“MADEMOISELLE.”

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3166, 12 June 1934, Page 8

“MADEMOISELLE.”

FAMOUS WAR FIGURE. One of the most intriguing figures thrown into relief in the war zone of the British Army in France, variously known as “Mademoiselle from Armentieres,” “La Grande Adele” and “La Comtesse,” is now the central figure of a domestic drama in the old town of Arras. After the Armistice “Mademoiselle” vanished, and it was commonly reported that she had followed an English “milord across the Channel. But rumour was wide of the mark, for the mystery woman is revealed as Mme. Ginola, the wife of an Italian contractor who has just succumbed to the revolver wounds she is accused of inflicting on hnn. The two, it seems, were married soon after the war, when Gianola returned to France to embark on a series- of business enterprises with the aid of the fortune he and his wife had accumulated. But from the first their married life was stormy, and matters came to a crisis when the man, who had established- a big factory in his native Turin, unknown to his wife, made on of his many' visits to that city in the company of the pretty secretary who was in reality one of the many women the wife had occasion to regard as rivals. A telegram warned him that his wife had taken advantage of his absence to advise some of the firms giving him contracts in the Arras region of certain peculiarities in his business methods, and when, he returned home hurriedly there was a scene. A revolver shot was fired at the man, and when he was being carried out of the room a second shot was fired. Gianola died in hospital, but refused to make any charge against his wife. Her version of the affair was that he had menaced her with the revolver, and that in self-defence she had taken it from him and fired; but the examining magistrate refused to accept this version, and ordered her arrest on the charge of murder. The papers seized at the house of the accused woman include a number of intimate letters from the Englishman of title. _