The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-09-11 00:00:00

ANOTHER FRENCH POISONING CASE.

A great or r of poisoning. such as has now become
alinoat we. kly reading in the French vaiiers, orcuied
the Assize Court of Le Mane, the eaiiital of L• Sari he,
on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (writes a corre-
epondent). The ti own Mail crowded with visitors, and
a strong bevy of ',porters had gone down font Paris.
the crimes were alleged to have been committed up-
wards of fur years ago; the standing conthct of
medical evidence about traces of arsenic was to course
the more kern in account if the lapse of time ; and
the presence of DI. L iithaud as counsel for one of the
prisoners was a guarantee that the trial would be as
dramatic as possible
According to the indictment. M. Janvier, the land-
lord of the Hotel cl, s Trios of Bouloire, in the
Sarthe, who died on Feb. 5, 1865. was poisoned by his
wife. Augustine (nee Montarou), and hilt servant.
Dapin, was not only an accomplice in, but the
instigator id the deed. Suspicions id foul play pre-
vailed in the neighbourhood at the time, hut did not
@et the public prosecutor in motion. It was only to-
wards idie end if 11.14i8, after the widow Tanvier bad
teen married a seam.) time to M. Miami.' who still
keeps the Hotel des Trois rods, that anonymous letters
and handbills. supplied to have hero cimulated by
Anne Dupin, led to her arrest and that of the other

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prisoner.
Auenetine l'ffontarou was married to Jsnvier when
only 17, awailat her own 'doh, and under Is threat from
her parents that if she would not take him she shonl.l
be sent to • convent. Although they lived toge her
as tavern keepers for fifteen yeara and without any
flagrant quarrel., this origin of their marriage, pursuant
to the French practice of rejecting no circumstance
as too trivial to furnish a motive, is pressed against her
as • reason why she was likely to p ,ieon him. He
drove the mail cart between Bouloire and Conterr6.
and evidence is brought forward to show that durtug
the hours of his daily absence she was friquently un-
aithf uL
Of the servant Anne Thipin, the indictment, by way
of showing the it priori probability of her being a
murderess, recondite that in 1846 her mother's blob did
was c .uncied .4 theft, and that he had • enter who
committed suicide in 11453 on account ot an aucuostion
that she had poisoned souaebody with phosphorus.
This prisoner hereelf was a natural child, and Ate has
had two natural children. Her profession was that of
a baby-fanner, and the astounding statement is made
that i the course of her time, althongli now only forty.
seen n years of age, she has hod eigh,y-one children to
nurse hum Pans, of whom not half went bock alive.
A cording to • Loofewion made betore the Judge of
Inotraccion by the woman Augustine, but which she
retracted in court, it was Anne Dupin who, one day
atter she had been ill-used by her husband put it into
her head to tile« him off by kAson. Anne Dupin g..t
some arsenic from a farrier s wife; but for fear that
his trio sudden drab should excite suspicion, recom-
mended that he enould first be &wed with carobs
Wee nowder sprinkled on his food to make Inio ill. This
being accompliohed, and a doctor called in.
Dupin to..k an opportunity to substitute arsenic for
his magnesia. The doctor fancied that he died of

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cholera.
In Sept., 1865, Madame Montarou, the mother of
Augustine. was enticed to CI .me to 11,,,,1nire, and was
carried if by amen c adminis'ered by !lupin. A few
weeks later, one of her illegitimate children, Leopold
Unpin, a boy of fifteen. WWI put out of the way b, his
mother for fear of his making revelations. It is
charged that he was pinioned with lucifer matches.
The indictment further alleges that after the death
of Janvier, Anne Dupn installed herself in the Hotel
des Trois Rois, where she sc•ed mire like the inistresa
than a servant ; that she availed herself of the terrible
setret of which she was in posseission LO extract large
sums of money from Augustine Mentareu ; and that
whin, after tan second marriage of the latter in June,
1867, Miard turned her out of the house on account of
her had character, she wrote threatening letters and
posted aminv1111•114 placards. which led to the exhuma-
tion of the three bodies, and the discovery of poienn
in the remains.
In court the prisoner Lupin strenuously denied
everything. M. Lachaud was counsel for the other
woman.
The verdict was given on Sunday evening. The
woman Lupin was condemned to hard Iranian- fee life.
and Mine. &Hard to twenty years of the mane punish-