CHARGED WITH MURDER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20266, 28 March 1934, Page 1

CHARGED WITH MURDER.

Mistress of Many Men in Dramatic Scene. United Press Assn. —By Klectric Telegraph —Copyright. PARIS, March 26. Germaine Huot (aged forty-five years), who at the age of sixteen left a convent to become the mistress of a succession of millionaires and tit.ed and prominent men, horrified the court bv re-enacting how the revolver with which she was accused of murdering M Jean Causeret, Prefect of the Department du Rhone, in March, 1-33, allegedly went off accidentally. The court was crowded with fashionable people, the trial overshadowing the Stavisky case. Huot, dressed in black, wept while ihe president of the court detailed a list of her lovers, who included a royal Bavarian duke. Persian and Indian princes. Chilean and Argentine millionaires, French deputies, diplomats an y barristers, who showered her witn jewels, furs, motor-cars and luxurious flats. . , She was an illegitimate child, said the prosecution, and was reared in a convent where she obtained excellent reports for her assiduity to her catechism and religious lessons, “yet at the age ot sixteen,” said the prosecutor, “you had furs and jewels, and your own carriage and horses. Your lovers ranged from dukes to deputies. Your journeys during the war included a Channel crossing in which your boat was torpedoed. You gave the impression that you were a French spy, but it is clear that you spied for neither France nor the enemy.” Re-enacting the death scene. Iluot borrowed a gendarme’s revolver, a medical expert, Dr Paul, taking the part of the victim, M. Causeret.^ “Have some sense of decency,” interjected the counsel for the Causerets. Dr Paul’s efforts to repeat M. Causeret’s gestures seemed to shew that the Prefect would not have been killed if he had acted as described by Huot, whose counsel interjected, questioning the efficacy of the original revolver’s three safety catches. The Prosecutor replied: “What an extraordinary revolver. The more safety catches it has, the better it accidentally fires.” The newspapers allege that the crime was political because, although her friends and lovers, and some deputies were warned immediately M. Causeret was shot, the police were not informed for three hours, when a Deputy, M. Picard, who was Huot’s lover until he introduced her to M. Causeret. went to his flat and telephoned to M. Chiappe. Huot’s prison companions have begun a week’s penance, forgoing one meal a day and praying for her acquittal.