FRENCH MAYBRICK CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 30, 4 February 1905, Page 13

FRENCH MAYBRICK CASE.

THE" MURDER OS , PUBSEE 3CAS3OT. LONDON. December 16. Tie sordid tale unfolding itself at tliis moment in tiie Court d"Assize at Ais (Provence) bears a strong resemblance to the ilaybricli trial nfteen years ago. The Aix Assize Court, Uie tile Liverpool Assize Court of ISSS, has to find oat the erase of ttie death of a man married to a woman macii his junior. Like Mr Justice Stephen and bis Lancashire Jury, the , judges at *i-r hare to investigate the actions of a woman admittedly unfaithful, to establish her guilt or innocence of a murder unusually cold-blooded.. Marseilles the beautiful and the treacherous, was the scene of r Affaire Jtaauct, wETch has now come to judgment at A<t In the anttrnm of last year there lived, at , the port a Captain Msssot, aa employee of the Messageries Maritimes, who had been suspended, from his position, of captain in consequence of a mishap due to negligen.ee, and was acting as parser oa board tne Basdad. H* died somewhat suddenly on October 23, IGO3. Thongii he was only thirty-aeven years old, and a sailor who normally enJoyed the moat robust health, his death did not at first cause suspicion. THE CIRCUMSTANCES. There -was no breath of the worn poison, • jet the neighbours, and abore all the • household servant, Locie Clap, knew that there had been unhappineaa Between tile : pair on account of a yoang medical gtcdent, Edooard Hubae, the son of one of the vice-presidents of the Civil Tribunal at Marseilles. This youth Is now only fouri and-twenty, and an eye-witness of the I trial at Air, where Hubac sits in the dock . beside his paramoer, describee him as slim and shy-loofctns, with i-Vi-'n black moustache not aiding the npper lip, but drawn like a tenuous stencilled line across It. The beginning of thie liaison Hafaac baa written in one of his letters from prison. . See was the mistress of one of his friends wbo had wearied of the entanglement. So i Ha&ac and this wearied lover arransed to cnsT'ffg places, Madame Massot consenting. ; And Captain Massot knew, and niedi- • tated a divorce; and that is why the nelghi boors, and above all Lucie Clip, the ser- ; vant, professed no surprise wien in the midst of his despair he died— at 10-cailed enteritis. i A few days after his deatb, huwever. suspicions Lncie Clap was rnmmagiajj ia. the toQet-pail after same torn scraps of paper, which proved to be letters sect to Madame Massot from "Edotsard." "Ed- , ouard," in one of these letters, blarced I himseif for the "desolatins tardiness" of tic husband's malady. Here again, the strange parallel with the Maybrict case. There, too, a servant . made the first discovery which led to the murder charge, her suspicions having been first aroused by the address on a letter which she was tafriTg to the post. This important evidence led to tht arrest ■ of Madame Massot and H"nbac on Dec«nbcr 7, 1303. A post-morttm was opened oa the deceased man's body, anrf the death was found to have been due to a eocrostre poison, bi-chJorule of meicury. The trial should have come en a-t midsummer, bnt the strange letters written by Habac in prison necessitated, under the procedure of French law, further investigation the hands of the Judge of first instance. One of these wtereta Htbac relates the fiist meeting, has already been referred to. A second letter contains an extraordinary admiesioa on tile man's part that Alice Ma*sot aad told Mm tixax she had admiateteced. poteon te her hxLaiMnd, bat he <Hd aat beller« her. His disbelief ti>tsxed te httlitl ixtsr oa.

THE CLUE. Amonc the first proceedings of tat* trial was the reeding of the lettew free finbat: to lladaaw atassot. found by Lade dap and pieced together. Titer are nor- ■ rfWe, every liae (provided they are authenI tice) breathing guilt. One of them?, written before Maesorts death, apeak* «f -her laort widowhood passed like an honest woman." And then, in a letter more sigatteact than all, "Bioeard" writes: "You mast not worry yoeraetf because he does not absorb what he takes. . . . Too auat not be disheartened at th# results, which hare so far not hit the mark, it is accessary at all costs to persevere, or no good results can come. I am very apprehensive as to the state of your health if this lamentable state of things continues. . . Courage, I love you." And then there comes a tetter smaotraciiir; that he has seat his Alice some bi-enforide of mercury —"It is a powerful poison. Reassure yourself on that point, by my love for you. It will not prove feeble; I swear to you that" On the next day, October 22, and the day before Georges Masset's death, the prosecution alleged that Hubac called at the Villa Toctes-Auree. where the Massots lived, and presented his paramour wid a wtiite powder, which in the letters written by him from prison he declared to have been, pretended poison. But Madame Massot has ate© written letters dxiring her long imprisonment. These are addressed to her mother, and this Is her explanation: "Pestered by my h>ver to do so, I let him believe that I had administered poison to my h-cshatd. I nerer did more than pretend."' But at another time she wrote in a different spirit: "It was because I did not wish to be separated from my children by the threatened divorce that in a moment of passion and of folly I decided on this atrocious deed . It was in the excess of my maternal lore that I conceived this crime." After the letters tie trial at the Coor d'Assiaes dcs 3ouches-du-BSioae proceeded to the evidence of Latde Clap, who gave a detaSed acconsrt of Georges Maasot's last days. On October 6, 1903, he landed at MaraeilJes from Ms laet voyage, fell ill on the Bta or 9th, his first night at hoew, with all the symptoms now recognised as following traon mercurial poisoning; recovered a Httle, had another meal witii his wife, and died. His wife tended him during this last illness, and oace (declares Lucie ClapJ, after Madame Masaot had given him he said: '"What have you made mc take which has poisoned my mouth V Who wHI not re-ail the terrible sentence. almost identical, used by the dying James Maybriek to his wife? [Mme. Maasot and Habac. onr rubles have since informed us, were convicted and sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. Ed. E.S.J