Newspaper Page Text
TO LET
LANTELME
LIE EASY IN
HER GRAVE"
tiful Young
Actress Who
Had Been His
Wife’s Best
Friend
Paris, April 11
T HE mystery of the death of
lovely Luele Lantelme, found
drowned in the River Rhine
after a long night of gayety, con
tinues to breed new mysteries.
Alfred Charles Edwards, I-ante!-
ms's husband, millionaire, founder
of the Paris Matin and other publi
cations, has left a will naming a
beautiful young actress, Mile. Ga
brielis Colonna Romano, of the The
atre Francais, aa his universal lega
tee.
Mile. Colonna Romano is said to
have been a great friend of Lantel-
me, whose mysterious death gave
rise to the most Injurious reports
concerning her husband, reports that
led him to bring an action for libel
•gainst one Paris newspaper.
The words of the will leaving his
property to Mile. Colonna Romano
are peculiar. They are aa follows:
"I appoint as my universal legatee
Mile. Oabrlelle Colonna Romano, my
friend, who 1 affirm on iny honor
has never been anything but my
friend In the highest and most Im
material sense of the word."
The will then goes on to apeclfy
various payments and pensions
which Edwards wishes ber to make
out of hla estate.
The young actress made a brief
and enigmatical comment on the
will:
"I am pained at the bequest which
has been thrust upon me- 1 know
I shall be the object of horrible
calumnies. I am uncertain what to
do. Dnless I accept the charge Ed
wards has placed upon me his first
wife will not recelvo her pension and
me
The Haunting Eyes
of Lantelme.
“Wherever I go I see them
—the wistful, the glorious
eyes of my dead wife. They urge
to do something—but what
do not yet know.”—Parisian Mil
lionaire Edwards Before His Death.
Paris Greatly Perplexed
Over the Motive of u Blue
beard” Edwards in Leaving
All His Millions to a Beau-
The Houseboat from Which Lantelme, the
Beautiful Parisienne, So Mysteriously Drowned.
Mile. Colonna Romano, to Whom M. Edwards
Left His Millions.
various trusting persons will lose the
payments he desires me to make to
them, for the estate will go to die*
tnnt relatives.”
From these words and certain
other circumstances Paris has con
structed a new version of the Lan
telme tragedy. This theory Is that
Edwards was tortured by remorse
over the death of his beautiful young
wife, and that to make the only
amends In his power he has left his
wealth and the Jewels he had given
her to her most Intimate friend, who
at one time expressed the greatest
aversion for him.
Lucie Lantelme was exquisitely
beautiful, and the most exquisite
feature of her beauty lay In her
deep, dark, sad, wistful eyes. “The
haunting eym of Laotelme” they
were commonly called In Paris. !t
Is said that Edwards, In his last
days, when he realized that death
was about to take him, exclaimed:
“Those eyes! Wherover I go I
see them, the wistful, the glorious
eyos of my dead wife. They urge
me to do something, but 1 do not
yet know what . .
The current explanation then is
that the only reparation the dying
man could Imagine Win to leave
her Jewels and his wealth to her
friend.
In order to understand this situa
tion it Is necessary to recall the
earlier events of Alfred Edwards’s
careor. He was of mixed English,
French and Hebrew descent, but In
his true personality he was a typical
Parisian. Years ago he founded the
Matin, a French newspaper, con
ducted on American lines, and made
a great fortune with it His activi
ties were Napoleonic, and newspa
per work formed but a small part of
them.
He was married so frequently that
Parisians often referred to him with
out ill-feeling' as "Bluebeard.” Be-
fore he married Lantelme he bad had
four wives. She. his fifth wife,
is widely regarded as the most
beautiful woman who ever ap
peared on the French stage.
She was the daughter of a
Paris concierge and rose within a
few months nf her debut to a
position of wealth and universal
adoration. She was only twenty
when she married Edwards.
On July 24, 1911, when she was
only twenty-three years old and at
the summit of her beauty and fame,
she was drowned mysteriously in
the river Rhine. She had gone
there in a large houseboat, the
Aimee, belonging to her husband,
with a gay party of their friends.
He excused himself early In the
evening and went to his cabin.
After a night of singing and danc-'
ing, in which much champagne was
consumed, Lantelme retired to her
own room and bolted the door. A
short time later, after 1 a. m.. the
guests on the boat were aroused by
a woman's cry and the shouts of
Edwards, who had broken in hia
•wife’s door.
Lantelme had disappeared from
tho boat. Her body was not recov
ered until daylight. Many circum
stances surrounding her death were
myfterloup and others were shock
ing- Her delicate body, clothed only
In a night garment, was kept tied by
a rope to the stem of the boat for
twenty-four hours, until the Prus
sian authorities could perform an
autopsy.
At this time many conflicting re
ports were sent to Paris, and as
the result of one of them Edwards
brought his libel suit. At this for
the first time Edwards and other
witnesses gave their account of the
tragedy.
Upon what Is known as the Three
Mysteries of the Cabin there was
much conflicting testimony. What
did actually happen there in Lantel-
me’s boudoir on the Aimee that
night? Not fromvthe trial nor the
previous inquests can the riddle be
answered. Perhaps It will never be
known. One can but tell what waa
recited before the French courts.
These three mysteries can be cat
alogued as the Mystery of the Broken
Door, the Mystery of the 3roken
Window Pane and tho Mystery of the
Cry.
It would appear that it had never
been the custom during the Journeys
of the Aimee to anchor in midstream.
The houseboat-yacht was always an
chored close to the riverside and in
close proximity to some village or
town. Mme. Lantelme was afraid
of the water at night! She liked al
ways to be near land. M. Edwards
said that he had never before done
such a thing in all his twenty years
of'river yachting. But this night,
because of the oppressive heat, the
Aimee was brought to in raide-Rhine.
The Aimee had been designed for
comfort. She,was not particularly
ornamental on the outside. Inside
she was a palace. She had wide
windows, Instead of portholes. Lan-
telme's private bedroom was on the
starboard. It war from the opon
window’ of' this room that she is
supposed to have made her way, lu
one of four manners, into the river.
The first story m the Paris news
papers, apparently authoritative, told
how M. Edwards and Lantelme and
a small party of their friends left
Paris on the Aimee, and on the night
of the death had sat up until 1
o’clock. There had been much cham
pagne, and Lantelme had sung spirit
edly for the guests. M. Edwards had
excused himself early and had gone
Into his cabin to write, aa he aald,
some letters. More than an hour
afterward the guests had been
aroused by a cry from Edw*ards.
They had rushed out of their state
rooms and had found M. Edwards In
front of Lantelme’s door. He told
them that he had been In bed and
that the beauty had gone Into her
room, as was her custom; that later
he had felt something was wrong.
He had gone to the door of her room
and had knocked. Getting no an
swer, he had called to her. Growing
more alarmed, he had shouted, and
it was these shouts that had brought
the other occupants of the yacht from
their staterooms.
All agreed that they had then
broken open the door. They had
found the window in Lantelme’s room
Mimicking Death’s Own Tricks to Make the Air Safe
H’
fERE Is an extraordinary pic
ture of two ‘of the newest,
roost astonishing and peril
ous feats of aviators. The aero
plane showri dropping swiftly In
the foreground Is not filling help
lessly. It is dashing to ground as
swiftly as gravitation can carry It,
but the aviator, John Nielson, ex
acts to regain control of it before
It reaches earth’s surface, where,
unless he docs gain control, he will
bo daRhed to certain death.
In the other aeroplane in the pic
ture Pegoud, the French aviator, Is
seen flying head downward, not be
cause his aeroplane has turned
turtle, but because he desires to test
flying in that way.
Neither yf these men are doing
their dangerous acts for amusement
or to thrill ouiookers. The purpose
is to mako flying immune from the
sudden horrible death that takes In
creasing toll of their ranks, by Imi
tating ail death’s tricks and so dis
covering how to beat them.
Pegoud, in a ^remarkable Inter
view recently, thus explained the
principle:
“You cannot really learn how to
beat a game until you have passed
through that game,” he said. "For
those who fly through the sir death
has up his sleeve a multitude of
tricks, for which the penalty of not
knowing Is extinction or crippling.
A sidewise veer, a sudden dropping
-*-a hundred things may cause the
fatal fall. Hut Death’s great card
is the unexpectedness with which he
plays his tricks.
"Many of fhe things that have
caused tragedies have been things
n ■ -*• n , . .. . that, could they only have been re-
Picture of Aviators Practising tho Tail Drop hearsed once or twice, would not
and Upside-Down Flying to Be Able to Cope with Such have been dangerous at all.
eald, *We trill rehearse theee tricks
of death’ so we may know and tell
how to meet them when they coons
not of our own volition. For this we
riek our Uvea In upside-down flying.
In the rcrtlcnl tall drop, and so on
But we eliminate the element of the
unexpected. It la true that we may
be killed doing these things, but we
have not yet been killed—those of
us who are learning to play Death’*
own game.
"For Instance, there Is my feet
of flying a mile upside down. I
have so learned to master the
’planeg under such conditions that
If unexpectedly I should turn turtle
1 should still know how to keep
control and save my life. It is the
elimination of the tiny movement
between the time the unexpected
happen* and the time In which the
aviator grasps tho situation that
we atr-ve to eliminate. For that
tiny movement Is the difference
between life and death."
The tall drop, ahown here, Is even
more dangerous then the upside
down flight. The aviator gets Into
pdsltlon'^y a series of short "nos
ing up" flights. Gradually bit aero
plane asaumes the vertical. When
It doe* ao it la simply let to drop
wide open, but no sign of Lantelme!
There were no marks, according to
them, of any struggle. Every article
in the room was In order. They had
looked out Into the racing river, but
had seen nothing, and they had heard
no cries. When they looked back
Into tho room again M. Edwards was
lying on the floor In a faint. They
had Immediately lowered the small
boats and searched, but they had
found nothing.
Then a second story crept out.
This was that the guests had heard
a woman’s cry. They had gone to
Edwards’s room and had aroused
him. He aald that he had heard no
cry. All had then knocked at Mme.
Lantelme’s door. Getting no answer,
they had broken in the door. At this
point the story ran on aa In the first
one told.
As a result of this trial Edwards
obtained a verdict with nominal dam
ages, but It left the mystery deeper
than ever. In view of the verdict,
and other circumstances It seemed
unreasonable and unjust to suspect
Edwards of being tho direct source
of his wife’s death, but rumors di
rected against him became stronger
than ever.
me well declared that she had told
him that her husband had threatened
to shoot her dozens of times,’ and
that he made her life miserable.
Everybody then recalled how hope
lessly sad the beautiful girl always
appeared to be.
"Could It be," the curious Pari
sian! asked themselves, "that the
like • atone. Equilibrium Js re- husband, this man of many wives,
gained by what is known aa a back was possessed of some strange mania
volplane. That. la. the rudder .that made hla wife’* life unendura-
planes are ao moved that the drop
of the machine It changed Into an
abrupt arc. If this arc Is not too
abrupt the aviator regains control,
if It i« too sharp the plane strikes
the earth with sufficient force to
destroy It and moat probably Its
driver.
This tail end dropping Is one of
the commonest causes of fatal ac-
ble?"
The Late Madame Lantelme Wearing the $60,000 R»P e °*
Pearb Which Were Stolen from Her Tomb.
Thl* discussion was still going on
when, in January, 1912, barely six
months after Lantelme’s death, her
grave In Pcra Li Chalae Cemetery
was broken open. The thieves had
made their way to her particular
resting place In the large family
vault. They had rifled her coffin, In
which ahe lay with her jewels, In-
Conditions When Met Unexpectedly.
cldent In flying. Sudden heavy eluding" her 'famous "lieioii” Pearl
gusts of wind that cause tlje up- necklace, beneath her bend.'
They had scattered the contents
Copyright. 1914, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved,'
of the tomb about-the vault. The
ghouls had fought furiously together,
and eplaahe* of their blood marked
a trail lasting for hundred* of yards
away from the tomb. The mystery
of this tight was never solved.
A month later It wa* reported that
the Jewels of Lantelme, Includlqg
the 160,000 pearl necklace, had been
returned to M. Edward*. The mys
tery of their return was never solved.
Alter that U waa twlco reported
that tlje veteran Bluebear.
about to wed a young ac,r .‘"
each the was one of the :0 '"
star* of her profession. ;
fldontly awaited the wedding ■
and In each case It was dlssppn ti
ls neither case was the
bride, Mile. Colonna Romano. .
Then. In March last. M. td .
himself died. And after his •
the mysteries of hla life
interest than ever.