THE EYRAUD-BOMPARD TRIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 30, 5 February 1891, Page 3

THE EYRAUD- BOMPARD TRIAL.

Conviction of Gooffe's Murderers,

The Story of a Strange Crime

(From Oor London Correspondent.)

London, Boxing Day, 189 C. The tjenulfcimate acb of the long-drawn-out Coufl6 murder tragedy was performed in •Pflrie on Saturday last, when after a prodigiously lengthy trial (lapsing constantly i to the absurdest irrelevancies) the rascally Evraud was finally condemned to death. Gabrielle Bompard, thanks to the introduction into the case of the prevalent tvDnotic craze, escapes with life, but the remainder o f her aubunary existence will not) be precisely enviabieThe story of this peculiarly planned crime will always stand out as one of the moat remarkable of its class. The murder (a summary in the " Daily News" reminds us) was for a long time a mystery. For some weeks no more was known than that, on the 26th July, 1889, Gouffe", one of those superior process-servers known as huissitrs, in France, had suddenly disappeared from his office in Paris. On the 13th August following a body, in a state of advanced decomposition, and for the moment quite unrecognisable, was found in a wood near Lyons. A small key was picked up near the spot, and, in a neighbouring commune, two days later, the searchers came upon a broken trunk covered -with dark brown stains, which the key unlocked. The trunk bore a railway label of the ParisLyens line, and this was dated the 27th July, 1889—that is to say the day aft6r the disappearance of Gouffe. The identity of the body with that of the process-server was soon established beyond doubt. Suspicion at once fell on Eyraud and his mietress Bompard, who were known to have been intimate with GoufftS, and who had disappeared at the same time as himself. In due time this suspicion became certainty. Eyraud had a very evil reputation. Hβ had been a corporal in the Mexican expedition, and had deserted before the enemy. He had married a woman of good position, but had dissipated every sou of her fortune, and hie frightful extravagance had brought him to ruin in every enterprise in which he had engaged. A year before the murder he had made the acauaintance of Bompard, and this was neither the first nor even the last of his intimacies of that sort. She had led a life only less disorderly than his own. At an early ago she bad run away from her father's houae, and when she met Eyraud she had completed a long apprenticeship to infamy. She had great personal attractions. Our Paris correspondent has deBcribed her as ehe appeared in the dock, with her slender figure, her delicate profile, her fine teeth and eyes, and her air of innocence and candour befitting a young girl-studenb at the Conservatoire. The precious pair lived in shame, and by it, and one day, when receipts weie unusually low, and debts pressing, they proiected'a grand stroke in cdme. They were to murder somebody—that was apparently the general proposition—and they at first agreed to select a certain retired jeweller ac the victim. But Bompard had forgotten the jeweller's address, and then ib was decided that Gouffe" would do as well. Gouffe , was on familiar terms with both of them: and that he was well off no one who sab in his company half-an-hour could possibly doubt, for he could hardly pay for a cup of coffee ab the cafe" without displaying a roll of bank notes. It was agreed that Bompard should lure him to her lodgings, and to a particular seat in a room, which contained one of the curtained alcoves so common in France. Behind this alcove Eyraud would be lying in waib with a cord in his hand running through a pulley fixed in theceiiing, and carrying a stout hook at the end ■ The cord was to be so arranged that very little of ib was to appear outside the curtain, and this was to be carefully enveloped in dark stuff of the same colour as the curtain. As soon as the huissier had seated himealf, with his back to the alcove, Bompard was to nestle up to him, and, taking off a strong silken cord, which she wore as a belt, pass ifi playfully round his neck. This was to be slipped through a loop at one end to form a running noo3e, while a loop at the other was to be adroitly passed over fche hook at the end ot the cord hanging from she ceiling. The man behind the curtain was to do the rest, and it wa3 expected that one stout pull ab the cord would hoist the victim into the air, and choke him forthwith. Thia was the general scheme of the crime. The first step was to buy the materials for the apparatus of death. On the first July, Eyraud, being "wanted" for swindling, crossed to London to put the police off the scent, and, in a few days, he was joined by hie mistress. By way of nob losing time, they began to do the " shopping " for the murder. They boughb a strong girdle for the lady, in red and white silk, a large trunk, a pulley, and four or five yards of cord. ' They completed their purchases, on their reburn to Paris, with seven metres of coarae cloth, of which Bompard made a sack, a lighter cord to bind the body of the man, "in case of accident," and other articles of minor importance. On the 24th July, they took the lodging which was to be the scene of the rendezvous, and paid 150 francs in advance on the month's rent. Ib was a quieb apartment on the ground floor of the courtyard of a house in the Rue Tronson Ducoudray. On the 26th all was ready. Bompard had made her appointment with the huissier for eight in the evening, and the two confederates passed the earlier part of the day in putting the finishing touch to their prepanatione. The huisaier kept his appointment —he was to stand outside the church of the Madeleine — and Bompard, gaily linking her arm in his, led him off to his death. He was murdered according to plan and specification, though nob in every detail. Within a few minutes of his entering the room the girdle was slipped round his neck, and his body was hoisted into the air; bub, according to one account, his weight proved too much for the pulley, and he came down with a crash, while, according to another, Eyraud let him down in sheer nervousness. At any rate, Eyraud then rushed out from behind the curtain, and strangled him with his hands. His body was then stripped of valuables, and thrust into the sack, the sack into the trunk, and Eyraud, taking the keys, went straight to the office which the victim had just left, hoping to make a rich haul. He was, however, grievously disappointed, for he found libtle or nothing, having missed fourteen thousand francs in notes hidden between sheets of paper. The dead man's jewellery and about 150 francs found in his pocket were the sole proceeds of this awful crime. Bompard slept in the room all that night, with the dead body in the trunk. The next day Eyraud came to fetch her, and they set off for Lyons, taking the trunk with them as lug-gage. Eyraud drove into the country, and threw the body down a deep cutting into the thickeb where ib was found. The pair then started for America, and here they made the acquaintance of another Frenchman,, named Garanger, who, according to Bompard, was to have been their next 7ictlm. Bub Bompard grew enamoured of this man, ran away with him, and, on her return to Paris, went to the Prefect of Police and confessed the crime. She took care, however, to confess only Eyraud'a chare of it, throwing the whole blame on him, and declaring that she had been no more than an unwilling witness. Her account was believed, and, after having been detained for some time she was aboub to be released, when news came that her accomplice had been arrested at Havannah. Throughout the trial each of ifchsße wretches tried to throw the response

bility of its instigation of the _ other. Bompard went bo far as to maintain that she had taken no active part in it, her nerves having failed her at the lasb moment, before she could adjust the noose. Eyraud, she added, had then rushed out and strangled the man with his hands, without using the noose at all. This account was nob without plausibility. Bompard is undoubtedly a hysterical subject, and the had frequent fainting fits of an epileDtic nature in the couree of her examination and trial. Her counsel eagerly seized on the opportunity, and, in consequence, this trial will long be memorable for the important part assigned in ib to all the current theories of hypnotic suggestion. It is perhaps thei first trial in which hypnotism has been the subject of evidence and the theme of forensic pleadings. It was argued that Bompard had been influenced by her accomplice, nob merely in the ordinary way, bub-by mesmeric power. She was hypnotised experimentally during the proceedings, and her counsel took the extraordinary course of quoting her utterances when in this etate as part of the evidence on which he relied Ito establish her innocence. There was much force in the observation of Eyraud as he was led from the dock, " V» hab nonsense they talked aboub hypnotism.