Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1861-07-19 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ATTEMPTED MURDER OF HIS SON BY A FRENCH BARON, NEAR LONDON. It is now positively asserted that, on Friday, the 28th ult., the Baron de Vidil made a murderous attack upon his son, aged twenty-three, the heir to a large fortune, which, on his death, would go to the father; and that only the coming up of other parties prevented a fatal result. We can only give the details abridged from a long account in the Morning Post "For some years there has moved in London society an individual in manners polished, in address insinuating. Reputed wealthy, coming into society under the name of the Orleans family, with the reputation of fidelity to a fallen dynasty, the Baton Alfred Louis Pons de Vidil readily found his way into the centre of London society. "In 1835 he married Miss Susannah Jackson, coheiress to a wealthy Hertfordshire gentleman' and soon became a member of the Travellers' Club. When the premature death of his wife had freed him from the constraint of domestic ties, he lived a bachelor at the Clarendon, and when the attractions of the London season were over, was lost sight of by the gay world for a time. "This foreign nobleman had a son, the heir of a large portion of his mother's fortune (to descend to his father, if he died without heirs). This son having graduated at Cambridge, Was now twenty-three years of age, and in a position to claim his fortune. On Friday, June 28, the baron sent to his son's chambers in Jermyn-street, inviting him to breakfast with him at the Clarendon, and to call on the ex-Queen of France at Claremont." The Post describes at length all the incidents connected with the visit, and the subseqent conduct of the Baron, but we are obliged to omit all but the chief facts. At an angle in a lonely part of a lane, the youth who was riding slightly forward, felt a violent blow, and looking round saw the baron advancing upon him with his hand uplifted, and something in it, preparing to strike. The blow fell a second time on the alarmed youth; and the father was about to complete his diabolical purpose by a finishing blow. The youth's hat had fallen off. There was nothing to save him. The poor boy's forehead, cut and battered, was streaming with gore. Impulse made him press on his horse, and as the horse rose to the spur it caught the blow on its head. That moment saved the youth's life, for he saw coming round the corner a man and a woman. Without delay, he slipped or fell from his horse, rushed towards the woman, and in an agony of terror, clung to her knees, saying, " Oh ! protect me—save me The man was John Rivers, a labourer, and as he was coming from Sion-row, down Orleans-road, had seen the blow struck. John Evans, a bargeman, soon saved them. The baron said it was an accident, but gave different accounts to the two men. The son was about to say what bad occurred, but quailed under his father's glance. Dr. Clarke, of Twickenham, was called. He said the accident could not have risen from a fall. At the son's urgent request, Dr. Clarke's assistant did not quit him till the father left them at midnight; and the young man then went to an uncle's; but even there his father seemed to follow him, for a letter came to his uncle's, informing him of the accident,'Whd how young Alfred had fallen from his horse. But the young man told his own story, and inquiry began to be made. The baron meanwhile lived at the Clarendon, and last Friday dined at the Traveller's Club in company with several members of the Foreign. office. On Monday afternoon he was an outcast, branded with the accusation of murder, flying for his life, the detectives on his track.