The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-08-05 00:00:00

TRIBUNAL OF. CORRECTIONAL POLICE.

The Tribunal of Correctional Police at Paris has been occupied
with an affair which presents suffici.attly extraordinary details. A
what family, consisting of the father, mother, a yowng child, and
a sister of the mother, made a narrow escape front suffering in the
19th century the same fate as the unfortunate I:golino, whose mis-
fortune Dante has described in an admirable episode of his Itifrtrar
and what is still more extraordinary is, that it was the members
of
this family who appeared at the bar of the Correctional Police as
accused of breaking inelosii res. The following are the facts which
have given rise to this singular trial:—The Sieur Gouirond
is the proprietor or a house situated in the Court of Menilmontant.
Thin house has no other issue but the Court itself, which belongs
jointly to the Sieur Gouirond, and to the Sieure Bellefleur. Rou.
tier, &c. It appears that Gouirund was bound by the terms of
runtime to cause the passage to be paved, and that he
did not fulfil this obligation. A lawsuit was commenced in
consequence before the Tribunal of First Instance : after which
a judo-tent was delivered, which was confirmed :It the Court
Royale. Its declaim' was, that in the space of two months Goui-
rued should be obliged to cause the passage to be paved ; if not,
that Bellefleur and the others should have a right to shut it up.
The Judges, in ordering this measure, undoubtedly did not know
that this was decreeing an actual blockade. However that may
be, on the expiration of the two months the family of Gouirond one
rooming found the passage shut by a goof harricado of planks,
which interrupted all communication with the exterior. A phy-
111CiAll, who had been called in to visit a sick child, could not pene-
trate into the house. The woman Gouirond, and the woman Tra-
pier, her sister-in-law, being in danger of dying with hunger, took,
' the er e a hatchet, and the other a saw, and soon made& wide breach
in the rampart which separated them from the rest of the living.
It was this action that gave rise to the complaint of breaking Melo-
sum, directed by Bellefleur, &c. against the family of Gouirond.
The Advocate of the plaintiff began with along history of the
lawsuit, which the President interrupted, by asking him if he
admitted that the house of Gouirond had no other issue but the
count Menilmontant ?
The Advocate, while he admitted this fact, argiaed on the au-
thority of a judgment. The closing of the mugs had been or-
dered by a sovereign decree, add he, if Gouirond did not fulfil his
obligations. The delay allowed had expired, consequently Belle.
fleur had a right to execute the judgment. It will be mid, per.
haps, that the family of Gouirond were in dagger of dying by
hunger ; I admit it ; hut that consideration could not prevent the
execution of the judgment. it'hy did not they fulfil their obli-
gations%
These arguments, developed with much sang froid by the Advo.
eate, were not received in the same way by the auditory, and Pe-
court, the King's Advocate, by some argument full of wisdom,
removed all imputations of crime. The Tribunal, without giving
the defender of the accused time to address it, declared them sc.
weituul of the crime, because they had not had any intention to
commit an outrage against another person's property ; but only to
provide for the pressing wants of the r subsistence.