REWRITTEN DIARY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 7

REWRITTEN DIARY

USE AS EVIDENCE FRENCHWOMAN’S CLAIM THE PARIS SHOOTING (By Telegraph—rresfl Association—Copyright) PARIS, March 22. Madame de la Ferriere, arrested following the shooting of the Compte de Chambrun, at the Gare du Nord, is rewriting from memory the diary which was confiscated, and demands the right to introduce it at her trial as evidence. Italy is seeking the elimination ol Signor Mussolini’s name from the proceedings. The Compte de Chambrun has declined to associate himself with the trial except as a witness.

After her arrest Madame de la Ferriere, who is a Frenchwoman, accused the Compte de Chambrun, former French Ambassador to Rome, of preventing her from seeing “a certain high personage” whom she had previously interviewed for a Paris journal. Signor Mussolini was among those who had granted her interviews. Three hundred photographs of Mussolini were found in the woman’s Paris flat. It was also reported that the Italian police withdrew her permit to stay in Rome for which she blamed the Count, and that she had said “he caused me to lose the love of a man who is too well known to be mentioned. . . he broke my confidence.” Owing, it was reported, to representations by the Italian Ambassador, the Parisian police visited the woman's flat and impounded a signed portrait of Mussolini and a diary which was stated to be related to her romance and to secret assignations. ROMANCE WITH DUCE INTERVENTION BY COUNT. EVIDENCE AT INQUIRY. PARIS, March 22. During a Magisterial examination Madame de la Ferriere declared with self-possession that she saw Signor Mussolini regularly between April and June and July last, after which she was unable to obtain a rendezvous. She added that she told the Compte de Chambrun in confidence about the romance on July 4, and when subsequently she was unaole to see Signor Mussolini she asked Signor Alfieri, Minister of Propaganda, if anyone was saying things about her. Signor Alfieri hinted that the French Embassy had something to do with the matter. Through friends in the Italian police Madame de la Ferriere was able to inspect her record, where she found that an attache of the French Embassy had told Signor Mussolini she was a French secret service agent and had also told everyone that she was Signor Mussolini’s jnistress.