Driven to Madness

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 November 1927, Page 9

Driven to Madness

OLD COUPLE AND HAUNTED HOUSE A tragic incident which recalls one of Mr H. G. Wells’s stories is reported from a village near- Dampierre, in France, where an old married couple have been driven mad by their own visions. The couple, named Prevet, were employed as servants by Mme. Meyer in her large house. A few days ago Mme. Meyer went away for a holiday, leaving tho Prevet in solo charge. When they found themselves alone in the house they became seized with superstitious fears. They had noticed a stuffed raven and the skins of many’ unfamiliar animals in one room, and Mme. Prevet declared that some of the pictures in the iilace seemed to be alive.

She sought the advice of a fortuneteller in Dampierre, who interpreted her dreams and visions in such a fashion that on returning to the house Mme. Prevet installed a kind of chapdl in which she began to practise rites which were something between spiritualism and devil worship.

Sitting on opposite sides of a light wooden table, she and her husband spent nights in “conversing with spirits.” The fact that nil the lights in the house were often burning all night long attracted tho attention of the neighbours, who often heard groans and "wild cries issuing from some of the windows. Later crockery and furniture were mysteriously hurled into the street, greatly to the terror of the simple folk of the village, who begged their priest to say an expiatory Mass before the house.

Eventually, when it was reported that Brevet had appeared raving incoherently on a balcony, the Mayor and police entered the house, and found MmeCPrevet standing unclothed on an improvised altar, while her husband,' kneeling in a corner, was praying for relief from evil spirits, which, he said, had taken possession of the house.

Both have now been confined in an asylum, but the local residents are firmly convinced that the house is haunted by demons, and no longer dare to approach it even in broad daylight.