The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-16
THE HUMBERT CASE.
Review of the transactions Leading
to the Present Trial.

10 the PRESENT trial.
New York Evening Post.
Mime. Humbert first obtained loans on the
basis of an imaginary will, bequeathing
her a fortune, the ~testator being a Portu-
guese, but her notoriety chiefly dates from
the invention of the American millionaire,
Robert Henry Crawford. The story she
told was that at Nice, in the south of
France, she saw a stranger. Robert Craw-
ford, suddenly fall as he was getting into
a train. She went to his assistance and
nursed him back to life. In gratitude, he
left her his whole fortune, amounting to
20,000,0 900. Soon afterwards, she said, a
second will, dated the same day as the first.
appeared, which divided the estate between
Marie Daurignac, her younger sister, and
the "millionaire's' two nephews, Henry
Crawford and Robert Crawford. Later, a
third document was produced, binding the
heirs to preserve the title deeds and secur-
tiles and placing them in charge of Nj. and
Nine. Humbert until Marie became of age,
when an amicable distribution of the prop
erty was to take place. The alleged title
deeds and securities were placed in Il safe
and duly sealed by the authorities without
the latter seeing them. The two wills and
the third document remained in the hands
of Mime. Humbert, who produced them as
proof of the existence of the $20,000,9 900 in
heritance, and the fraud started on its
career, increasing in magnitude as time
went on.
The fictitious millions served as security
on which loans were raised from all classes
of people. bankers. Insurers, small trades
people and county squires. In order to pre-
vent the opening of the safe and the inevi-
table exposure of the frauds, she employed
lawyers to represent the phantom nephews
and other lawyers who argued her own
case. thus putting of from year to year
the opening of the safe. The whole cum
brous legal machinery OF the republic was
turned TO her purposes. but there were
many who believed her incapable of hand
ling alone the threads of this tangled skein
of legal-and afterwards political intricacies
and Judge Humbert was limited at as being
something more than a blind believer in his
daughter-in-law's spectral inheritance.
Mime. Humber thus obtained loans and
accumulated large sums which she spent
freely. Her house IN the Avenue de Ia
Grande Armes was one of the most magni-
ficent i'm the city. On the third floor was
the safe, a huge structure let into the wall,
double locked and covered with seals.
Within an hours run of the capital by
railway she had her chief country house,
the Cateau des Wives Faux. through The
grounds of which runs a beautiful stream,
! on which fioated a steam yacht, for her
husband was a dreamer and a fisherman,
and in this pleasure craft he pursued his
two absorbing pleasures. Not a mile dis.
tant she had n farm, in Celeyran she had
a vineyard, and she had houses In pro-
vincial towns, Il box at the Opera costing
5000 a year. an estate in Tunis- and all
were uEpaid for. The families OF President
Carnot and President Felix Faure shared
her intimacy. and General BoulanEer and
senator's and deputies sat at her table.
The accrediting Of the HumDe-ts by the
company they kept had it's effect on posi-
bic money lenders. Her notes Were freely
accepted i'm banks. A Lille banker advanced
70Oo.O 600 francs. and she was on the books
of a dozen other banks for sums ranging
between 100000 and 6,eo0.0o0 francs. Al
together. she Is supposed TO have netted
SIO.o)0.009. while the amount of the notes
which passed through her hands. in the
form of original loans and renewals. IL
given as approaching SlAO00.0co The frauds
Nare sid 10 have been the direct cause OF
ten suicides