Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1883-01-06 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SATITRDAY, JAN. 6, 1883  SUICIDE OF THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR AT PARIS. The Paris; correspondent of The Times gives an *mount of the suicide of Count Wimpffen, the Austrian Ambassador, from which we make the following extrecte With profound grief I have to inform you that Count Wimpffen, the Austrian Ambassador here, shot himself on Saturday morning. This suicide took owe under circumstances so painful as scarcely to be credible. The Count, who last June was a second time appointed to the French Embassy, had since been stopping at the Hotel Meurice, in which, with the Countess and two daughters, twelve and tan years of age, he occupied rooms, those of the Countess looking out on the Rue di Rivolii and the others on the inner court. Count Wimpffen rose her earlier than usual, he took his first breakfast, lifter which he withdrew to his room, where he remained alone till 1045. He then went out and crossed the Rue de Itivoli to the pavement running alone the Tuileries gardens. Here he stayed tor ,s minute looking at the windows of the hotel, after which he went on towards the Place de in Concorde. As at one o'clock he had anot reappeared, and this was the time he was in the 'habit of going down with his family to the dining. room on the ground floor' the Countess sent to Inquire whether he had not come back. On a reply In the negative, she sent to the Austrian Embassy, Rue Las Cases, to see whether he was there. At half-pset one the First Secretary of the Embassy, M. de Zichy, who had just been informed by the Prefect Police of what had happened, arrived at the hotel. He entered the CV:-. C 41111, where he found four letters in his handwriting, addressed respectively to the Countess, to himself (M. de Zichy), to Count Kelnoky, and to a rich Austrian financier living in Paris. H. de Zichy waited on the Countess, and after preparing her for the sad event banded her the letter addressed to her, which made her utter a despairing cry, leaving as it did no doubt as to the calamity which had befallen her. What had taken place was this. The Count, after leaving the Hotel Maurice, crossed the Place de to Concorde, and took the direction of the Champs Ripka. At the Basis de Industrie, a friend looking round saw him approaching, and stopped and asked him how he was. He learnt that the Ambassador was proceeding on foot to the Bois de Boulogne. His friend remarking that the Count would breakfast late he replied, I often breakfast late," and hurried away as if undesirons of continuing the conversation. His friend followed him at a distance in the same direction—viz ' towards the Arc de Triumph.. It was then 11 15 and, as It was beginning to rain slightly, the equestrians from the Bois de Boulogne were returning in masses, so that the Ambassador was saluted four or five times, According to the person who was following him at some distance, he responded to only one or two of them greetings. On reaching the corner of the Rue flalikie, and seeing, doubaless, the return. lug equestrian' increase in number, be suddenly turned up that street, where his friend lost sight of him. Twelve minutes or a quarter of an hour later the workmen engaged in the building of a mansion at the corner of the Rue Giallo and Avenue Marceau heard a loud report proceed from one of those old-fashioaed urinals which are fitted with doors. One of the doors fell, and the body of a man, his band clasping a revolver, and his head bleeding, rolled on to the pavement. A crowd collected, but did not at first touch the body, which, however, after a few minutes was drawn on to a heap of sand pieced ready for mixing, and two, workmen placed bags of plaster under his head in order to stop the profuse bleeding. The supposition of the crowd, from his having fall= near a house in course of constriction and from his clothes being daubed with mud, sand, and pluter, was that he was a builder who had killed himself. A valet, however, among the crowd pointed out that the soles of his boots were blackened, a custom rare in France, and that he must be a man belonging to the upper chimes. Meanwhile, after a few spssms he had expired, without uttering a word. His body was then conveyed to a shed, while the Police Commissary was beteg fetched from his offioe at the de l'lndustrie. Some little time elapsed before the Commissary, with two policemen' arrived on the spot. The count had then been dead half an hour. At the police-station his clothes were examined, and It warn asoertainod who was the man who had just oomiaitted suicide in ne horrible • manner. A vehicle wesprocered to transport the body to the Rae Las Cases, and M. de Zichy went to the Hotel Blearice, as I have said, to acquit himself of his painful task of informing the unconscious widow of the terrible occenrenos. After giving some details respecting Count Wirepflen's political career, the Corretpondent of The Times proceeds : After a while he hired a mansion in the Rue de Lille, which was to become the Flamm. He had some trouble in finding what he wanted. He was deli, yet wished to receive company, and te exalt pesition by rt.imes, which would assured' here ben e notch mints& He finally hied raises not exactly uniting him, and which seem to had a share in bringing about his tragical end. . . . The truth is, he had long given gig= of an irritabilitY, the more strange from his good breeding and amiability. Some time goo one of his colleagues, on being Said that he must "peek to hilt on a aortas question said, "I would ready do so, but of late Count Wilpflea has been very eneitable, and incapable of being reserwith." Me excitability was remarked by all came near him, especially when his future house was referred to. Neither be nor his wife seemed sathdied with it. The latter, indeed, had disliked it all along, and his own dessatisf action steadily increased. His death is unquestionably the premeditated consequence of daily vexations, acting on an unhealthy and nervous temperament, and exciting it to* paroxysm of insanity. The proof of this is, that two barrels of his revolver bad been discharged. -- It happened that the lien)  had not his  ressoped  oal _  who 4