The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-13 00:00:00

accused, said that Martin Reau was of very dissolute
habits, and one day he told her, " Your father made
a bad bargain when he bought Portynet's property
for annuities. I should have given him broth at 11
o'clock, and he would have died at noon." (Pro-
longed sensation.) Once when Reau was adminis-
tering a draught to his wife,. he said, " Open your
mouth, it is the devil that puts it in your beak."
The President—Did you utter those words ?
The Accused—l don't know.

Peter Chameau, the carpenter, whom Reau tried
to suborn, was then examined, but his deposition
was not important. The nurse of Abel Reau was
also examined, but said that she had nothing to say
against the accused.

Sitting of Dec. 9.—Although it was Sunday, the
court was crowded to suffocation. When brought in
the accused looked very pale and dejected. Ile sat
down and buried his face in his hands.
Among the witnesses examined was Constant
Louis Martin, schoolmaster, at Pressigny, who said,
when asked if he knew Bichon and Bontemps-
They are honest men; no better people live in the
parish. One day when it was the nationel fete of
Pressigny, I said to Bontemps, " Well, Father Bon-
temps, you always like pure wine, eh?" "
said he, " 1 am obliged to mix it with water now ; I
feel in my stomach a heat which does not leave me."
After the exhumation of the four bodies people said,
" Where would Reau have stopped ? Father Bon-
temps would have been the next victim added to the
four others." I was told also last Tuesday by the
landlord of an inn at Partheny that Reau told him,
" I am about to marry again through my father-in-
law, and afterwards I shall get rid of him."
The Italian, Bertodato, was also examined, and
deposed that when walking in the courtyard of the
prison, where he was undergoing a sentence of 15
days' imprisonment for an offence against the police,
he was accosted many times by the prisoner, who
proposed to aid him to suborn Peter Chameau and
his son, carpenter at Partheny, who were to charge
Bontemps and Bichon with having poisoned Julia
Bontemps and Abel Reau. Martin Reau gave to
Bertodato, the day before he was to leave the pri-
son, a letter containing the written instructions of
Martin Reau to the Chameaux, to each of them Ber-
todato was to offer I,ooof. in his name: Bertodato
was to receive the same sum. But Bertodato, full
of indignation at the diabolical designs of the ac-
cused, handed the letter he was to deliever to Cha-
mean, the father, to the gaoler of the prison, whom
he informed of the whole affair.

The witness was complimented by the president
upon his promptitude in exposing to justice the evil
designs of the accused.

The letter written by Martin Reau to Chameau,
the father, was read in court. It showed that if the
accused was not a scholar, he was very deepin crime.
He wrote for the Chameaux the circumstantial depo•
sitions they were to make. It was to this effect :---
During the night, when returning from their work,
they overheard by chance a conversation between
Bontemps and Bichon ; the first said to the latter
that he 'had poisoned Julia very subtlely without
Martin (the accused) having any suspicion about
it, and that now it was the turn of the - hus-
band, &c.

When shown that letter, and asked if it was his
hand-writing; the accused turned livid and mur-
mured " Yes."

Here closed the evidence adduced by the prosecu-
tion, and the sitting was adjourned till to-morrow
(Monday), when the proceedings will be resumed
with the examination of the witnesses summoned for
the accused, among whom. is M. Sdhumberger, a
chemist of repute, who is likely to assume in this
extraordinary case the attitude of Raprail at the
trial of Madame Lafarge.