THE MURDER OF BARONESS DELLARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8854, 16 April 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MURDER OF BARONESS DELLARD.

A REMARKABLE CRIMINAL.

Lieutenant Anastay, the murderer of Baroness Dellard in December, was brought up for trial on February 25 before the Paris Assize Court. After the reading of the indictment, M. Henri Roberb, the prisoner's counsel, urged that the prisoner was insane. He had been examined on several occasions at Lyons, and after one of those medical examinations he had been suspended from active service with his regiment on account of a disorder of the brain. M. Robert read a letter from Dr. Charcot, which said if Anastay was really suffering from a lesion of the brain, he might be subject to fits of temporary insanity, and still be, as a rule, in the enjoyment of his mental faculties.

M. Cruppi. the Public Advocate, resisted this contention, and read the documents concerning the medical examinations to which Anastay had been subjected. They were, he said, certificates from young army surgeons who noted a malady of the retina of the eyes. The colonel of his regiment had said the army could bub be the gainer by Anastay's departure ; but he was not alluding to his mental conditions, but to his morality, which was deplorable. The best reply to the plea of insanity was the letter written by Anastay on December 15, eleven days after the murder,' to his mistress, Mdllo. Gonzalez. Among other things, he said the doctors told him he must, for the sake of his eyes, avoid living too fast a life. This passage made the prisoner smile. M. Cruppi was so indignant at this that he produced quite a sensation in the crowded court by shouting : " What! You wretch, you are smiling ! I tell you the conclusions behind which you seek to shelter yourself were for your counsel a supreme duty, but are for you a supreme piece of cowardice. I demand their rejection by the court."

M. Piletdes Jardins, the presiding Judge, declared that the court would nob pronounce on the matter till the prisoner had been cross-examined and the witnesses heard.

In reply to the questions pub to him by the Judge, Anastay spoke in a monotonous tone, without the slightest sign of emotion. The Judge passed in review the various phases of Anastay's career, his stay at the Military College of »St. Cyr, his appointment as sub-lieutenant in the 159 th Regiment of the Line, his intimacy with Mdlle. Gonzalez, a ballet girl, at the Bellecour Theatre, with whom he lived publicly. The Judge : Do you not think that was unworthy of an officer? Your colonel complained to you about it. The prisoner : Madame Gonzalez lived at the expense of her daughter. It was she who received her daughter's salary from the theatre. When her daughter left the theatre, she went to complain of me to my colonel, who sent for me and rebuked me severely. 1 promised to break the liation. The Judge: Yes; but you broko your promise, and returned to live with Mdllo. Gonzalez.

The prisoner : Ibis true, and I spent two hundred francs a month with her. It was more than my pay enabled me bo do. After the Judge had pointed out that his pecuniary embarrassments had gone on constantly increasing, he inquired whether it was not before lie left Lyons, that is to say, in the middle of November, that he conceived the idea of murdering the Baronesss Dellard, with the object of robbing her.

The prisoner replied, with the greatest calm, " Yes, sir."

The Judge: You imagined that you would find in her house some twenty thousand francs. You knew that Madame Caboret left her savings in the hands of her mistress, Baroness Dellard, and you knew the money was represented by scrip and bonds kept in a wardrobe. You had arranged for the sale of the scrip and bonds you hoped to steal by the intermediary of a financial journal, the Impartial, to which you subscribed. Let us now examine your preparations for the crime. When did you buy tne knife '! The prisoner : Before I left Lyons. The Judge : You bought two. The prisoner: Yes, because the blade of the lirst was too flexible.

The Judge : You entered Baroness Dellard's apartment about four o'clock in the afternoon.

Anastay, speaking: rapidly in broken phrases, with such sudden emotion as to cause immense sensation in court, replied : Yes, I entered; I chatted with her; and then I struck, . Ah ! you do not know what it is to have struck your fellow creature with a knife. I have always Madame Dellard before my eyes. I have committed a crime ; not only as an officer have I committed faults, but I have committed a crime against society ; 1 demand to expiate it; I accept the responsibility ; I wish to mount the scaffold. (Prolonged sensation in court.) The Judge sketched the remaining incidents of tho crime, and to all the details the prisoner assented. He found his victim alone, and as she preceded him into her son's room, lie rushed upon her from behind and cut her throat. Then, after searching her pockets for her keys, he set to work rummaging in the wardrobes and drawers to find the money. But the door of the apartment opened; Dclphino Houbre, the servant, entered. Anastay rushed upon her, and had commenced sawing at her neck, but her%hair protected it. He thought, however, that she was dead, and went away quietly. The Judge noted the saii'j froid of Anastay when leaving the house after the murder, and also when he was arrested, and asked him what had induced him to confess his crime.

The prisoner : My conscience. lb was impossible for mo to live any longer with that secret. I could not sleep.