Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1895-08-15

The Indictment Court at Bourges,
France, has committed the Marquis de
| Nayve for trial at the Cher Assizes on
the charge of numbering the illegiti-
mate SON of his wife. The case is
sensational one.
The Marquis de Nayve has been i'm
prisoned since the middle of July, 1894,
| awaiting trial for the murder of q son
his wife had before her marriage. His
arrest at the railroad station at Guetin
as he was returning from trip through
Switzerland to his chateau at Presles,
| in the commune of Cuffy, on the banks
of the Loire, caused tremendous SEN
sation throughout the district.
The Marquis was one of the leading
personalities in the department, and
was reputed to be man of great be-
nevolence, although it was known that
| in his younger days he had sown more
than fair share of wild oats, and dis
sipated large patrimony before marry
| ing the rich heiress whose illegitimate
child he is charged with having MUIR
dered. He was born at Grenoble in
1S49 and is now, therefore, in his
forty-sixth year. Although at the
time of his arrest it was not known eX-s
actly on what grounds the gendarmes
laid hands on him at Guetin under war
rant from the judicial authorities at
Saint Amand, the socialist faction Great
ed a hostile manifestion against the
prisoner as he marched on foot to La
Guerche, whence special train took
him to Saint Amand, where he was in
carcerated Immediately.
Very soon it became known that the
marquis was accused of having thrown
his wife's son into the bay of Naples
from the cliffs along the Sorrento road,
after having stunned him with a heavy
instrument. 1t was also said that the
youth had been stabbed before being
thrown from the cliffs into the bay, but
this version was afterwards denied. 1t
transpired later that the denunciation
which caused the Marquis's arrest ema-
mated from his own wife. Friends of
the Marquis added that the boy had
not been murdered, but was of des-
pondent nature, and had committed
suicide by jumping from cliff during
tour through Italy, on which the Maj
quis had taken him in the hope of dis
pelling his gloominess.
The Marquis's partisans further stated
that his wife had conceded the murder
story in order to rid herself of the Mar
quis, go that she might marry priest
who had lived with theNayves ever since
their marriage, and had been the boys
tutor, if not his father. The fact that
Nine. de Nayve about this time intro
duced suit for divorce against the
prisoner lent some color to this theory,
and, in the absence of anything but
hearsay evidence and Nine. de Nayve's
denunciation, it was thought at one
time that the prosecution would be
abandoned. The procureur general
at Bourges, M. Bourgeois, was remov-
ed to Doual at this period of the case
and it was rumored that his displace-
ment was due to his unwillingness to
shelve the case.
Some weeks later, though the Mar
quis was still under arrest, it was an
nounced that M. Albert Danet, of Paris,
was retained as his counsel, and that
the trial would take place in January,
1895. Commissions to examine wit
nesses had meantime been collecting
evidence in Italy, at Paris, Orleans,
Harve and in the department of the
Cher. Voluminous, however, as this
evidence was, it oil proved to be cir
cumstantial and indecisive, and before
the January sessions opened the auth
critics decided to postpone the trial till
April, in order to collect further evi
dence. When the Assizes commenced
at Bourges, on April 80, it was found
that the De Nayve case was not on the
cause-list and the matter was further
postponed.