SILENT ASSASSINATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3527, 27 October 1882, Page 4

SILENT ASSASSINATION.

You cannot possibly hare an idea of the revelations made every Any before Dame Themis, where sons and daughters of crusaders, financial barons, and titled club men throng in such matters that some one has suggested to M. Borel d'Hauterive to add a special chapter to his ' Annuaire do la Noblesse,' in which, to record the judicial antecedents of nis noble clientel. The novels of M. Paul de Kock and M. Zola are milk and water in comparison with the cases brought before the Bar of the Parisian Third Chamber, and, in the matter of highpressure naturalism, amateurs of 'human documents ' have only the embarrassment of choice. The Duchess de S. died before her case was heard. If she had lived on only a month longer such a story must have been told as would have needed the pen of Alphonse Daudet or Belot to do it justice. Noble by birth, rich, accomplished, loved by all her surroundings, Gabrielle de S. was unfortunately, terribly plain in feature, and for that misfortune hated by her husband, an unreforrned rake, whom she, an orphan heiress, had married in defiance of her friends' advice. She was buried a few days ago, a victim to ' an inexplicable nervous malady which has bailled all our science,' said the certificate of her medical attendants, but in reality assassinated by the Duke, not •with a knife or a revolver, but silently and without violence. It was an abominable affair, which I will tell as briefly as possible. I have said she was plain. She was more than plain ! she was ugly —positively ugly and hump-backed—and the poor thing needed only to have consulted her mirror to be convinced that her handsome suitor's love was for her money-bags. But ugly women rarely think themselves repulsive, and she listened to the charmer and was more than glad to sign a dontract by which their ' joint property'—he had not nine cents in the world — was to revert to the 'last survivor.' A fortnight after their wedding her martyrdom began, but not as other conjugal martyrdoms have done. Oh, no! The duke knew a trick worth two of that. He lavished attentions on her—in public ; he was affectionate—before the servants ; it was ' darling ' and 1 beloved,' and ' my little cat' —when anyone was present; but in private the scene changed, and only one old .nurse was in the secret of that fading away at which tho world marvelled. Very ingenious was tho duke j he pretended to be jealous of thatpoor distorted specimen of humanity, and so played tho Othello. He did not shut her up in her chamber or use a bolster, but he had the hinges of all the doors so carefully oiled that they could be opened without a creak, the domestics were trained to move about noiselessly, snares were set in the vast gardens of their hotel in the Rue dcs Varnnuß, so that never the chirp of the sparrow •was heard. The poor woman was forced to lire in the midst of silence, and when they went together into society he scowled so fearfully at everyone 'who approached his wife to speak to her that little by little people ceased to make the effort. And then after they had returned, and she had gone to bed, ho would enter with list shoes on his feet, so as not to announce his coming, and would simulate a scene of jealousy. That is to say, he would pace tip and down like one in a fury who is about to burst into reproaches ; words of anger would seem on the point of issuing "from his mouth ; then he would stop by the j bedside and raise his. hand.in threat —but

he never struck, he never spoke, and, resuming his walk, would go through the same scene over and over again until, overcome by fatigue and horror, the Duchess swooned. Every night for ten years his victim watched for menaces which he seemed about to proffer, bnt to which he never gave vent. The doctors were summoned at last, but even the great specialist of the nervose, Dr. Charcot, who had been called in consulation, was unable to express »,n opinion. ' Yon think, then, that there i 8 no hope,' said one of his colleague?, as they went down the staircase together; 'you can suggest no remedy?' 'None whatever,' replied the celebrity ; 'we are in the presence of some horrible mystery, but to fathom it we must kill her husband, which I suppose we should not be allowed to do, although the physiologists are licensed to vivisect dogs ! Decidedly, all crimes are not provided for by the Code Napoleon. Since the death of Mine, de S. the old nurse has told what she knew, but what can be accomplished by raking up the ashes of the past ? Neither arsenic nor strychnine would be discovered in the brain or viscera of the corpse, and with Dr. Charcot, it must bo admitted that justice takes no cognisance of assassination by silence.