SHOT FATHER’S WAR PRIVATIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18619, 23 April 1932, Page 12 (Supplement)

SHOT FATHER’S WAR PRIVATIONS.

How a man in the grip of nightmare revealed to his wife time after time the terrible privations he underwent :n a ('.••man war orison nas disclosed in St. Pancras Coroner’s Court during the inquest on Emile Pierre Chatenet, age 41, and his three children, Madeleine, Paulette and Piere, aged 11, 10. and 3 years respectively, of Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London. The father, a dress designer of French nationality, gave bis wife tickets for a theatre on Friday evening, and when she went to the nursery shortly after midnight she found Madeleine and Piere shot dead and her husband and Paulette dying from pistol shots in the head. The little girl died on the way to the Royal Northern Hospital, where the father died on Monday without becoming conscious. Highly Sensitive. The evidence revealed the tragedy of a highly sensitive man, looking older than his years, “whose word could always be relied on,” beset with financial difficultes and haunted by the fear that he would be unable to pay his debts. As a prisoner of war he endured great privations which he used to relate in his sleep. The Rev. Hoffman De Yisne, pastor of the Swiss Church, Highgate, and a friend of the family, said that he gave consolation to Chatenet, who was sometimes in great distress about his business. “On Friday he said he felt desperately miserable. He had been ill with a high temperature and wanted to see a specialist of repute who was not available. I offered to telephone for a doctor, but he said, ‘Not vet.’ “He mentioned something that seemed strange; he asked about the

Ex-Soldier’s Nightmare Revelations of Prison Camp Horrors.

(By R. E. CORDER in London Daily Mail.)

cost of cremation at Golders Green. He was,” said the pastor brokenly, “extraordinarily delicate and most conscientious in everything." Mrs Annie Constance Chatenet, tho widow, dark, pale, slender, and heavily veiled, said she met her husband in 1910 in London, where lie had since lived. She was married to him at Streatham in 1919, and they had always got on well together. lie preferred English life. “From. 1926," she continued, softly, “my husband was living from hand to mouth, chiefly by selling things on commission, and I started an education house for paying guests—mainly foreigners who were learning English. “Between 1921 and 1926 ho got into financial difficulties, but he paid all he owed, and I did not know until after ills death that he was being pressed for money. Banged on the Door. “Always he was serious and depressed, and during tho last fortnight he had been very bad indeed. On Friday lie seemed very much better." Explaining the events that followed her return from the theatre, Mrs Chatenet. said: “The others went to bed, and I was alone when my theatre companion came down and told me she could not get into the nursery, where she slept with the children. I banged the door

Agreed to Pay £IOO,

and shouted, and heard a groan. “It was the voice of my husband. I called tho butler, and he forced the door. I did not go into the room. They told me what had happened." Mrs Chatenet, replying to Mr J. H. 11. Kidgell, her solicitor, said she heard about her husband’s treatment as a prisoner of war when he suffered from nightmare and talked about it in his sleep at least twenty times.

Mr Montagu Douglas Macduff, a solicitor, of Golden Green, said that last autumn Chatenet was threatened with proceedings regarding business affairs and agreed to pay £IOO in settlement on February 29 of this year. “You could always rely on his word." Mr Bentley Purchase, -the coroner, said that Chatenet had left certain letters, some in French, others In English. They referred to his affairs, and in one addressed to Mr Macduff he said, “My mother will make provision in her will for your costs." “Another letter," said Mr Purchase, “addressed 'Mamma* (it may be his wife or mother, I presume It Is his wife), refers to cremation and ashes. It is a perfectly rational letter." The Jury found that Chatenet murdered his three children and then, while of unsound mind, committed suicide.