STORY OF A CONVICT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 145, 11 February 1876, Page 13

STORY OF A CONVICT.

A French correspondent writes : " The old saying that truth is stranger than fiction has rarely received a more striking illustration than in a case which has just been brought before one of the French tribunals. Thirteen years ago a soldier named Jean Lastier was sentenced to five years' penal servitude and ten years' surveillance by the police for having insulted one of his superior officers and stolen a few shirts. He was sent to Africa to undergo his sentence, and his conduct was so exemplary that he was employed as bookkeeper in the prison. At the expiration of his sentence he >\as ordered by the police to reside in a small town in the South, but as everybody knew he was a returned convict it was with the utmost difficulty that he could obtain any kind of employment. The commissaire of police, knowing how well he had behaved while in prison, interested himself on his behalf, and induced a tradesman of the town to employ him as messenger. He fulfilled his duties so zealously that the tradesman promoted him to the post of cashier, and in the course of time the returned convict married his dau°-hter and entered into partnership. Three months after his marriage the war broke out, and Lastier, anxious to rehabilitate himself completely, volunteered his services, and joined a regiment of the line. He was taken prisoner at Gravelotte, but managing to escape he rejoined his corps in time to take part in the°battles around Orleans. From thence he passed into the army of the East under Bourbaki, and received no less than eight wounds. At the end of the campaign he had become sub-lieutenant, and had received the military medal, which had been given him on the battlefield. He was almost a hero in his regiment, and when he returned to his father-in-law's house nearly all the town turned out to meet him. Soon afterwards his father-in-law died, and Lastier, with his wife and two children, determined to reside in Paris. His term of surveillance had not expired, but the local police had ceased to treat the sub-lieutenant as a returned convict, and placed no obstacle in his way. He had lived quietly in Paris for more than a year, when a few weeks ago he was accompanying a friend to the Orleans railway station. The latter had a dog with him, and this dog was attacked in the street by another. The respective proprietors while attempting to separate them came to high words, and at last to blows. Jean Lastier, who naturally took his friend's part, was, with the other two, arrested by the police, and was of course compelled to show his ' papers,' etc. His antecedents beinoknown, the Paris police, finding that he had left the place assigned to him before the expiration of the ten years, had no choice but to proceed against him, and being brought before the correctional tribunal of the Seine, he has just been condemned to two months' imprisonment for breach of regulations. This is unfortunately the law, but it is not justice, and your readers will, J am sure, be glad to learn that an Englishman who happens to be acquainted with the facts of the case has brought the matter before Marshal MacMahon, and has reason to hope that the poor fellow will receive the full pardon to which he is so fully entitled."