MUCH-MARRIED MONTAIGU

NZ Truth, Issue 725, 10 May 1919, Page 5

MUCH-MARRIED MONTAIGU

Count Again Counted Out I RETRIBUTIVE ROTORUA ROSEBUD REJECTS RENE A London Divorce of New Zealand Interest The latest English files to hand contain an announcement of the dissolution of the marriage of the Countess Alice de Montaigu, of QUeen Mary Hostel, Abbey Wood, Woolwich, from her husband, Count Rene Pierre Anne Marie Joseph de Montaigu. This gentleman, with a name like a chapter but of the Book of Numbers, will be well-remembered m New Zealand, as he was the "Little 'Ero" of a Cham* pion scandal some five years ago m Rotorua, the details of which will bear reproducing m brief. Count Rene — this journal proposes to cut out all his appendices — arrived at Rotorua late In 1914 along with an alleged Countess and a flourish of trumpets, and a claim of £166 against the Government for a lost gun case, which dollars he ultimately secured. They also carried a kid, "c^hosA paternity bids fair to beoome well-lost m a MAZE OF MDCED AND MtlX/riFARIOUS MARRIAGES. • Anyway, Gladys and Rene proceeded to grab Rotorua sasslety tjjr* t&ei neck and shake It vigorously. Nobody doubted that this debonair and dilettante arlstoc-rat and his chio and charming Countess were not jewelled In every hole and properly hallmarked, and there weren't arms enough to clasp them to the willing bosoms of tho elite of Smelltown. Rene was "him te pfeller" m next to no time, mainly owing to his ability to "set 'em up again" m the various hostelrles of the victimised village. He didn't say "Wotyergointer'ave?" m the thrupenny bar • vernacular, but always addressed his quasji-guests with, "Would you gentlemen condescend to have a little liquid refreshment with me?" an invitation which was Invariably responded to with a rush of alacrity that threatened the beer supply of the Count's temporary capital messuage. Meanwhile Gladys was giving the glad eye to the threetailed BASHAWS OF THE BOURGEOIS BURG, and helping her hubby by proxy to cut a wide swathe m the society circles of Rotorua. However, time wore on, as it has a habit of doing, and presently little whispers began to float around the township that the Count was a Count of no ac- Count, and that the Countess was a wellknown "vaude-villainess" of * the London variety stage. By this time the Count had accentuated these suspicions by "biting" all and sundry of his acquaintances for a few bob to go on with, as the naughty war was interfering with the regularity of his remittances. But the. climax came when Alice Bern, the typical village heroine with modest ways, attracted the attention of Count Rene. Alice, who was the daughter of a local

Count Rene Pierre Anne Marie Joseph de Montaigu was the central figure of a memorable Rotoroa scandal. His New Zealand-born wife (nee Alice Bern) has just divorced him m London

Johnop, took tickets at the baths, m the. intervals of drawing her slim fingers through the translucent waters and wearing a transformation and a meditative look, and her naive chastity appealed so strongly to Rene that he very soon proposed matrimony to the pensive damsel. Naturally enough, Alice wanted to know where Gladys came m, but the amorous Count had no difficulty m pushing this encumbrance over the fence. His explanation ■ was that he had been married before he met Gladys, but that the first Countess liad divorced him, and he had adopted Gladys and married her while 'his divorce decree was still a decree nisi, and not a decree absolute, so that when he married Gladys he was not legally single, and the marriage, therefore, was . not a marriage at all. Alice, with proper artlessness, accepted the explanation, and without weighing its reservations and its sanctities, tripped off to the registrar's office with Rene and became Countess No. 3. But right here was where Count Rene jarred Rotorua's respectability, and the male inhabitants with one accord became the WILD WOLVES FROM WOLF- , VILLE. Shocked* down to their socks by the Count's treatment of Gladys — who however, did not display any undue emotion at the fickleness of 'her' halfhusband — and even more shocked at the duplicity that had been worked upon them, a party of self-appointed vigilantes laid wait for the Count armed with a kerosene-tin of tar and a pillow-slip of assorted feathers. They collared their victim at dead of night, stripped him to the waist, anointed him liberally with the viscous fluid, then "threw their chicken fevvers round his door" and over other portions of his anatomy, as one graiphic contemporary report put it: "Paying particular attention to particular parts." The next intended operation was the riding- of a rail but this was prevented by the intervention of the police, and after two or three hours of over- vigorous scrubbing, during which a considerable portion of the . Count's cuticle was removed, he \vas returned comparatively clean outwardly to his new distressed spouse. Next day he faded irito the thin air of Hamilton, taking Alice with him, whilst Gladys vamoosed surreptitiously to Auckland, and ultimately is supposed to have found her erring way back to the Big Smokq, taking the mysterious infant with her. Then an outraged Rotorua proceeded to sue the Count for , their, little bit, and a meeting of his ci-editors was held at Hamilton, which attracted' a record attendance for any such entertainment ever held m the Dominion. Everybody who could get a form filled m a claim, from the man who had sold the Count three-ha'porth of cat's meat, to the confiding lawyer who had written him cheques for hundreds. Meantime the 'Count had collared Gladys's jewels, furs and «ocks, and "BDoutod" them.

ostensibly to ipay his creditors, bui had spent the money on his other Delilah— not forgetting himself. He put m a statement showing a surplus of assets over liabilities of about four to one, but it was a paper surplus, v and ' ultimately, after all sorts of threats of prosecution and execution, the Count managed to • fold his tents silently, and vanished with his Alico under his arm. From time to timo echoes of his whereabouts have filtered through, mainly owing to the .pertinacity of Alice, Countess the Third, whom Rene does not seem to have found an unmixed blessing. There ■was a separation and a desertion, then Alice successfully sued last October for a restitution of . conjugal rights, but the Count wasn't taking any, for he had gathered m another Countess. Following this. Countess Alice brought proceedings for divorce, on the grounds of failure to comply with the conjugal order and infidelity, the Count having been traced to a London boardinghouse, where he \vas found sleeping the sleep of the just with- Countess Montaigu the Fourth. A decree nisi was, granted early m March this year, so that- when the June roses bloom again Rene can relegate, the Fourth and. catch a legitimate Fifth Countess as an. ornament ]■ for his Bluebeardian Chamber- A