A DRAMATIC SUICIDE AT LIONS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4258, 17 July 1895, Page 5

A DRAMATIC SUICIDE AT LIONS.

A young soldier stationed at Grdnoble had obtained leave to visit his relatives, but instead of returning to his garrison at the expiration of his furlough he had lingered on with his sweetheart in Lyons. As the days rolled on the man became uneasy, and brooded over the punishment that awaited him on his return to Grenoble. At last he resolved on self-destruction, and suggested to the girl that she should kill herself with him. She assented, and proposed that they should throw themselves into the Rhone. " No," he replied, "we should suffer too much. Let us use a revolver. Death will be instantaneous." On approach of evening (says the 'Telegraph's' Paris correspondent), the couple shut themselves up in a room, and, after taking a light supper, they wrote a letter sayine; that they had resolved to die rather than be separated, and then they laid themselves dressed on a bed. It was agreed that the soldier should shoot the girl and then kill himself, and that if her wound were not mortal she should finish herself with the revolver. The man shot his companion, and then blew out his own brains, and as the girl was not seriously injured she took up the revolver, and, firing, fell back in a swoon. When she recovered consciousness she was unable to move. The soldier's arms were drawn tightly round her in a rigid embrace, and for twelve hours she lay thus by the side of the corpse. In the morning, when the door of the room was broken open, the utmost difficulty was experienced in freeing the girl, who was then removed to the hospital in a very precarious | state.