HOW NATURE JOKES WITH HER CHILDREN.
MARVELOUS LIKENESS OF TWINS.
Some Cases of Mistaken Identity, Which
Involved Their Victims and Others
in Complications.
The cases of mistaken identity which occur in real life are only another proof of the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Even Shakespeare, in his “Comedy of Errors,” stretching the probabilities to the utmost limit with the twin brothers and their twin servants, did not equal the facts in a marriage celebrated not long since in Paris.
Two bridegrooms, so exactly alike as to be indistinguishable from each other except by differences in attire, and two brides of whom exactly the same was true, were attended by two “best men” who were modern dromios.
Alphonse and Gabriel Chanteau, the bridegrooms, were distinguished from each other in their twin babyhood by means of a pink ribbon tied around the arm of Alphonse. Now that they have reached man’s estate Alphonse wears a red waistcoat and Gabriel a white one.
Genevieve and Susanne Renaud, twin sisters who have become Mesdames Chanteau, are living realizations of Girofle-Girofla in the French comic opera of that name. Their differentiation in the eyes of their friends is accomplished by the aid of Genevieve’s red corsage and the white one worn by Susanne.
As to the grooms’ “best men,” Gustave and Maurice Freunzer, also twins, who are cousins of the Messrs. Chanteau, they are as much alike as the proverbial two peas.
Knowing their marvelous resemblance, these twins will undoubtedly keep themselves happily “sorted out”; but the case of a woman in Vienna who was imposed upon to the extent of actually marrying the wrong man has the element of tragedy rather than comedy.
This woman, who was of the lower middle class, married a man whom she took to be Herr Weiss, her fiancé, returning from a year’s absence in America to make her his wife. In less than a month he robbed her of her savings and then suddenly disappeared.
A month later she received a letter from America regretting that the writer had been too ill to return at the time agreed, but stating that he was about to sail, and that immediately on his arrival would fulfil his promise by leading her to the altar. The letter was signed “Herrmann Weiss.”
The poor woman’s worst fears were realized when, on her correspondent’s arrival, she recognized that she had been victimized by an impostor. It subsequently transpired that the genuine Herrmann Weiss had, while in America, foregathered with his double, who had ascertained sufficient of the former’s history and prospects to enable him to carry out with success his scheme of deception and robbery.
When Claude Bonnat, a baker of Marseilles, was in hiding from the police, who held a warrant for his arrest on a serious charge, he managed to communicate with an acquaintance, one Leriot, who in every respect was his exact double, and conjured him, on the strength of their old friendship, to promise that, should any misfortune befall him, he would by impersonating him keep from the young woman to whom he was engaged the knowledge of her lover’s shame. Leriot gave his promise, which sat but lightly on his conscience, as one to be kept or broken as whim might direct.
However, when Bonnat a day or two later fell into the hands of justice, Leriot sought out the young woman, of whom he had no previous knowledge, with the result that his susceptible heart was so touched that he entered into the fulfilment of his promise with surprising zeal. So well, indeed, did he enact the rôle of Bonnat that he in a short while espoused the latter’s fiancée. The couple led a life of complex happiness, which was in no wise dimmed when, some years later, on the convict’s release, the wife first discovered the fraud of which she had been the victim.