The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-19 00:00:00

lORGERY 1?v FRANCE.

The Court of Assiees of Seine has been oecta-
pie d f or two days in trying th.l man, named Girandr
who %vas arrested in August lasf at Gatebourse
(Chare't ,tejnferieure) for making and uttering a
number of forged notes of the Be nk; of France.
From the inclictelent and the evidence given on
the trial, it appears that in 1853 the Lank toicame
aware that a great number of forged 100f.-ootes
were in circus, ation, and all the measures teken to
~zer proved fruitless for some years.
discover the I'm,
In 1857 many DO,' e.s for 200 f., evidently from the
same source, were at'so uttered, and the Bank con-
sequently ceased to ; ssue notes of that amount.
The forger then fell b ack upon the 100 f. notes, of
which a great number were received at the Bank ha
1859, 1860, and 1861. As a great proportion of the.
'lto the branch bank at An-
forged notes were paid 1,
gouleme, the directors caxne to the conclusion that
the forger resided in
.the .Charente-Inferieure, and
after minute inquiries suspicion at last tell upon
the prisoner, who resided at the Chateau 0,,c Gate-
bourse, where he lived in great style, at an m.xpense
far beyond the :MI:II'MS 11,e was known to possess.
3of , and to
The prisoner was a native of that
tart of t
went he eoun-.
try, which he left at ti, no
•
South America, where he reanained 15 or 16 years,
ostensibly working as an enwraver on metal, bat
there is good reason to belie,v:e that he at last:
quitted the country through fear- of a prosecution
for forgery. He returned to Franca` at the end of
1851 in an almost destitute condition'. In March,
1853, he signed a• deed of partnership• with a litho-
graphic printer named Dupuy, for the purpose of
working certain improvements in the art of engrav-
ing of which he pretended to be the invem'or. The
enterprise, however, was not carried out l'or want
of capital. It was towexds the close of that same
year that the first forged notes were disco vered.
In 1857, the prisoner went to his native place,. tolt.
a
appearance a man of considerable property, and,
although he had a wife in America, he married a
Mademoiselle Michaud, who ha d an income of
5,000 f. L.l. year, and was proprietor of the Chateau
of GateboOrse, where the prisoner .took up his re-
sidence, and. began to indulge in g.reat expense,,
keeping 11 servt,,.nts, six or eight horses, and seve-
ral carriages. When the house was first searchedr
at the time of his' ~arrest, the police found two copy-
ing presses, a gal v. anoplastic apparatus, a complete
set of graving too. Is,. and a roll of 120 ban k.
notes for 100 f. each, complete all but the signa-
ture of the contr.:Alen and 24 more were in a.
less advanced state. A second search was made
a week later, and theta all the,blocks, engravings,
1\ 'ere found in a cask apparatus for for making the water-mark, and other
articles used by forgers,
h what skill and pele-
ing a false bottom. A examination of these
plates and blocks showed Vit.
ached them in every
severance the prisoner had retos
-lion as to produce
part till they were so near perfeA
experienced eye
notes which none but the most
All the notes
could distinguish from the real once,
at the Bank
found on the premises and receive*l
had evidently been made with these pla,!.es.The total
number of forged notes paid into the 13ank from
1853 to 1861 was 1,532, of which 1,394 were for
100 f. each, and 138 for 200 f., amounting in all to
167,000 f. Before the examining reagisteate, the
prisoner declared that he had not made the' notes,
but had found them in a secret drawer of a large
bureau, which he bought at the public auc tion-
rooms in Paris, with a lot of engraver's tools. In
court he repeated the same story, and added that
the secret drawer also contained the four paper
parcels which the polee had discovered in the
cask, and which he had bidden there without being
aware of their contents, as they were sealed up.
The prisoner was, however, unable to produce any.
evidence as to the purchase of the bureau in ques-
tion, and no such piece of furniture was found either
in hie lodgings inParis or at Gatobourse. The whole
story, indeed, was so full of improbtAilities and con-
tradictions as to be totally unworthy' of credit. Se-
veral witne
sses were called for the defence, but their
evidence had no bearing on the principal points of
the case, being
chiefly confined to proving that the
prisoner's ex
perOiture had not been so lavish as
represented by
the' prosecution. The jury, after
the President had rt'capitulated the evidence, re-
tired to deliberate, an d.in half an hour returned into
•
court with a verdict of guilty. The Court then
sentenced the prisoner to
,hard labour for life and a
fine of 100 f.