FRANCE: Family Spat

Léon Schneider, the patient, amiable No. 2 barber at the shop in Paris' suburban Rue Chevreuse, was a man slow to anger. The first time he found his luncheon rice spiced with crushed electric-light bulbs, he put it down to accident. The following week his good wife Madeleine once again garnished the rice in his lunch box with glass, and added a few carpet tacks. Léon began to wonder, and asked his boss about it. "I don't meddle in other people's affairs," said the boss.

Léon took the problem to Madeleine. Her explanation was quite simple: after 16 years of marriage, she was sick of him, sick of his beatings, sick of his "authority in the home," and she had another man; she had, in fact, several. Léon begged her to stay with him "for the sake of the children." Madeleine departed.

Soon afterward, Madeleine returned to Léon's bed & board. Then again she left. After a year of such indecisive shuttling, she left permanently. Léon brooded alone for four days. Then he loaded up his old army revolver and went to stand vigil outside the beauty shop where Madeleine worked. When she emerged, Léon fired.

The bullet whizzed through her handbag. Léon ran home, downed some sleeping pills, turned on the gas jets in the kitchen, aimed the pistol at his own head and pulled the trigger. Superficially wounded, he woke up in the hospital soon afterward to find himself charged with attempted murder. "But," he stammered, "she tried to murder me too!" "Eh, bien," the gendarmes sighed and went out after Madeleine.

Last week in a criminal court, Léon and Madeleine faced French justice. Why had they done these terrible things? "I just wanted to annoy him," explained Madeleine. "I only did it after she called me a 'Boche,'" said Léon. "You can imagine how I felt. After all, I'm Alsatian."

The court considered, and passed sentence: three years for Madeleine, five for Léon, both suspended. As jurors and spectators streamed out into the spring sunshine and crossed to a cafe for aperitifs, many expected to see one of the Schneiders back in court real soon.