Peerless Performance

It was closing time at the Ruby Bar in Pigalle, but Roger Delfau, 32, and his chum, Rene Corda, 26, were far from sated. They persuaded the tall brunette barmaid, Marie-Madeleine Irbah, 25, to join them for another drink. An hour later Marie-Madeleine found herself facing a pistol in a Citroen with reclining seats, parked in a lonely forest. At daybreak, she went to the police and reported that she had been raped repeatedly. The two men were convicted, fined $1,000 in damages, and sentenced to three years in prison.

Last week, when the verdict was appealed in a Paris court, Judge Paul Heifer seemed incredulous. "How many times were you assaulted?" he asked Marie-Madeleine. "If I told you," she replied, "you wouldn't believe me." The judge insisted, and Marie-Madeleine finally said that in an hour, she had been assaulted 18 times.

Roger demurred. "Your honor," he said, "I'm not a bull." So did Roger's attorney, Genevieve Aiche, 27, a pretty redhead. "Permit me to be skeptical," she said. "Eighteen assaults in one hour, even perpetrated by two men in relay, seem to me to be pure myth. It would have made Francois I, Henri IV and Louis XV jealous, and they were Kings of France. After all, where is the woman who, after 18 assaults, would have the effrontery to complain?"

Judge Heifer was impressed. Although he increased Marie-Madeleine's damages to a total of $3,000, he suspended the defendants' sentences.

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