The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-09 00:00:00

A French Poisoning Case.

The Count de la Pommerais is to be tried on Mon-
day next at Paris on the charge of having pisoned

a widow named Madame Pauw. The idietment

preferred against him, from which the whole of the
following is taken, begins by recording that at the

beginning of November last there lived in a small
lodging on the second floor in the Rue Bonaparte, a

woman of the age of 42, who ever since 1858 had
been the widow of a painter named Pauw. She was
left without fortune and with three children, the

eldest of whom was only eight years old. She
courageously struggled against the difficulties of
the situation in which she found herself, and

her family. La Pommerais had known Madame

Psuw for several years ; he attended her hus-

band in 1858, and after his death he very soon be-

came the lover of the widow. Their relations on

he footing of lover and mistress continued to the

middle of 1861, but in the month of August in that
year M. la Pommerais married Mdlle. Dubizy, and
for more than two years afterwards he never saw

Mine. Pauw. He even refused to go to see her

children when they were ill. One day, however, in
the month of June last, -Madame Pauw to her great
surprise, found him once more in her lodgings, and
by way of explanation of his sudden return, he

said he had hit upon a plan for providing for her

children in the future. Ha told her that she must

not tell any one of the means, and having thus re-
established relations Ns ith Madame Pauw, he pro-

posed that she should insure her life for a sum of

550,000 f., that he would pay the premiums, and that

she should aseign the policies to him. But it being
obvious that i❑ this way neither Madame Pauw
nor her children would get any benefit, La Pomme-
rais added that he could man age to get for her an
almost immediate income by this arrangement. He
suggested that a little while after the policy was
effected she should pretend to he seriously ill, and

make the insurance office believe that ahe wa6 on

the point of death; then ho would go to the corn-
pany and propose to them to cancel the policy,
on the terms of paying her a life annuity Of
6,000 t., to run from January 1, 1864. Ile
would phar3 this annuity with her, and
in this way she would be better off than she
had ever before been in her life. Madame Pauw
had not the courage to rfject this strange proposal.
She shut her eyes to the dishonesty of the specula-

tion. She was incapable of suspecting the real de-
signs of La Pommerais, dominated as she was by her
passion for him—a passion now revived, and
st►onger than ever. She blindly consented to let
him arrange the matter as he desired. But La
Pommerais took oare not to come into direct con-

tact with the insurance companies. A broker
named Desnaidt, through whom he had only recently

. _
become initiated in all the various combinations oi

life insurance, was instructed to tell the companies
that a rich Frenchman, the Count de la Pom-

merais, wishing to provide for the children he
had had by Madame Pauw, desired to insure her
lite, which was an excellent one, for their bene-

fit. On this representation six French com•
panies—La Generale, La National, La Paternelle

L'Union, 1.41 PhEnix, L'lmperial—and two Anglo

French companies, L'lnternational and the Gres
ham—agreed to iesae policies on Madame Pauw's
life for the total sum of 550,000 f. The eight policies
were signed between the Bth and 21st of ;-; eiy, and
the annual premiums agreed tobe
amounted to
18,840 f. Madame Panel was ut:
ierly unable to Day
the first premiums. These -ivere paid, through De-
smidt, by La Pomme,,,ais and thenceforth
only thought was
OW to get the benefit of the in-
surances which had effected. He b,egan by get-
ting all the policies transferred to himself by Ma-
dame Preaw's endorsement, in which she was made
to ailonit that she had received from him sump of
tr.oney equal to the amounts mentioned in the re-
spective policies ; and separate deeds, drawn up by
an agent named Louis, repeated the same story.
Doubting afterwards whether he was sufficiently
secure against all possible claims on the part of
Madame Pauw's next of kin, ho consulted an avoue,
named Levaux, without telling him what had been
done, stated a fictitious case, and got him to draw
up a deed such as he required. This deed served
him as a copy, and on the 31st of August he got
the widow Pauw to sign another deed similar in
form. But to be more secure still, he got her to
sign a will, in which she repeated that eight policies
were his property, and moreover bequeathed to
him all that she could by law leave, and she even
went so far as to say that she gave him the interest
of the part reserved for her children, without his
being called upon to give security. She was never-
theless a fond mother, and this fact proves how com-
pletely Pommerais had obtained an influence over
her, and how blindly she did whatever he required.
The time now came for La Pommerais so to act
that all the pains he had taken might not be
futile and unproductive. The death of Madame
Pauw was the only event which could relieve him
from the paymtnt of annual premiums (the
next of which was due in January) quite beyond
his means, and at the same time put him in pos-
session of the £550,000f. He had long pre-
pared himself with the necessary poison. eke far
back as the month of June, when he renewed his re.
lations with Madame Pauw, he bought a gramme of
digitalis, and a week later he bought two grammes.
He perfectly well knew that this poison leaves no
trace behind, but it was important for him to be
able to explain in a more or less plausible manner
the vomiting which digitalis never tails to cause.
With this object he reminded Madame Pauw, as
coon as he got the will from her, that in order to
got her policies bought
lowed up
i by the insurance offices
upon advantageous terms, t was necessary that she
should simulate an illness. She at once followed
his counsels, and one day in Septete.ber, a window
frame having fallen down with a great noise upon
her staircase, she took the opportunity of saying
she had had a violent fall, and after that time com-
plained frequently of a pain in the stomach. She
went furthe,r, and consulted several physicians, who
gave her prescriptions which she took care never
to follow, but handed over at once to La Pommerais-
The month of November came without Madame
Pauw, although she continually talked of her illnese
and her pain in the stomach, ever ceasing to busy
nerseif with her ordinary Occupation. La Pern-
a:ten-Lis then thought that the preliminary stages
nad gone lnng enough, and that the time had come