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A Wife Thrown Down d Precipice and Left
There to Die--A Man Who Sought Wealth
Over the Graves ofThose Who Loved Him.
fErom tho Tondon Tinea I .

There to Die--A Man Who Sought Wealth
Over the Graves ofThose Who Loved Him.
From the London Times.1
Those novelists who busy their pens
with what is called the romano of crime
will find peculiarly rich materials in the
extraordinary trial at Botzen, which we
have been reporting during the last few
days, and which ended yesterday in q
verdict of willful murder against the
prisoner, De Tourville. The story of
that person himself, of his victim, of the
crime for which he has received the SEN
tence of death, and of the complicated
process by which his guilt WAS brought
home to him, forms q tale which might
almost defy establishment.
The murderer, Henri Perran, other
wise called De Tourville, is q French
man by birth and an Englishman by
naturalization. Until the age of thirty
he seems to have been engaged in the
Office of o notary OF Valenciennes, but
he afterward came to this country and
was called to the bar. He is a man of
some accomplishments, rs he showed at
the trial by fuently defending himself
in French, italian and English. His &C.
cusers tried to show that the murder in
the Tyrol had not been the first Of bis
crimes. The mother of his first wife,
it seems, met her death in a very curious
way, a loaded revolver going off and
killing her while he VAS explaining
the mechanism of the instrument. The
insinuation was that he murdered her in
order to secure for himself the command
of her daughters fortune. The death of
his first wife left De Tourville possessed,
it is said, Of some e6, 900 a year; and he
next married O widow who had q consid-
cradle amount of property. He is stated
to have be. n very anxious to see her will
before the wedding day, but she told
one of her friends that she would rather
"give him up" than satisfy his curiosi-
ty. Nevertheless she so settled her af-
fairs that, in the event OF her death, he
would get, according to her solicitors,
some 940. 600.
He came to Spending, in the Tyrol,
on the fifteenth of July last year, with
Nine. De Tourville and her maid. Next
day he and his wife proceeded in a car
riage toward the Stelvio Pass, after in
timating that the maid should remain
behind. Finding in the afternoon that
it was too late to reach the pass, he de-
termined to return. Leaving the driver,
he and his wife walked back toward O
place called Trafoi. The poor woman
was never more seen alive. Three-quar-
ters of an hour after he had quilted the
.coachman he walked into Trafoi at his
usual pace, and not at all excited: Re-
marking that he felt hot, he called for a
glass of wine. Being asked by the peo-
pie of the place where his wife was, he
replied, "without any sign of anxiety
or SORROW" that she had fallen and hurt
herself badly, pointing as he spoke to
his temples. His manner was such as to
make the %bystanders believe that she
was but slightly hurt. In reply to a
question, he meanwhile told the coach
man to take two or three persons to
search for Nine. De Tourville, and said
that he himself would follow. They
soon came upon the traces of the poor
woman. Afew yards down a bank OF
stones they found a straw hat and a
vest, with a stone lying upon them. The
hat was full of blood. De Tcurville,
when it was shown him, coolly observed
that it was his wife's. Other articles of
dress were discovered further down, and
at the very bottom of the precipice 10y
the lifeless body. 1t was terribly disfg-
ursd with wounds on the forehead.
When the mel assembled to the road and
told the tale of the discovery to De
Tourville, who WAS walking up and down,
he replied "Deal, indeed;" and. he
then offered them first 100 ~florins, and
then 200, if they would bring up the
body. But by this time their suspicious
had been excited, and the inspector de-
clined to let it be moved. Nor would
they allow him to go back to the place
whence he had set out in the morning
until they had searched him.
His accounts of the calamity were vari-
GUS and conflicting. To his wife's maid
lie. declared that the unfortunate lady
had rolled down the precipice when ad-
miring the scenery. To the landlady OF
nm inn he said that, being always self
willed, she had insisted on walking, and
that knocking her foot against o stone,
she had fallen over the side of the road.
An officer of Gcndarmerie was inform
ed that she was subject to glddlness,
and that at q moment when her husband
was a few steps behind her, she slipped
and fell down some distance. On going
down to the spot he found her leaning
against q tree, shaken and bleeding a
little on the forehead, but otherwise not
much hurt. Leaving her, he went back
to fetch the carriage. In his formal de-
position he gave q much more elaborate
account of the catastrophe, and this time
he deliberately accused her of having
committed suicide. While she was walk
ing along the road before him, she sudden
ly, he said, fell head foremost, and rolled
down a grassy slope. She fell from
about the height of the first story of a
house, and, eff she had not had so much
false hair, she would have killed herself
then" Making his way down to her
with difficulty, he found her slightly in
jured, and, after reproducing her with a
want of prudence, led her back to the
road. Soon afterward she leant against
one of the posts on the roadside, and
while he was looking round to see
whether he could find help, he suddenly
heard the noise Of rolling stones behind
him, and presently he saw his wife fall
ing down the bank. Again he went down
and helped her up; but. this time he
bitterly Reproduced her for attempting to
destroy herself, and she made no reply.
He then went to seek for help, after
making her swear that she would remain
where she was until his return. In his
absence, he maintained, she again flung
herself down the precipice; and, if he
seemed indifferent when he heard that
she was dead, it was because he was suf-
fering from disease of the heart, which
forbade him to indulge in the luxury Of
emotion. = 49,
Not only is the prisoners story contra
dicted by his other statements, but it is
fagrantly inconsistent with his behavior
on the evening when his wife'was killed;
and, in the opinion of the commission
which examined the body, the nature Of
the wounds and the appearance of the
scattered articles of dress refuted the
statement that she had committed suicide.