WIFE'S REVENGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 34, 8 February 1913, Page 17

WIFE'S REVENGE.

MURDERESS GOES FRE-E I.V PARIS. t On July 31st last Madame Bloch called on Mrs Bridgeman in the latter's flat on the ground floor of Rue Vignon, behind j the Madeleine, to ask her to give her back • I from him in wrich he deplored laving left his wife and his children for Mrs Bridge- [ ! man, and told his wife that he loved her ' ( still, and asked her forgiveness. The two ■ women seem to have argued a fiiw minutes. '• at the end of which time Madame Bloch - J took a revolver out of her reticule and " , fired twice at Mrs Bridgeman, who fell I dead. Madame Bloch then went to the ' nearest police station and gave herself in I charge. On December 23 Madame Bloch J J was brought up for trial at the Paris Assizes. She is a little, rather insignificant woman, with a dull complexion, which her j deep black dress makes duller; but with [ curiously briglit eyes. In a low voice, and ' with a sob here and there, she acknowledged all the charges brought against her. 1 M. and Madame Bloch, it seemed, lived happily, and had two children. The husband managed a factory at Rueil. In the local i trains to Paris M. Bloch met Mrs. Bridge- ; man. an American 'woman, not in her first : prouth, as she had a eon of 20. But M. Bloch seems to have conceived for Mrs ! Bridgeman the passion of his life. M. Bioch for a long time kept his love affair : secret, but at last confessed to his wife, ; and at the same time promised to see Mrs : i Bridgeman no longer. But the elderly pas- : islon seems to have been too strong for him, and he saw Mrs Bridgeman again. Madame Bloch then_took strong measures, I and told Mrs Bridgeman's son and finally Mrs Bridgeman-s husband, who thereupon instituted proceedings for divorce. All these measures having failed, Madame Bloch re- . sorted to the extreme one, and murdered Mrs Bridgeman. At the trial she said: "I I killed to avenge my love and the honour of my home. My husband was unfaithfulwell and good. Who are the men who are faithful to their wives? But what I could not stand was that another woman should have completely taken my place. When all Imy patience was spent I went to claim my husband from that woman. I should not have committed the great fault I did had I found any pity in her for mc. But she only Insulted mc. and said, 'Your husband has taken a mistress. Well, why don't you take a lover?' Then I lost my head, and you know what happened." On her trial for what she euphemistically called her "great fault," Madame Bloch was defended by the famous barrister Maitre Henri Robert. It would have surprised most people if he had not got her acquitted. At the trial the chief witness was the husband, whom everybody dropped upon. Including the judge. St. Bloch penitently said. -All the fault is on my side. My responsibility Iβ terrible, and my emotion is sucii that I cannot give you a consecutive narrative, but can only reply to questions." The result of his examination was the judge's concluding remark to the witness. •"You are unpardonable," whereupon M Bloch withdrew amid groans from the back of -the court. t The jury at once brought in a verdict of "Not guilty," while awarding to Mrs Bridgeman's heirs 10d damages.