A POISONER OF TWO WIVES.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 173, 28 December 1874, Page 3

A POISONER OF TWO WIVES.

(from the Paris cor respondent of the Times.')

Another criminal from the Eure-et-Loire ha 3 been condemned to death by the Assize Court. I refer to Moreau, the St Denis herbalist, accused of having poisoned two wives in less than ten months. No criminal trial since that of Tropraan has, I really do not know why, excited a greater spectacular interest. Th se dressy actresses who appear for nothing on the boards of Boulevard and Palais Royal Theatres gave the Hall of Justice the aspect of a playhouse on the lirst night. Moral order papers of the gossiping category give long lists of the names of the feminine notorieties who have gone, contrary to Assize Court etiquette, in the gayest raiment, to witness the duel between President Brunet and the alleged wife poisoner. The brilliant aspect of the auditory is a fresh symptom of social decline. Tickets of admission are only obtained lor capital trials through the patronage of superior law officers, judges, and the big wigs of the bar. What public prosecutor, judge, or big wig assisted those actresses who never graduated at the Conservatoire to the foremost places, whilst reporters and law students were barred out, and sent to “ count the flags ” in the Salle des Pas Perdus? It used to be considered bad taste to direct an opera-glass upon a prisoner in the dock until he was in the thick of the examination. But such delicate considerations no longer restrain curiosity. We are impatient to enjoy. In social and political things equally w r e have got to the eat, drink, and be merry state of mind, which renders us indifferent to those external decencies which old-fashioned people still observe. Moreau, who has attracted an audience the sight of which might stir up Sardou to jealousy, belongs to a respectable family of the Eure-et-Loire. His father and mother were ambitious of one day seeing him a Bishop, or perchance something higher. In consequence of this ambition they had him educated to be a priest. He studied under a certain Abbe Lamy, who came forward to give him a good character. This worthy ecclesiastic spoke kindly of his old pupil—who, indeed, seems to have made few enemies in life—praised his application, respectful bearing, and obedience. But he admitted, which, in respect to the line the prosecution took, was unfortunate, that Moreau as a student was of a reserved and almost sombre disposition, loving his own company, and disliking the noisy amusements of which young people are generally fond. These admissions President Brunet summed up in the short, dry phrase, “ In fact, M PAbbe, he was of a saturnine temper.” The Abbe, on being asked why the prisoner in the dock did not enter holy orders, also admitted that he had a weakness which might led to scandal if he assumed the tonsure. He was, notwithstanding his sombre manners, too much alive to female graces and attractions. His preceptor, therefore, with sorrow advised him to abandon the idea of becoming a priest. On quitting the seminary, Moreau came to Paris, He studied the pharmacopoeia, intending to make himself a chemist. But he had not L the perscverence to work for a diploma. For more than three years he lived with a dowerless work-girl whom he had married. How he managed to start as a herbalist is a mystery, no record existing of his having passed an examination or obtained a diploma to deal in simples and medicinal plants. He bought the goodwill of his herbalist’s shop at St Denis for IS.OOOf. on credit, and had great difficulty in paying the instalments. The prosecution assumed that it was to extricate himself from his pecuniary embarrassments that he conceived fire plan of poisoning with sulphate of copper Felicitd Hortenso Aubry, his first wife, who was in bad health, and unable to aid him in his business, and espousing Adelaide Louise Lagneau. The latter was the discarded paramour of a rich buttonmaker of the Kue St Martin, who had given her 25,000 francs and a handsomely furnished house on quitting her. She was a line-looking woman of 30—tall, fullchested, rosy, and laughter-loving. What this has to do with the capital charge 1 do not see. But as President Brunet made a feature of her good looks and cheerful spirits, it would be presumptuous in me to pass them over in silence as foreign to the case. Moreau was the antithesis of his second wife, “la Belle Herboristc de St Denis.” He is fair-haired, with a sandy beard. His figure is lithe, and his forehead high and bulging forward, and bis face long and narrow. So far so good. There is nothing here that announces the destructive nature of the criminal class. We now come to the brows. They run up obliquely towards the temples, drawing furtive eyes, with the downcast glance of the Seminarist, after them._ The nose goes with the eyes. It is thin, pointed, dips a little, and is very much longer from the bridge to the point than from the eye to the root of the nostril. Its extremity is about in a line with the mouth, which the beard and moustache hide. The ensemble of the countenance speaks of great intelligence, cunning, and feminine timidity. Moreau would never commit a violent crime. His temperament is a Florentine’s of the 16th century. A great deal of matter which a novelist might think important iu developing a plot,

but which an English Attorney - General would discard as irrelevant, has been gone into. For instance Moreau looked sombre on the day of his second marriage, and two nr three times at the, wedding feast was noticed to shun his wife’s gaze and avoid her company. He said to a neighbor that he did not mind her antecedents provided her relations were honest people. He hesitated to send to the country for his mother-in-law (whom he had never seen) when his wife was ill, and he never showed symptoms of jealousy when male neighbours came into the shop to feast their eves on her beauty, under the pretext of buying simples. The really important points are that the morbid symptoms of both wives, who were women of widely different constitutions, were identical. They vomited black stuff, their throats and stomachs felt as if they had swallowed coals of fire, and after they had taken food or medicines, or those herb potions called in France tisanes, the ills from which they suffered became more acute. Nowit was Moreau who prepared everything that entered their mouths, and stood at the bedside while they were eating and drinking. He also threw what remained on their plates into a dustbin. One day ho flung away a steak which he had prepared for the second wife. The nurse took a fancy to it and wantul to eat it. But this he would not allow, saying that Madame Moreau was suffering from diphtheria, which was a dangerous and highly contagious malady. Madame Moreau herself told some relations and the nurse that M. Moreau was poisoning her. Large quantities of copper were found in the livers and stomachs of both women. Another point, which is not unimportant. In a toxological work, the chapter on copper was marked with an image of the Virgin, belonging to the herbalist. It had been often read, and the book opened if held loosely back downwards at this chapter. The prisoner said he had often read this work when studying chemistry. But as he bought it secondhand, he did not think it proved anything against him. In the course of the examination, the presiding judge several times directed Moreau’s attention to four glass jars amongst the pieces dc conviction, which contained the livers and stomachs of his wives. His object was to see if a tell-tale expression would pass over the prisoner’s countenance. Moreau, however, bore the test unmoved. It was difficult to get anything out of him of a nature to aid the prosecution. The defence urged that the soil of tit Denis is saturated with copper, and that what was discovered had infiltrated into the bodies from the soil. The answer to this is that there was scarcely any copper in the outer tissues, none in the coffin, which was closely fastened, and that what was in the soil was very trifling. The body of the first wife, who died in May, 1873, was in a state of excellent preservation, as if embalmed. Dr Bergeron, and the professor of chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, affirmed that animals poisoned with sulphate of copper dry up like mummies, and do not putrify in the earth. Maitre Charbonnel was charged with the defence. He tried to show that death might have arisen from a dirty copper saucepan, which Moreau might have used in perfect innocence to cook his wives’ victuals with. He could also say, on behalf of his client, that there was not the faintest proof that he ever bought sulphate of copper, or that any was ever seen with him. The Court presumed guilt from "both women having died from poison, from his whole treatment of them during his illness, from the fact that nobody but he gave them food or medicine, and from his having an interest in their death. This view was adopted by the jury, who found Moreau guilty on all counts, and saw no extenuating circumstances in the case. Sentence of death was passed.