The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-17 00:00:00

SINGULAR TRIAL.

The Assize Court at Paris, on Thursday, writes
our correspondent, was crowded yesterday morning
by a well-dressed audience, among whom were
several actors and actresses, to hear a singularly
dramatic trial for an attempted murder. The pri-
soner, a young man of 19, but looking younger, was
a jeune premier (player of lover's characters) at the
little theatre of Mont Parnasse. His name is Du-
mont. He appears to have been a sort of Cheru-
bim', sighing after every lady within his ken. The
actresses to whom he made love laughed at him and
treated him as a child, and their husbands or pro-
tectors never considered him a rival worth notice. In
the course of the summer he became very seriously in
love with the wife of a brother actor, named Demon-
geot, with whom he was on terms of intimacy.
He wrote her several amatory epistles, which
she never answered ; but she gave him no encou-
ragement, reproved him when they met, and
although she did not show the love letters to her
husband, only abstained, as it seems, in mercy to
her youthful admirer. On July 5, while Demangeot
was on the stage in character at the Mont Parnasse
Theatre, Dumont went to his dressing room, took
the key of his apartments from the pocket of the
ordinary clothes which he found there, returned to
the body of the theatre, where he vehemently ap-
plauded his friend, and then stealthily making use
of the key, got into his lodgings, There he partly
undressed himself, and, armed with a poignard and
a carving knife, took up an expectant position under
Madame Demangeot's bed. There he was when
the unsuspecting husband came home at midnight.
The wife, who had been playing at the Island
Theatre, in the Bois de Boulogne, did not get home
till half an hour later. The couple took their supper
together leisurely, and it was about two in the
morning before they retired to rest--in separate
beds. Dumont waited quietly till they were well
asleep, 'and must have remained in his hiding place
for nearly four hours. At three in the morning he
got up and made a murderous attack on M. Deman-
geot in his bed, inflicting no less than 15 wounds,
none of which, however, happily, proved fatal or
even dangerous. The wife, awakened by her
husband's screams, ran down stairs in her night-
dress, crying for help. A police-sergeant and a
neighbour quickly came to her assistance, and
Dumont was secured while struggling with his
victim, with whom he was rolling over and over on
the floor. Under these circumstances Dumont
is indicted on the capital charge of having, with
premeditation and guet a pens
(lying in .wait), at-
tempted to murder Demangeot. From the deposi-
tions and the examination of the prisoner in court,
is to be collected that his intention was to mur-
der the husband, and then, if possible, possess the
wife; or, in case of her resistance, to murder her
and kill himself. As soon as the examinatione theof
witnesses was concluded, the Imperial Procureur
moved the court that, inasmuch as some ®f
pri-
soner's witnesses spoke of him as reputed insane, the
trial should be postponed to another session, in
order to afford time for medical examination. This
r.
motion was energetically opposed by the prisoner's
counsel, M. Algernon Jones (a French barrister of
English birth), who contended that during the
three months which his client had been in prison
the public prosecutor had had plenty of time to in-
quire into the Mate of his mind, and Abundant