HIDDEN MILLIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7723, 5 June 1903, Page 2

HIDDEN MILLIONS.

REMARKABLE CHARGES AGAINST ECCLESIASTICS.

An approaching lawsuit for the possession of a fortune of over £3,000,000 sterling iscausing much falk and speculation among the inhabitant/ of St Etysnn© (France) and tho surrounding district. In 1842 there died at Lyons, aged eighty-seven, a lady named Mdlle Bothe de la Baimondiere! She was very pious, and rarely eaw anyone but priests andi nuns.

Before she died she had in vain tried to find some member of her family, and on her death-bed she commissioned a priest of her acquaintance to seek out her relatives. As ib was known that the old lady had left/a large sum of money — over half a millionthere "were not wanting those who claimed her as a relative, but the priests obstinately refused to admit that they had any right to the fortune.

A woman named Kafrhcrine Sabot refused, however, to be put off, and took her case to tho Archbishop. He informed her that she had! come too late, and! when she and her family : beg-an a search for documents to prove their claim they found that the municipal records had either disappeared or that the pages containing them had been torn out; and it was alleged thatcertain ecclesiastics had . consulted) the archives before them.

This -scandal' had almost been forgotten when a second legacy of two millions and a half leffc by the Countass dte la Barmondiero, •a cousin of the former lady, was accidentally revealed by a mm belonging to the Order of St Joseph. As the result of her imprudence- in informing the relatives of the colossal fortune awaiting them, it is affirmed that the nun was persistently terrorised until she lost her reason and died. Th e family interested in tha second legacy have been ceaselessly engaged! since 1883 in trying to obtain information enabling them to enter into possession of the money, but the sister who nursed the countess previous to her death was shift&dl from convent to convent, . so that those who wished! to question her were constantly baffled in their efforts to find her. ■ "

The police authorities of St Etienne have been requested by *ix or seven families to take action against the ecclesiastics, who are believed to have the money in their possession, and the trial is expected to lead to some strange disclosures.