Evening star., 1929-10-06
PUBLICITY BURIAL
FATAL TO AUTHOR
French Police Accuse Two
Aides-Stunt Was to Help
Sell Crooks Memoirs.
,pecial Dispatch 10 The Star.

Special Dispatch TO The Star.
PARIS, October 5.-Jean Dorot and
Henri Boulogne were arrested tonight
and charged with homicide in having
assisted Clement Pascal, Self-styled
Marquis de Champaubert, to bury him.
self alive, as part Of publicity stunt.
The men admitted their part in the af-
fair, stating that they supplied the
buried man with a lead pipe through
which he could draw air and that tht>
stood by until early Wednesday morn
ing talking to him and lowering phials
containing water through the pipe.
They returned on Wednesday after
noon and obtaining no response wrote
letters to Passals mother and to two
other friends indicating the spot where
the man was buried. The latter un-
earthed him on Thursday night when
he was already dead.
Police Saw Publicity Stunt.
From the first, the police had held
the theory that Pascal, a confirmed
criminal, with Weirdly imaginative
mind, staged his own burial in the for
est near Verneuil on the Deauville road
in an astonishing attempt to capitalize
the ensuing notoriety by selling his
memoirs as a crook.
1t Is believed that it was Pascal him.
self who invented the story of the
knights of Themis," an aristocratic
band sworn to mete out horrible pun
ishment to criminals whom the law had
punished too lightly.
iS hold {kauico hot Daccnl
fore his disappearance wrote the series
of vivid, almost blood-curdling letters
which since September 20 have been
mailed in relays to lie Matin and to the
Offices OF the Havas Agency. These let
ters were signed either by an interroga-
ton mark or by the words Chief,
Knights of Themis"
They described the supposed tortures
to which the marquis had been subject
ed to force him to disclose the hiding
place where reposed his fortune of f1f-
teen million francs and to force him to
foreswear his criminal ways"
Even Thrown From Plane.
The letters are extravagant il Ian
guage throughout going so far MS to
portray Pascal being thrown from an
airplane with parachute designed to
open only at the last moment.
All ineSS PDlSIleS were SD ldItdSLIG
that they were not credited until 1t was
too late to rescue the inferred man and
the police thought he died through the
over-success of his own CHASTITY scheme
TO prove his worth as the Napoleon Of
the underworld"
Pascal was found dead in rough
coffin from lack of oxygen. which was
insufficient to enter by the lead pipe IN
serted in the box for that purpose. b.
side the body were some partly gnawed
chocolate bars which. it is supposed,
Pascal took with him for food.
The tale of the Knights OF Themis,
as told in the letters, is too bizarre for
police credence.
1t is not believed that the two held
wished to kill the pseudo-marquls. but
thev nevertheless will be held RESPONSE
be for his death.
The numerous knights of Thcmts let
tcrs arc being read avidly in al their
cadaverous detail bv all France. The
writer tells, for instance, OF the suffering
OF the man about to be buried alive
and adds, always his sinister laughter
shattered the black night
Poe himself hardly could have done
better than that.
The coffin in which the marquis was
buried alive in what may prove to be
the worlds most Macabre publicity
hoax. was taken to Versailles today by
the police to be held for evidence.
(Copyright. 1927