The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-03-21 00:00:00

Al EXTRAORDINARY TRIAL IN
FRANCE.

At the Court of Anises, held in this town on Friday, three
persona are indicted for having caused the death of Pierre
feyier, a single man, in possession of a fortune of £12,000
(says the Niorf correspondent of the Standard, writing on
March In). The prisoners are : the widow Teyier, ns.
Chariot, sister-in-law of the victim; Frances Richard, hss
servant and Francis Chariot, father of the widow Teyier.
It is a singular circumstance that Francis Chariot was the
partner of Martin Rests in had speculation& Reim was
sentenced last year by the same Court of Assists to the
galleys for life for wilful murder by poison. If. Lachawl,
of the Paris has ; 11. Ricard. • barrister at Niort : and M.
Thibaudiere, of the Parthenay bar, am o counsel for the pri-
Boners. The Procurator General of the Court of Appeal of
Poictiers will be the public prosecutor. The following
particulars of the crime will be read with interest ;
The crime was perpetrated at the Chateau de In
Meilleraye, in the arrondissement or district of
Parthenay, department of the Deux Sevres, the chief
town of which is Niort. The poisoning seems to have
been conceived and perpetrated with a slowness and a
perseverance implying a well-combined plan; but it
appears, notwithstatoling, that the authorities were on
the alert even before the death of Pierre Teyier.
Pierre Teyier had always enjoyed remarkable gresi
health, but in the middle of 1867 he complained of
having an inexplicable weight on the chest, a burning
thirst and nausea, and he vomited frequently. He
emitted a fmtid odour, and succumbed at the end of one
month. A p.st-mortem examination took place, which
resulted in the discovery of arsenic, and death was
declared to be the result of that mineral. Arsenic was
found not only in the viscera, but also on the boards
of the floor on which he had vomited. Who were the
poisoners! The only persons who had constantly at-
tended upon Pierre Teyier during his illness were his
servant Francis Richard, and his sister-in-law, the
widow Teyier. They alone prepared and gave to him
his food and drink ; and if, by chance, another servant
attended upon his master during the night, he received
the potions ready made which be was to give him.
The judicial authorities had visited the patient's house
several days before his death, and were able to take
his depositions. Madame Teyier, it appear., had had
some differences with her brother-in-law relative to
her husband's succession, but the quarrel had been
smoothed over, and at long Intervals she visited hitn.
Her two daughters were the presumptive heirs of
Pierre Teyier, their uncle; bnt the inheritance was
not to come to them soon, considering the health of
the uncle. H. Teyier had, it seems, a hatred of mar-
nage, and had his sister-in-law married again, lie
would probably have left his property tr his first
cousin, with whom he was friendly. The act of
accusation implies that Maclaine I eyier, who was
only 35 years of age, had some idea of marrying
again, were it only to get her futrire husband to take a
share in the management of her farm. On the 2nd
of July. 1867, she paid a vidt to her brother in-law,
then suffering from an attack of gout, and spent the
evening with him. Next day Dr. Gaston, the same
who played so important a part in the trial of Ream—
was sent for by Pierre Teyier, and he found him suf-
fering from diarrhea and stomach-ache. Madame
Teyier returned to Is Meilleraye on the lsth of July,
and installed herself there with her servants, her tem
daughters and their governess. From that time Teyier
became worse. Dr. tianne always asked for the vonnt
of the patient, in order that he might examine it, but
he waa always told that it bad beta forgotton. Th•

physician at last obtained some, and when in the act
of pouring it into a glass bottle to take it away, the
widow Teyier came in and asked with much surprise,
what he intended to do with it. She afterwards
insisted upon the experiments being made at once in
her own presence, but the physician declined to do no.
The vomit, when analysed, revealed the presence of
arsenic. The act of accusation even asserts that
Dr. Gentle was kept in ignorance that the patient had
vomitings till he detected the fact himself, and
Teyier invariably vomited after having taken the
broths prepared either by his servant Frances Richard
or the widow Teyier. The act of accusation narrates
the conversation which supports the material evidence.
On the 11th of August, while strangers' hands cloned
the victim's eyes, the widow Teyier said she had
no interest whatever in the death of her brother-in-
law, and that hie succession would cause embarrass-
ment to her instead of being advantageous. "After
all," continued she, "I don't know a single poison. I
know well that there is one called arsenic, hut I never
saw it." At those words the servant girl Richard also
said that she did not know any poison, and repeated
that it was very surprising that people should suppose
that her master had died from poison. As to Francis
Chariot, Madame Teyier's father, the act of accusation
says that if he did not pour the poison with his own
hand he had at least participated in the crime by the
assistance he gave to the guilty parties whose projects
he knew and aided. Ile had a direct and personal it.
terest in the prompt death of Pierre Teyier, because
he was his debtor for a sum of 30,090fr.' to be paid
Sept. 29, then close at band. The act of accusation
reproaches the widow Teyier and her faß/er With
having failed to unite their efforts with those of the
magistrates to discover the poison, and te apply the ve wr
remedy. As to the prisoners system of defence, the act
of accusation says that they began by asserting that if
Teyier had been poisoned the crime was to be laid at the
door of the physicians themselves. "Sir," said the
widow Teyier to Dr. Ganne, "it is you who put him
in such a case. The drug you gave him last Thursday
did not coma from the chemist's; von took it from
your bag; you committed a mistake ; since that
moment my brother-in-law became worse and worse."
But seeing that such a system could not be supported,
Chariot and his daughter had recourse to another de-
. fence. They summoned to the house of Teyier several
physicians, with the view of destroying, by means of
the conf onion and the opposed diagniesee hastily made,
the authority of the conclusions of the doctors who had
attended the patient.
Such is the act of aocusstion ; its Tema will waffles
to show that the La Meilleraye poisoning trial is one of
the most grave and delicate cases which a jury had
ever to decide upon. e •'"