"MODERN AMAZON"

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1938, Page 6

"MODERN AMAZON"

CHARGED WITH MURDER

CLAIM OF SELF-DEFENCE

NOTED FRENCH-

WOMAN r

(From "The Post's" Representative.!! ' LONDON, December 29, '

I After creating more than one sensation in France in recent years, Mme. Violette Moriss, French woman athlete, has been arrested on a charge of killing a Breton engineer, M. Joseph Le Cam, aged 34; on board her houseboat, Les Mouettes, moored on the Seine in Paris. She has for 20 years been a familiar figure in Paris. Dressed in-a lounge suit in the daytime and wearing smart-ly-cut coloured dinner jackets in the evening, she looked so much like a man that many people were surprised to hear that she was not. She is the niece of a famous French Admiral, and has Arab blood in her veins. Boxing, football, putting the shot, javelin throwing, weight lifting, cycling;' and motor-cycle anH"motorcar racing are a few of the sports in which Mme. Moriss, who is 45, has. participated. During the war-she served at the Front as a motor-cycle dispatch rider. ' Twice at least she knocked out professional men boxers during escapades in Montmartre. She was' at 'one' time captain of the French women's foot- <, ball team and broke women's .world records on the, athletic field. ' She -competed against men in gruelling cycle races, and as a motor-car- racer won a number '■ of important; events. • Forbidden by law ■ from r wearing men's clothes, she applied to the authorities for permission to do so on the ground that it was essential to her in accomplishing her athletic records. Permission was granted. Another sensation was created when the French Women's Sporting F- deration banned her from competitions because she habitually lived the life of a man. This . was the subject of a lawsuit.

She became known as "the -modern Amazon" when she underv/ent ah operation to give her a flat chest so that she could participate in boxing and other manly sporls. Recently she has been appearing in cabaret in Montparnasse and has also sung on the radio. She was married shortly .-after the war.

STRUGGLE OK THE HOUSEBOAT.

. Mme Moriss's houseboat was mo.ored alongside another.in which, lived Baron, and Baroness Denis- de - Trobriand, with whom she was- friend]y. - M. Le Cam and Baron de Trobriand are stated to have served together in tha French Foreign Legion. • ■

Reports of the tragedy vary, but it is alleged that after a dispute between, the Baron and M. Le Cam, the latter went to Mme. Moriss's houseboat and threatened her for causing the quarrel. Mme. Moriss is alleged to have said in a statement, "He tried to strangle me and throw me into the river.' I flung him on the ground and -we struggled. Then he came at me with a knife, so I shot." She claims that she fired first into the air to warn him and that throughout she acted in self-defence. ' Baroness de Trobriand is alleged to have said: "Violette had the biggest struggle of her career—a fight for her life. By sheer physical .strength', shje overcame the wiry man, 11' years her junior, and flung him on the ground. They rolled to and iro amid the furniture, punching each other. Then shot? were fired and Le Cam lay dead."