A PICTURESQUE FIGURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 October 1931, Page 9

A PICTURESQUE FIGURE

ALPINE SHEPHERD IN COURT. PARIS, August 20. A strange story of wild country life has just been unfolded before the Assize Court of the Alpes Maritimes at. Nice. The principal figure was Pierro Fabre, an old shepherd, who, it is stated, has only left his mountain haunts three times in 60 years- Fabre appeared in Court barefooted, wearing an ancient three-cornered hat, and carrying a shepherd’s crook inherited from his grandfather. The charge against him was that he had tried to burn down a farm in which lived a girl who had refused to marry his nephew- When the girl’s father, a prosperous farmer, opposed the match, the old shepherd vowed vengeance, and one night set fire to the farm. After much picturesque evidence the Court accepted the view of the defence that the old shepherd had “acted without discretion,” with the result that he was acquitted. Fabre’s only bed is a heap of grass in the shelter of a rock, and his diet consists of bread, water and such raw meat as is furnished by animals of his flock which happen to die, for he explained that he could tell by an examination of the dead animal’s liver whether the meat was dangerous- or not. So anxious was the 'old shepherd to return to his flock after his acquittal that for the first time in his life’ he condescended to travel by motor-coach instead of on foot.