The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1885-07-22
Victor Durand.

audience. DuTlng the patneuc paTIS OF
the play one could here pin drop.
There was also a notable lack of the
usual whispering, loud talking and shut
flint in and out of the opera house to
"see a man." On Friday night the
company played Lady Clare" and on
Saturday night Diplomacy" From
Bozeman they went to Helena and from
there they will 60 to Butte to open the
new opera house. The play of Victor
Durand is intensely interesting, inter
larded with high comedy in just the
right places. Durand is married to a
young American girl, resident of Paris.
He is man Of singularly retiring tastes,
who steadily refrains from going out into
society. He loves his young wife with
great devotion, and she is passionately
fond of him in return. They go away
together TO children's party leaving
the brides father at home. He is visit
by the Baron de MeTsac, who loves Dur
and's wife, and, loving her, hates the
husband. De Mersac explains to the
old gentleman that he has for some time
suspected the true reason of the retired
habits Of his son-in-law. He has recog-
nized in HIM an ex-galley slave, who
was sent to prison some years previously
for attempted murder, and who has es-
capped his jailers, The father will not
hear of such a thing, which he looks up
on as a monstrous impossibilIty. But de
Mersac is so positive that he has enlist
ed the services of detective, who is
present with him and who is familiar
with the case in question. At this
iuncture Durand returns. The detective
begins to tell the story of an attempted
assassination in a railway train between
Monaco and Paris. AS he proceeds Dur
and becomes visibly agitated, and the
act closes when the detective charges
Durand with having committed the
crime. ..t. --r- IS
The next act opens at the children's
party. The comedy characters in the
play have pleasant scene together be-
fore the serious proceedings begin. The
young fellow is one of those parsonage
who keep diaries of all their movements
and this popularity of his is pressed for
ward in humorous way from time to
time as the action of the play progresses.
The young girl to whom he is engaged
to marry has found pocket book which
he has lost, but concerning which he has
forgotten everything. This pocketbook
episode is also kept prominently in sight
of the audience, although it has at this
period of the story no apparent connec-
ton with the other events of the drama.
The hostess tells the wife of Durand that
among her guests this evening is Paul
Dean, young man formerly betrothed
to her. Four years before, while their
engagement was still pending, an at
tempt was made to kill him. The MUIR
derous blow did not quite accomplish its
purpose, but it made him a maniac and
he passed the interval in an asylum, his
cure only just now having been effected
He tells of his fearful adventures on the
train. Dean swears that Durand is the
guilty person, and the curtain drops up
on this climax. All these things have
occurred at night, and when the next
act opens the detective has replaced
Durand in his house, which is surround
ed by gendarmes, who have been in
structed not to modest him unless he at
tempts to escape, in which they are to
shoot him. This method is 70 lowed
because there is no warrant calling for
his being taken into custody and none
can be procured before morning. Dur
and his wife are together. she is horri-
fed by what has been brought to the
general knowledge within the past few
hours In spite of her great love for her
husband, the proof of his guilt is so strong
that she cannot lose sight of or fail to
believe it. Durand knows he must 60
back to the galleys.
All lle now desires is to convince his
wife that he is innocent. He tells all he
knows of the story, which is to thu effect
that, when he got into the compartment
with Dean, he, too, went to sleep for the
long night journey. When he woke up
in the morning it was to meet the charge
of having murdered his companion. AL
though he makes the strongest protesta-
tons that these are the facts, it is natur-
ally impossible for his wife to believe
them. Finally, in despair of convincing
her, he dashes up to the window with
the intention of getting himself shot by
the men on guard. To save him she
throws herself into his arms and declares
her belief in his innocence. The fourth
act opens in the same surroundings.
The officers have come to bear Durand
off to prison. The pocket book spoken
of in the first act by the comely young
lady is now produced and handed over
by her to the anglicized Young American
will the taste for keeping the diary.
When he sees the pocket book he is
suddenly struck with having found it in
a railway carriage somewhere between
Monaco and Paris over four years previ-
GUS. Then he refers to his diary and
confirms the impression, and finds that
the Baron de Mersac rode in the same
compartment part of the way, got out
at way station, and came back again at
the next stopping place. De Mersac
enters upon the scene, and seeing the
pocket book claims it, declaring that he
dropped 1t upon the occasion mentioned.
The young man draws him on to declare
more and more forciblY that it is his
property, and at the proper moment
Dean breaks in with the positive assur-
ance that the book is his, and not De
Mersac's. He now remembers that the
Baron sat opposite him at the gaming
table in Modaco, and lost heavily, while
Dean won large sums, which he carried