Windsor, where there lodged “M. Adam” —otherwise the butterfly, M. Abielle. And then Mr Deacon arrived. He asked after M. Abeille,' “Oh, he is at Monaco, ’ said Mrs Deacon. But that night Mr Deacon saw M. Abelle in the hotel with Mrs Deacon, and shot him. A*Now,” he said, as he held the smoking revolver, “fetch a doctor and the police.” The verdict was truly French. Mr Deacon was apparently acquitted of murder, but found guilty of wounding. M. Abeille was killed. Mr Deacon was condemned to one year’s imprisonment for wounding a man he killed.