PAUL LOUBET – THE TRAGIC FINALE

The continuing story of  Paul Rene  Loubet.

Dr Loubet accepted a position at the Melbourne Hospital in May 1917. Subsequently  he was required to present himself at Melbourne University,  to be examined for the degree of M.D. As part of the process he presented the Registrar of the University with his French medical diploma.

Some concerns arose about the validity of the diploma and the police were asked to investigate. The case was taken on by a very well known detective, Frederick  William Piggott

Detective F.W. Piggott (left) Source – St Kilda Historical Society.

Two years earlier a caricature of the detective with accompanying verse had appeared in Punch.

A dandy “D” is Piggott,

When he’s out upon a case.

He makes the tales of Sherlock Holmes

Seem tame and commonplace.

He runs the thief and forger down,

And corrals up the  crook.

And many a daring criminal has Piggot brought to book

Many years later Detective Piggott looked back on the  Loubet case in a newspaper article;

‘I was assigned to the investigation with Detective Lynch. We quickly found that Loubet in his movements could give pointers  to the Scarlet Pimpernel. I called at the surgery of the doctor for whom  he was acting as locum….. Loubet was not in. Six times I called there and six times Lobet was out. I wanted to have a few minutes  alone in that surgery, so  on my sixth visit I told the attendant I would wait for the doctor.  I was shown into a room and there hanging on the wall was the Paris diploma which had raised the doubts. (Herald, Feb. 5 1935)

The detective had a good look at the document, and noticed that not only was the wording on various sections of it written in the same hand, but so were the signature purporting to be those of   the various members of the Paris Faculty of Medicine.  Piggott felt sure that Paul Loubet had created the entire diploma himself. He decided to find out if other medical men  in Melbourne had diplomas from Paris, and if so, to compare them with the suspect one. Of the three French  doctors he found, two  refused to co-operate due to the medical etiquette of the day. However, the third complied, producing  a  diploma issued by the University of Paris, whereas Loubet’s was headed City of Paris. Once more the detective went to Footscray. He was comparing the two documents in the surgery  when Loubet returned, then left immediately without commenting.

It is likely that Loubet obtained a blank diploma when he took his first wife to Paris in August 1914.

With all the evidence they needed, on September 23 Detective Piggott and Constable Lynch called on Loubet yet again. The doctor  was out on his rounds,  but the officers tracked him down and took him back to Paisley Street. Piggott recalled what happened;

As I walked into the surgery I was astonished to see that the doubtful Paris  diploma had vanished from the wall. Loubet, after my previous visit, had torn the diploma into pieces and flung the fragments down the stairs. We succeeded in retrieving a portion of  it that bore the questionable signature.’  (Argus, 1935)

Loubet then confessed that his diploma was  fake, and that his stories of being decorated for bravery in France were lies. He was in a highly agitated state, realizing that his whole life was unravelling.  Detective Piggot said he would not make an arrest then and there, but that Loubet  would have to face the consequences of his actions, and that if he tried to flee the country he would be barred from  obtaining a passport.

Nobody really knows what the unmasked fraudster did next, but he was in utter  turmoil.. Detective Piggot said  Loubet tried to commit suicide in a hotel, and that may well be true.  His wife  stated at the inquest that she last saw her husband  at Flinders Street Station on September 25.  She said he seemed; ‘worried and depressed and not at all rational.‘  It’s probable  she knew about the bogus diploma by then, though  the full extent of his deception and shady past would only be revealed later.

On the morning of September 27, Paul Loubet was discovered in a state of collapse by a gardener in St Kilda’s Alexandra Gardens.

A GRIM DISCOVERY (FROM A STORY IN THE MELBOURNE HERALD, FEB 5 1935)

He was rushed to hospital in the  St. Kilda Base Hospital, but  died five hours later.

The inquest found that he had died from a narcotic poison, self-administered by hypodermic injection.

LOUBET  – On the 27th September, 1917 (suddenly) at the Base Hospital, St Kilda. Dr Paul Loubet, only child of Dr. C.R. Loubet, Paris, beloved husband of Ellen Mary Loubet, aged 28.  Requiescat in pace.

It’s interesting that two local Footscray newspapers published his death notice stating that he was the nephew of Emil  Loubet, President of France between 1899 and 1906).  There is no evidence that this was true, but it’s probably what he told people.

No funeral notice appeared. He was buried in the Catholic Section of the Brighton General Cemetery.

For Nell Loubet, the shock and betrayal must have been almost impossible to comprehend, especially as she was in the very early stages of pregnancy and still a student.

Did Paul have any formal medical training? Well  accounts vary, but it seems he did study for his diploma as a young man in either France or Germany. The consensus is that he was thrown out of university for having performed an illegal operation on a woman (ie; an abortion).

FOR THE FALLOUT FROM PAUL LOUBET’S DUPLICITY, CLICK HERE.