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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1914)
The Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page TO LET LANTELME LIE EASY IN Paris Greatly Perplexed Over the Motive of "Blue- heard" Edwards in Leaving All His Millions to a Beau tiful Young Actress Who Had Been His Wife's Best Friend Paris, 'April 11 THE mystery of the death of lovely Lucie, Lantclme, found drowned In the River Jlhlne after a long night of gayety, con tinues to breed new mysteries., Alfred Charles Edwards, Lantel me's husband, millionaire, founder of the Paris Watln and othor publi cations, has left a will naming a beautiful young actress, MUo. Ga brlelle Colonna Romano, of the The atre Francats, as his universal leg tee. J ' ,i K muc. uoionna .itomano. is .auioioa. have bcon'a' great irjend of Canted mo, whosemyslerlou3- doath. gave rise to th'avmost Injurious reports concerning per husband, reports that led him to bring an action for libel against one Paris newspaper. The words of the will leaving his property to Mile. Colonna Romano are peculiar. They are as follows: "I appoint as. my universal legatee Mile. Gabrlello Colonna Romano, my friend, -who I affirm on my honor has never beoii anything but my friend In the highest and most Im material sense of the word." The will then goes on to specify various payments and pensions which Edwards wishes her to make out of his estate. The young actress made a brief and enigmatical comment on the will: "I am pained at the bequest which has been thrust upon me- I know I shall be the object of horrible calumnies. I am uncertain what to do. Unless I accept the charge Ed wards has placed upon me his first wife will not recetve her pension and Mimicking Death's Own Tricks to Make iii ' I mmf mmmmmmmmmmmamanmm ii ' ' imi . r, , , , , . . . . . ... ,. A Remarkable Picture of Aviators Practising the Tail Drop and Upside-Down Flvincr to Be Able to Cone wifh Km-h Conditions When v ' w .mm h t4 wHv- mrl Billle. Colonna Romano, to Whom M. Edwards Left His Millipns. various trusting persons will lose the payments he desires me to make to them, for the ostate will go to dis tant relatives." Prom these words and -certain other circumstances Paris has con structed a new version of tho Lan telme tragedy. This theory is that Edwards was tortured by remorse over the doath of his beautiful young wife, and that to make tho only amends in his power he has left his wealth and the Jewels ho had given her to her most intimate friend, whb at one time expressed the greatest aversion for him; Lucie Lantelme was exqulBltely beautiful, and the most exquisite feature of her beauty lay In her deep, dark, etui, wistful eyes. "The liauntlng eyes of Lantelme" they wero commonly called in Paris. It Is said that Edwards, in his last days, when he realized that death was about to take him, exclaimed: "Those eyesl Wherever I go I Met Unexpectedly. S J 4 soo them, the wistful, tho glorious eyes of my dead wife. They urge me to do something, but I do not yet know what . . ." The current explanation' thon Is that the only reparation the dying man could Imagine was to leave her Jewels and his wealth to her friend. in order to understand this situa tion it Is necessary to recall the earlier events of Alfred Edwards's career. He was of mixed English, French and Hebrew descent, but In his true personality he was a typical Parisian. Yoars ago ho founded the Matin, a French newspaper, con ducted on American lines, and made a great fortune with It- His actlvi ties were Napoleonic, and newspa per work formed but a small part of them. He was married so frequently that Parisians often referred to him with out Ill-feeling as "Bluebeard." Be fore he married Lantelme he had had H ERE is an extraordinary pic ture of two of the newest, most astonishing and peril ous feats of aviators. The aero piano shown dropping swiftly In tho foreground Is not falling help lessly. It Is dashing to ground as swiftly ob gravitation can carry it, but the aviator, John Nielson, ex pects to regain control of It before It reaches earth's surface, where, unless he does gain control, ho will be dashed to certain death. In the othor aeroplane in the pic ture Pogoud, tho French aviator, Is seen flying head downward, not be cause his aeroplane has turned turtle, but because he desires to test flying In that way. Neither of these men are doing their dangerous acts for amusement or to thrill onlookers. The purposo Is to make flying Immune from the sudden horrible death that takes in creasing toll of their ranks, by Imi tating all death's tricks and o dis covering how to beat them. Pegoud, in a remarkable Inter s view recently, thus explained the principle: "You cannot really learn how tb beat a game until ypu have passed through that game," ho said. "For those who fly through the air death has up his sleeve a multitude of tricks, for which the penalty of not knowing Is extinction or crippling. A eldewlse veer, a sudden dropping a hundred things may cause the fatal fall. But Death's great card is the unoxpectcdness with which he plays his tricks. "Many of the things that have caused tragedies have been things Hint, coma they only have been re- hoarsen! once or twice, would not have boon dangerous at all. lueruiorc, a lew or us nave Copyr.grht, 1DH. by eyes me to I do not The Houseboat from Which Lantclmc, the Beautiful Pnrisienne, So Mysteriously Drowned. four wives, She, hla fifth wife, lo widely regarded. as the most beautiful womnn who over ap peared on tho French atnge. She was tho daughter of a Paris conclergo and rose within a few months of her debut to n position of wealth and universal adoration. She was only twenty when alio married Edwards. On July' 24, 1911, when she was only twenty-three yoars old and at the summit of her- beauty and fame, she was drowned mysteriously In q river Rhine. She had gone ihero In a largo houseboat, the Aimee, belonging to her husband, with a gay party of their friends, Ho excused himself early In tho evening and went to his cabin. After a night of singing and danc ing, in- which much champagne was consumed, Lantelme retired to her own room and 'bolted the door. A ehort timo Inter, after 1 a. ra., the guests on the boat wore aroused by a woman's cry and the shouts of Edwards, who had broken in his Tvlte'a door. Lantelme had disappeared from tho boat. Her body was not recov ered until daylight. Many circum stances surrounding her death were mysterious and others were shocking- Her delicate body, clothed only in a night garment, was kept tied by n rope to tho stem of the boat for twenty-four hours, until the Prus sian authorities could perform an autopsy. At this tlmo many conflicting re ports were sent to Paris, and as the result of one of them Edwards brought hla libel suit. At this for tho first tlmo Edwards and other witnesses gavo their account of tho tragedy. Upon what Is known as the Three Mysteries of tho Cabin there was much conflicting testimony. What did actually happen thore in Lantel me's boudoir on the Almeo that nlf.ht? Not from the trial nor the previous Inquests can the riddle bo answered. Perhaps It will never be known. One can but tell what was recited beforo tho French courts. These three mysteries can bo Cat- the Air Safe said, 'We will rehearse these tricks of death' so we may know and tell how to meet them when they como not of our own volition. For this we risk our lives In upside-down flying, In tho vertical tall drop, and so on. But we eliminate the olement of tho unexpected. It is true that wo may be killed doing theso things, but we have not yet been killed those of us who are learning to play Death's own game. "For Instance, there Is my feat of flying a mile upsldo down. I have bo learned to master the 'planes under such conditions that If unexpectedly I should turn turtle I should still know how to keepa control and save my life. It is the elimination of tho tiny movement between the time the unexpected happens and the time in which the aviator grasps the situation that We strive to eliminate. For that tiny movement is the difference between life and death." The tall drop, shown here, Is evon more dangorous than the upsldo down flight. The aviator gets into position by a series of short "nos ing up" flights. Gradually his aero plane assumes tho vortical. When it does so it Is simply let to drop like a stone. Equilibrium is re gained by what is known as a back volplane. That is, the rudder planes are so moved that the drop of tho machine Is changed Into an abrupt arc. If this arc is not too abrupt the aviator regains control. If it is too sharp the plane strikes the earth with sufficient force to d oh troy It and most probably its driver. This tall end dropping Is one of the commonest causes of fatal ac cident in flying. Sudden heavy gusts of wind that cause the up tilting aro frequently mot with. the Star Company. Great Britain XUgrhta Reserved. The liaunting Eyes of Lantclmc. "Wherever I go I see them the wistful, the glorious of my dead wife. They urge do something but what yet know." Parisian Mil lionaire Edwards Before His Death. alogued as tho Mystery of tho Broken Door, the Mystery of tho Broken Window Pano and tho Mystery of tho Cry. It would appear that It had never been tho custom during tho Journeys of the Almeo to anchor in midstream. The houseboat-yacht was always an chored closo to tho rlrcrsldo and lu close proximity to somo village or town. Mme, Lantelme was afraid of the water at nlghtl Sho liked al ways to be near land. M. Edwards Bald that ho had never before done such a thing In all his twonty yoars of river yachting. But this night, because of the oppressive heat, the Almeo was brought to in mldc-Rhlne. The Almeo had boon doslgned for comfort. Sho was not particularly ornamental on tho outside. Insldo she was a palace. She had wide windows, instead of portholes. Lan tolme'n private bedroom was on the starboard, it was from tho opou window of this room that she la supposed to have made her way, lit ono of four manners, into tho river. Tho first atory in tho Paris news papers, apparently authoritative, told how M. Edwards and Lantclmo and a small party of tholr frlendB loft Paris on the Aimee, and on tho night of the death had sat up until 1 o'clock. There had been much cham pagne, and Lantelme had sung nplrlt edly for the guests. M. Edwards had excused himself early and had gone Into his cabin to write, as he said, some letters. More than an hour afterward the guests had been aroused by a cry from Edwards. They had rushed out of their ntnte rooms and had found M. Edwards In front of Lantelme's door. He told them that he had been In bed and that tho beauty had gono into her room, as was her custom; that later ho had felt something 'waB wrong, He had gone to the door of her room and had knocked. Getting no un swer, he had called to her. Growing more alarmed, he had shouted, and It was these Bhouts that had brought the other occupants of the yacht from their staterooms. All agreed that they had then broken open the door. They bad found the window in Lantelme's room wide open, but no sign of Lantelme! There were no marks, according to them, of any struggle Every article In the room was In order. They had looked out Into the racing river, hut had seen nothing, and they had heard no cries. When they looked back into the room again M. Edwards was lying on tho floor In a faint. They had immediately lowered the small boats and searched, but they had found nothing. Then a second story crept out. This was that the guests had heard a woman's cry. They had gone t,o Edwards's room and had aroused htm. Ho said that he had heard no cry. All had then knocked at Mme. Lantelme's door. Dotting no answer, they had -broken In the door. At this point the story ran on as In the first one told. As a result of this trial Edwards obtained a verdict with nominal dam ages, but It left tho mystery deepor than ever. In view of the verdict and other circumstances it seemed unreasonable and unjust to suspect Edwards of being the direct source of his wife's death, but rumors di rected against him became stronger than ever. An actor who had known Lantel me well declared that she had told him that her husband had threatened to shoot her dozens of times, and that he made her life miserable. Everybody then recalled how hope lessly ead the beautiful girl always appeared to be. "Could It be," the curious Pari sians asked themselves, "that the husband, this man of many wives, was possessed of some strange mania that made his wife's life unendura ble?" This discussion was still going on when, in January, 1912, barely six months after Lantelme's death, her grave In Poro La Chaise Cemetery was broken open. The thieves had made their way to her particular resting place In the largo family vault. They had rifled her coffin, In which she lay with her Jewels, In cluding her famous $60,000 pearl necklace, beneath her bead. They had scattered the contents The Late Madame Lantelme Pearls Which Were of the tomb about tho vault. Tho ghouls hud fought furiously togethor, and splashes of their blood marked h trail lasting for hundreds of yards away from the tomb. The mystery of this light was never solved. A month later It was reported that the Jewels of Lantelme, Including the $00,000 pearl necklace, had been returned to M, Edwards. The mys tery of their return was never solved. After that it was twice reported Wearing the $60,000 Rope of Stolen from Her Tomb. that the veteran Bluebeard was about to wed a young actress. In each she was one ot tho loveliest Htnrs of her profession. Paris con fldently awaited the wedding twice, and In each cage It was disappointed. In uelthor caso was the expected bride Mile. Colonna Romano. Then, in March last, M. Edwards himself died. And after his death the mysteries of his life exclto xnoro Interest than over.