Grab des Monsieur Hawarden

The grave of a certain Mr. Arthur Hawarden can be found in Ligneuville's village cemetery. It emerged only after his death that this name belonged not to a man, but to a well-to-do lady from Paris, Mériora Gillibrand.

After Mériora killed her lover in Vienna, she assumed the identity of a man in order to evade punishment. Together with her maid, who alone knew her true identity, she led the life of a permanent itinerant as Arthur Hawarden, eventually ending up in Ligneuville, where she would die of lung disease.

Her unusual life-story became the basis for a novel. Indeed, it was turned into a film by the Belgian film-director Harry Kümel.

Dromos