L’AFFAIRE HUMBERT ENDED.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1650, 14 October 1903, Page 21

L’AFFAIRE HUMBERT ENDED.

THE “SECRET” REVEALED. MADAME’S PUNISHMENT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 28. On Saturday last the more or less sensational trial of Madame Humbert, her husband and her two brothers, for the perpetration of what lias been called “the greatest swindle of the century,” came to an end, and “La Grande There so,” and her husband are to-day looking forward to the joys of five years solitary confinement for forgery, employing forged instruments and swindling; Remain Daurignac to three years Emile “o’ that ilk” to two years imEmile c 'o’ that ilk” to two years imprisonment for the same offence. Those were the sentences pronounced at seven o’clock on Saturday evening, leaving out the comic opera touch given by the infliction of an additional penalty in the shape of a 100 francs fine on Madame. This £4 penalty calls no mind the sentence of the Dakota Court on the horse stealer: —“The prisoner is found guilty and is sentenced to he hanged by the neck till he is dead, and the Court unanimously agrees in refusing him a dog license.” The trial came to an end sooner than was anticipated and the “denouement” was, for Parisia ii s_a t any rate, highly disgusting. For days and days Madame, with the more or less innocent ! assistance of M. Labort, had kept them on the tenter hooks of expectation.. Madame was to make astounding revelations. and there was that "secret dossier” full of scandal, and a possible impeachment of Ministries and Justice to come —“to-morrow.” But though _ the precious “secret dossier” remains secret and leaves room for idle speculation as to its contents, it is quite clear that all Madame’s insinuations against M. Waldeck-Rosseau in particular and the French authorities in general were only part and parcel of her gigantic game of bluff. And as for nor final “revelations” it was utterly unworthy of the woman who built up the Great Lie. In an hour of her supreme need her splendid imagination seems to have failed her, and instead of electrifying the jury with a name that would bring the hot blood of outraged patriotism to their cheeks, she inn educed one that only caused the good men and true to smile incredulously, and. ask each other “Who was ho ?” In their great disappointment thev found it in their hearts to find her guilty on every count of tiie indictment hut. of course, preserved the traditional attitude of French juries in regard to female malefactors by adding “extenuating circumstanoes.” Of what these may have consisted. no one can ten. it was certainly nob Madame’s beauty that told with the jury for by all accounts “La Grande Therese” possesses no physical charms whatever. PROLONGING THE AGONY.

On Friday, Alaitre Labori continued his speech in defence of the Humberts. His effort was in some respects a masterpiece. He built up quite a substantial case upon the reputation of Madames fatiier-in-law, tho absence of direct evidence of the non-existence of the Crawford millions, and drew the herrings of denunciation of WaAdeckRosseau and political insinuation across the trial in a most clever fashion. One point he pushed home with great pertinacity and (temporary) effect. “There is one thing (ho said) you have not thought of. Shy lock is a very perspicacious personage. If he is prodigal, it is by avarice. He gives a good deal sometimes to gain a good deal; but where and when did you ever hear of Shylock pending money on an empty strong-box? This continual confidence of usurers is alone sufficient to prove the existence of the millions.” M. Labori pushed the point home still further by adding:—“lf the Humberts were swindlers, why did they not stick fast to the millions they had borrowed and be off? They had amassed nothing, but devoted their lives to toil and pressing anxieties.” M. Labori defended the Rente Viagero as a oerfeotly honest transaction. Its operations were as admirable as they were-serious, and the affair was well afloat when it waa thrown into bankruptcy. The five million francs constituting a moiety of its capital, had been paid in,, although the law only required the payment of one-fourth. Why should the Humberts have subscribed that large sum if they were swindlers? In this fashion did the eminent advocate fight for his clients, and finally came his assurance that there was a name —Therese would declare it—and therefore there must also he millions. THE END IN SIGHT.

On Saturday the Court was crammed. N. Hesse opened the proceedings by his speech for the defence of the Dawignacs, and when he had finished speaking the judge, addressing Madame Humbert, asked her if she had anything to say. There was a flutter of anticipation, and then, as Madame stood up in the dock, dead silence fell upon the Court. She began her extraordinary narrative in a peculiar dojo-

fu'l t-one. “T have said that I would speak,” she said. “I wanted an honest and independent jury. lam confident m the result. I have a.hvays been honest, otherwise I could not bear to live. But lam strong. I have never deceived anybody.” Rambling on in disjointed style Madame explained how she had been in the habit of lending money to the hanker, Bernhardt, who committed suicide a few years ago. One day she was induced to advance him a very large sum. The Crawfords got to hear of it, and accused her of having broken the trust by touching the Crawford money. “We refuse to leave it to your keeping any longer” they said, and she allowed them to take charge of it whenever they considered there was a danger of the safe being sequestrated by the law, or by creditors—or when she went on a journey. When she received notice that the safe was to be opened the millions were in the keeping of the Crawfords. She went to the nephew, and asked for trie money to be put back in the safe, but he refused. “The judge would impound ‘tho money,” ho said. “Then give mo enough to pay off a.ll my creditors, and I will abandon all the rest to you,” Madame pleaded, but the obdurate man refused. “No ; it is no use, my uncle would never agree to it.” “I will lia'vyD you arrested for illegally detaining the fortune,” Madame threatened. “Wo do not care; you cannot do anything to us. Our name is not Crawford at all,” answered the young man. All this was told by Madame Humbert with an infinite number of digressions into side issues. The people in Court laughed outright at several points in the story.

THE DREAD SECRET REVEALED. Then Madame waxed melo-dramatic in voice and gesture and everybody waited with bated breath for tho name that was to thrill or drill the marrows of all in Court. But Therese was in no hurry to gar to the muttons and prolonged the agony. At length., said she, “Gentlemen, when Crawford told me that was not the name of his .father and of the uncle, I asked.him for tho real name, tiie origin of - the fortune, and then it was that I learnt a painful and horrible thing—l was told the real name.” Here Madame Humbert paused, as though struggling with her sentiments and turning towards her counsel she asked him, with melodramatic voice, “Must I speak? Slia.il I say the name?” Tiie eminent barrister nodded, and Madame turned towards the jury again and went on: 'Well when Crawford told me that I could bo told nothing about the origin of tho fortune and that Crawford was not his real name, I asked, ‘Then what is your real name ?’ He answered, ‘Our name is Regnier. We are but the agents.’ ‘Who is the real Regnier?’ 1" asked, and the man had replied, ‘Regnier, the traitor.’ Thus it was that I learnt the real name of the Crawfords. I did not tell my husband. Ah. 1 swear it on the head of my daughter that it is now for the first time that my husband hears this accursed name.” Alas for Madame’s carefully prepared ffcoup de theatre?” There was “nary a thrill amang ’em” ; the jury merely grinned, and audibly asked “Who is Regnier ?” Madame saw the smile and rebuked the juryx gently thus: “Ah. gentlemen do not should not smile —I speak tho solemn truth. If it is not the truth the Crawfords deceived me. I will prosecute them when N. Valloe is no longer Minister of Justice.” Then having assured the jury of her faith in them Madame, who had talked for an hour by the qlock, subsided, leaving it to M. Labori to explain who “Regnier” was. The Advocate mentioned that he was an obscure Frenchman who had served as an agent between Bazaine and Bismarck during the siege of Netz. For this he is supposed, according to Madame Humbert’s story, to have received large sums from the German Government with which he bought French Government bonds during the 1870-1 war, when these bonds were quoted at a very low price. The in-cre-aso in value which afterwards took place was the origin of the “great Crawf-ord fortune.” Regnier was sentenced to death for treason by a French Court in 1874. He was, however, in Britain when the sentence was passed, and ho lived here until his death in 1885. Unfortunately for Madame Humbert’s story, Regnier was in very modest oircumstaoea and left no money behind him. Neither did Madame enlighten tho Court as to how she came to inherit from Regnier. THE FINAL SCSENE.

The jury having been given some 350 questions to answer retired at halfpast two, and for four hours the prisoners and the public were kept in suspense. At half-past six the jury returned, and amid profound silence the foreman announced that Madame and Frederick Humbert had been found guilty of forgery and using forged documents, likewise of fraud and fraudulent conspiracy and of issuing false powers of attorney. The other prisoners had not been found guilty on these counts, but all were found guilty of fraud in connection with the old-age pension scheme. The jury granted extenuating circumstances to all the prisoners. The latter were then called into Court to be sentenced*

On learning her fate Madame, who exhibited great composure, and was a Btrong oonstrast to her husband, turned round to that quaking individual and kissed him three times. She had turned pajo, hut continued to smile and to make remarks —“Just look at the judge’s eyes!” and again, “My poor husband always breaks down like this when there is anything wrong.” Roinain exclaimed “It is really infamous. I am as innocent of fraud as a babe unborn.” Emile jerked our angrily “I have always acted with scrupulous honesty. I have done nothing foi which I can reproach myself.” But tho guards put an end to these remarks by requesting the prisoners to leave the dock, and soon they had passed from view.

Tho sentence of five years’ solitary confinment means that four years and two months will have to bo served. It is possible, however, that, after a few months, solitary confinement may be changed into ordinary imprisonment, m wbpjph case the term could be reduced by* good conduct to about eighteen months. Madame talks of an appeal to tho Court of Cassation but one cannot believe that any Court will interfere with the sentence passed upon either the woman or her accomplices. We may, I think, take it that the Humbert affair is quite over, and as a temporary epitaph xor the central figure of one of the most famous trials of tho century writo the word “Resurget.”