FRENCH BIGAMY CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 98, 24 April 1886, Page 3

FRENCH BIGAMY CASE.

A COMIC CAUSE CELEBRE. !

. [FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.] London, February 10. The following amusing account of a bigamy I case that has been creating, a good deal of amusement in France this last week may 1 appear to you worth reprinting. The writer is the Paris correspondent of the "Globe": One might safely defy the most profound reader of character to say off-hand whether Leon Leconty, who wa^ sentenced last night to five years' penal servitude for committing bigamy, is a fool or a knave. Certain is it that, notwithstanding the robberies he committed in order to throw dust in the eyes of his second betrothed and her parents, tbe Parisian world is inclined to judge him leniently, and to regard the sentence for his offence against the matrimonial institutions of bi;i country —tbe second count in tho indictment will be disposed of later on—as exceptionally sovere. Public opinion in this instance may be influenced by the fact of Leon Leconty having provided the laughter-loving Parisians with the most amusing play they have ever witnessed on or off the stage. Lupuie, of tho Vari4t(ss, between Chaumont and Beaumaine in "The Grand Casimir," looked a sobersides, one might almost say a Puritan, in comparison with Leconty, betwixt his first spouse de jure and de facto, and Blanche Levanneur, who escaped the latter part of the honour by the skin of her teeth. For it was literally at the eleventh hour that M. Striemond, the town clerk, interrupted tho festivities by announcing to tho company that Leconty was a married man, and that consequently he had committed bigamy. When interrogated by Counsellor Thiriot, who presided at the debates, as to tho cause of tho delay, seeing that Mdmo. Leconty Number One had applied to him almost immediately after the marriage, the witness frankly acknowledged that he did not believe Mdmo. Leconty's story ; that he suspected it to be concocted by an abandoned mistress ; in short, that ho did not wish to appear a fool. Though M. Striemond did not say so, he evidently preferred 1 that Blanche Levanneur should play that character. The girl seems by no means endowed with the necessary attributes of the part. She stepped before the witness bar—there is no box there—perfectly self possessed. "He asked my hand twice. I I consented, because I loved him," she said. I translate the words "Je l'aimais" rigorously, though personally I am inclined to think that Mdlle. Levanneur meant to Bay, "I liked him." It ia not surprising that she liked Leconty. I fancy it would be difficult to do otherwise. If the reader wishes to have a thorough notion of his appearance, let him imagine Harold Skimpole, though somewhat younger looking than Dickens's hero, as portrayed by the original illustrator. A childish, timid face, with rosy cheeks and big blue eyes, rather deep-set. A man who, if his physiognomy is to be believed, did no.t discriminate between good and evil at first, and was dragged into the latter by an all-absorbing passion—a passion whioh be went even so far as to confess to his lawful wife. "I am in love with a young girl," he said to the latter. When Mdme. Leconty pointed out the wickedness of such a thing, her husband simply told her that he could not help it; that he would nc> longer go to Alfortville to fish, hut to selaat some other spot less tempting to his admiration of female youth and beauty. To make assurance doubly sure, Mdme Leconty accompanied him every Sunday to Suresnes. Only, while she believed him to be at his work on the other days of the week.Leconty was weaving hie at Alfortville. He passed himself off as a gentleman at large, possessing an ample income. When, ou.ee on. that downward path, thore. was no. stopping him.it appears. His passion for the girl, in Bpite of his confession that it was purely platonic, and would have never degenerated into anything more material, went, no doubt, for a great deal in tliia descent. Stil I am inclined to believe that Leconty did not altogether lie when he said that he went to the altar, like a lamb to the sacrifice, rather than risk tbe wrath of M. Levanneur, the father of his flame. One had only to see the two men together to become convinced of this. M. Levanneur looks the stalwart, heavyhanded, peasant bourgeois, with whom one would not willingly take a liberty. Events proved Leconty's fears no.t to he altogether groundless. When the secret spirted out— " leaked" would be the wrong expression, for it came more like a waterspout than anything else—Levanneur, then suffering from gout, almost throttled his fictitious son inlaw. After this the wedding guests invited Leconty to drown himself, an invitation which was politely but firmly declined. Nor would Leconty hear of stabbing himself, as was suggested. He said it would hurt him. There appears to have been no lack of some kind of ceurage, though, He not only held his assailants at bay with a revolver, but afterwards attempted to destroy himself in company with his wife, Number One.

The latter is also a character rarely met with out of a novel or a play. A very good creature, fond of her husband, and eminently confiding. So confiding|Vn faot, that if Leconty had merely taken the trouble to order a new wedding suit instead of asking his wife to prepare his old one - only three or four years old, though-she would have never suspected anything. And Leconty might have passed some years of his life, if not the whole, like the famous La Pivardiere, who waß in turns lord of the manor at Narbonne with his first wife, and a sheriff's officer at Auxerre with his second. With this difference, that Leconty would havo played the grand seigneur with the second spouse, and the ouvrier with the first. If Leconty bad been, left free to marry a third wife, he might have escaped punishment by a mere teohnioal flaw in the law. It appears that the French code does not provide for trigamy or polygamy. I only repeat what Benjamin Constant relates in a very curious book of his. Leconty's counsel, unable to avail himself of this quibble, has found a much more subtle one in justify his appeal-to a higher court. No wife can give-evidence on oath against her husband, according to the French law, and Blanche Levanneur's marriage not being annulled, she was nominally Leconty's wife yesterday. On the strength of this there will bo a rule for a new trial.

To come back for a moment to Mdme. Leconty the first. When she fell like a bombshell among the wedding guests, her husband had just made himself scarce. The company thought it a pity to interrupt their entertainment for so trifling a cause as the enforced disappearance of the hero of the day; so Mdme. Leconty was invited to take somo coffee and tell her story, which she did. Assuredly never was there so interesting a poßtprandial speech at any wedding. We are not told whether the company drank to the happy pair's health and prosperity, but the omission may be due to the original reporter's jollity. Leconty could not be found for several days. His first visit was \to his brother-in-law by his first marriage, whose black trousers he had borrowed for tho second ceremony. M. Andre collared him and took him to the police station, but when the Commissary inquired about the purpose^ of his call, ho merely pretended a quarrel wish his prisoner, which he was willing to make up. He had meantime allowed Leconty to go away. The latter went to his wife and asked her pardon, which was readily granted. But she told him that the police were on his track. They then docided to die together, at the instigation of Leconty. They went to Chaville, took a room in a small hotel, and lighted a brazier of charcoal. They evidently did not set the right way about it, for they woke up as fresh as daisies. Mdme Leconty had eneugh of her first attempt at suicide. She left her husband behind in the hotel, and returned to Paris. Leconty took some laudanum next morning. But he almost immediately swallowed two quarts of milk. Then he returned to his wifs, and they made it up for good. They would, probably, have lived happily for ever afterwards, but for the police arresting Leconty ono day, as he was taking a quiet stroll with his wife and their little dog. Unfortunately, as I have already said, there is a much graver charge against him than that of bigamy. He is accused of having committed robberies of the shoplifting kind, to the amount of 7,000fr. or B,ooofr. The proceeds went in presents to his intended and ber Earonts, and to defray tbe expenses of his ome in Paris, for he no loager worked, al though ho pretended to do so to his wife. Will tbe next trial result in a milder sentence? Will the jury, generally so lenient towards criminals for love, even if they commit murder, punish theft more severely than homicide? Will they close their hearts in a case which, it should be remembered, had no fa Jconsoquences? Blanche Levanneur was sated on tie brink of patrimony in the most comprehensive meaning of the word °v Mdme: Leconty herself, and the victim of a love passion has been under remand already for 10 months, during which ho beguiled the time by writing some sentimental poetry, in halting verao and defective orthography.