Milet, a piqueur, the eighth witness, deposed that he was riding behind the royal carriage, when the shots were fired, and looking up he saw a man, placed on the other side of the wall, whose head was covered with a blouse, and the lower part of the face concealed by a handkerchief. He rode towards the spot, stood erect on his horse, and, leaping over the wall, saw Lecomte on a heap of faggots, ready to scale the wall, when he rushed upon him, seized his gun, disarmed and arrested him. Lecomte offered no resistance, and appeared surprised. Lieutenant Deflandre having joined him, they secured his person, and found in his pockets a small phial, a looking-glass, and some powder and bullets. The lieutenant having asked one of his gens d'armes, named Trantmann, if he had not seen another individual running away. Lecomte said to him, "You know me well; my name is Lecomte. I am alone. I played a dangerous game; I have lost. The shots were fired by me. M. Deflandre, a lieutenant of the gendarmerie, who was expecting the arrival of the king at the Porte Dorée; saw Lecomte leaping down from the wall after he had fired. He rode to the gate of the parquet, which was unfortunately locked, but Milet, having climbed over the wall arrested the accused. The gate having been opened, he entered the parquet, followed by the lieutenant of hussars, Morel, and others who assisted in apprehending the assassin, who exclaimed, "I am taken; it was I who fired upon the King. You know me, lieutenant, my name is Lecomte.' M. de Monicault, Prefect of the Department of Seine and Marne, who was seated in the second carriage, deposed to a similar effect. VOL. LXXXVIII. M. Berryer, Colonel of the 1st regiment of Hussars, in garrison at Fontainbleau, gave an account of a conversation he had had with Lecomte after his arrest. Lecomte said, that having vainly remonstrated with the administration of the civil list, he had applied to the King personally. Not obtaining redress, he had resolved to avenge himself upon His Majesty. "I have missed him," he said; " people will blame me, but I have as much heart as those who blame me." - M. Cante, the gunmaker who sold the gun, stated that, when Lecomte presented himself in his establishment, he told him he had been appointed Keeper General of the forest of Compiegne. It was on the 6th of May, 1844, and he perfectly recognized the gun, which was placed in his hands, as the one he had sold. Several witnesses deposed to having seen Lecomte hanging about the Tuileries, and afterwards loitering in the forest of Fontainbleau. Gard, an upholsterer at Fontainbleau, who had served with Lecomte in the Chasseurs of the Royal Guard, mentioned several acts of brutality committed by the accused during the campaign of 1823. Marrier de Bois d'Hyver, Legriel, and Savoye, inspectors of the forest, bore testimony to the zeal and good conduct of Lecomte whilst he served under their orders. FRIDAY, June 5. The prisoner being again brought in, the President invited the Attorney-General to develop his accusation. M. Hebert said, that his task was easy in presence of an accused who confessed his crime. Since his arrest, Lecomte had sedulously endeavoured to impress on the Ꮓ minds of the magistrates that he had not been inspired by any political resentment, and the minute investigation which had been instituted into all the circumstances of the case had not elicited any proof to show that the accused had been influenced by political motives. The Attorney-General then proceeded to contend that the crime had been long premeditated by the assassin. On the 15th January, 1844, he had tendered his resignation, which was accepted on the 26th of that month. On the 16th February he ceased his functions; he sold his horse in April, and on the 6th of May he came in from Fontainbleau to purchase the double barrelled gun which he had subsequently used for the commission of his crime. In the evening he returned to Fontainbleau, where his absence had not even been remarked. What was his intention in purchasing that gun? It was because he had heard that the King was to arrive at Fontainbleau on the following day, and that he already meditated his assassination. It is to be supposed that no opportunity offered itself to him to execute that resolution. Lecomte shortly afterwards left Fontainbleau and took up his residence in Paris; but in the autumn of 1845 he again repaired to that town, where he was seen by several persons, because no doubt he was informed of the King's intention to spend a week in that royal residence. M. Hebert maintained that Lecomte evidently contemplated to assassinate the King at that period, and that no credit should be attached to his allegation that the first idea of that crime had originated in his mind two or three months previous to its commission. M. Hebert then proceeded to examine the grievances of Lecomte against the administration of the civil list, read the letters he had written to the Conservator of the Forests of the Crown, the Intendant of the Civil List, and to the King, and showed that the ill treatment he complained of was merely imaginary. The silence of the Administration, the alleged disdain evinced by it with regard to his claims, and to the demand of the capitalization of his pension, which he knew could not be accorded, did not exist on the 6th of May, 1844, when he purchased a gun to kill the King. At that time he had not even written to His Majesty. M. Hebert then entered into a variety of other considerations to demonstrate the premeditation on the part of Lecomte. Reports had been circulated some days previous to the attempt that the King had been murdered. The investigations, instituted wherever those rumours had been current, had convinced the instructing magistrates that they had no connection whatsoever with the crime, and that Lecomte alone was guilty. The AttorneyGeneral then presented a requisitory to the Court to the effect of declaring Lecomte culpable of an attempt against the King's life, and condemning him to death. M. Duvergier then rose to present the defence of Lecomte. He might, he said, confine himself to imploring the mercy of the Court in his favour, but he had other considerations to advise. He had studied the character of Lecomte in the long conference he had had with him, and he rested convinced that, at the moment he committed the crime, he was not in the full enjoyment of his faculties. He then recounted the military life of the accused, which must have been highly honourable, since he had been decorated with the order of had similarly distinguished himself. the Legion of Honour. In the dis- On one occasion, the corps to which charge of his duties, whilst in the he helonged having been obliged to service of the civil list, he had been retrograde, Lecomte, then aide-deconstantly remarked for his zeal camp of General Church, being and good conduct. He had resigned stationed in the rear-guard, saw a his functions because he had con- young English officer on the point sidered himself aggrieved. His re- of falling into the hands of the sentment alone had blinded him, Turks. He gave spur to his horse, and, as he declared himself, he had charged the enemy, and was fortunot been influenced by bad advisers nate enough to rescue the officer or accomplices. Lecomte had never from their hands. Lecomte had belonged to any particular political fought several duels, in every one party. The owner of the circu- of which he had behaved with the lating library which he frequented greatest generosity, receiving the declared that the only journal he fire of his opponent and dischargread was the Petites Affiches, and ing his pistol in the air. When in the motive of his preference for the service of the administration of that journal was, that he expected the civil list, he had deported himto find in it a situation. He saw self with zeal, honour, and irrethat, in order to obtain an honour- proachable probity, according to the able situation, a certain sum was statement of all his superiors. M. required as a security, and this Duvergier then read a letter which had been his reason for demanding Lecomte wrote, in January 1835, the capitalization of his pension. to his sister, on the occasion of the M. Duvergier then undertook to death of his mother, and which prove that Lecomte could not have breathed the utmost tenderness for contemplated the murder of the his parent. (The accused appeared King as far back as May 1844, or greatly affected whilst his counsel October 1845; and, to substantiate was reading that letter.) M. Duhis opinion, he read the letters he vergier contended that Lecomte had written to His Majesty since was to the present hour fully conthat period, and which were full of vinced of having been the victim expressions of respect and affection. of an unpardonable injustice. It Reverting to his military career, he was a real monomania, a mental read a number of documents de- aberration, a fixed idea. Borrowscribing him as a good and brave ing an expression of Sir Robert soldier. The colonel of the regi- Peel, he declared Lecomte to ment of Chasseurs of the Royal labour under a morbid vanity. He Guard, in which he had served, had then explained what would be the addressed to him (M. Duvergier) course pursued in England with a certificate highly honourable to respect to his client; and stated, his client. At the battle of Caro- that when an attempt directed lina, Lecomte had so distinguished against the person of the Sovereign himself, taking prisoner a superior was not inspired by political pasofficer of the Spanish cavalry, that sions, the culprit was only senhaving been allowed five crosses of tenced to transportation. Of the the Legion of Honour for his regi- three individuals lately tried in ment, he did not hesitate to bestow England for a similar crime, not one on Lecomte. In Greece he one had been convicted of high treason. In conclusion, M. Duvergier, repeated his conviction that his client did not enjoy the use of his faculties, that his will was not free at the moment he committed his crime, and implored in his favour the commiseration and clemency of the Court. M. Hebert, the Attorney-General, having risen, said that he should not have again addressed the Court, if the counsel of the accused had confined himself to recommend him to the commiseration of his judges, but he combated the plea of insanity as completely misplaced. M. Duvergier replied in a few words; and the accused having declared that he had nothing to add to his defence, the President announced the close of the trial. Lecomte was then removed from the dock. A few minutes before 6 o'clock the Chancellor and Peers re-entered the Court. According to the custom of the Court, the accused was not present. In the midst of a profound silence, the Chancellor then read the sentence of the Court, which was as follows: "Whereas Pierre Lecomte, a Guard General of the forest of Fontainbleau, was guilty, on the 16th of April last, of an attempt on the King's person and life, by the use of a fire-arm: "The Court, in virtue of the articles 86, 88, and 302 of the Penal Code, condemns the said Pierre Lecomte to the punishment applied to parricides. The sentence of the Court therefore is, that the prisoner shall be taken to the place of execution in his shirt, and barefooted; and there, his head covered with a black veil, he shall remain exposed on the scaffold whilst a huissier reads to the people the sentence of the Court, and he shall immediately afterwards be beheaded." The Peers were unanimous in finding the prisoner guilty, but divided as to his punishment. It is said that 196 voted for his being executed as a parricide, 36 voted simply for the punishment of death, and three voted for perpetual imprisonment. On Friday evening, shortly after 6 o'clock, M. Cauchy, the principal Registrar of the Court of Peers, accompanied by a huissier, went to the prison of the Luxembourg, and read to Lecomte the sentence which the Court of Peers had just passed upon him. The regicide listened with the utmost composure to the reading of the fatal decree, and at its conclusion said, "It is well. I now only ask but one favour, and that is, to see the Abbé Grivel." The Abbé, who for several days past had had several conversations with Lecomte, immediately visited the prisoner. When the chaplain had retired, a strait waistcoat was, as is the custom, put on him, and Lecomte, far from showing any unwillingness, actually assisted the gaolers during the execution of this formality. The only words which he addressed to the persons present, were those in which he expressed a desire to see again the chaplain of the prison. Lecomte was executed on the 8th of June. NORTHERN CIRCUIT. Liverpool, December 11th, 1846. (Before Mr. Justice Wightman.) MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. The following prosecution is said to have been instituted for the purpose of trying the legality of marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. A very large number of families are placed in a state of doubt and difficulty, from the alleged uncertainty of the law upon this point, such marriages being by no means uncommon among the upper, and very frequent among the lower classes. John Chadwick was indicted for having, on the 23rd of March last, at Manchester, feloniously and unlawfully married one Eliza Bostock, his former wife, Ann Fisher, being then and still alive. The prisoner pleaded, "Not Guilty. Mr. T. Campbell Foster stated the case. The prisoner stands charged with having married upon the 14th September, 1845, one Ann Fisher, and with having, during the life of the said Ann Fisher, subsequently married, on the 23rd of March in the present year, another wife, one Eliza Bostock. I will call before the jury witnesses who will prove the fact of these two marriages; and that the first wife, Ann Fisher, is still alive. Were these the only points likely to arise in this case, I should sit down content with simply calling evidence to substantiate the facts I have opened; but I am informed that there is another point of considerable importance which will arise-a point which has not arisen for nearly two centuries-a point which has been conceived to be law, but which I shall submit to his lordship is not law. It is, I am told, to be argued in defence to-day, that the prisoner, when he married his first wife, Ann Fisher, had previously married--that he was then a widower; and that in his first marriage he had married the sister of the first wife as charged in the indictment. For clearness' sake, I shall put it thus: -He married some years ago one Hannah Fisher, who died; at his second marriage, he married Ann Fisher, the deceased wife's sister. The third marriage (which is the second marriage in the indictment) constitutes the bigamy. The case which is to be made out on the part of the defence to-day is this: -Under these circumstances, I understand it is to be contended before you, that the first marriage charged in the indictment was void under a recent statute passed in the reign of William IV. In order to explain clearly the effect of that statute, I will read the binding clause :- That all marriages which shall hereafter be celebrated between persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity shall be absolutely null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever." 66 Now, I understand that it is to be contended for the defence, that this first marriage was within the prohibited degrees of affinity. It will be for my learned friend to show that that is so; I shall contend it is not so. Mark what are the words of this statute; they are simply these: "All marriages within the prohibited degrees of affinity shall be null and void.' In order to make out the case for the defence, it is to be assumed that this marriage was a marriage voidable before the statute of William IV.; and that, being voidable before the statute of William IV., that statute applies, and renders the marriage absolutely void. Now, in order to render marriages voidable, previous to the statute of William IV., it was necessary to prove they were within the prohibited degrees of affinity, as set out in the Levitical law. There are three ways of showing that such a marriage was void: first, by the statute law; secondly, by the cannon law; and, thirdly, by the Levitical law |
