The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

ALLEGED OUTRAGE BY SOLDIERS AT
PARIS.

Our Paris correspondence yesterday contained, a
report of the first proceedings of the court-martial •
now sitting in Paris to try Lieutenant A. A. Le-
andri, paymaster of the 95th Regiment of the line,
P. J. L'audri, lieutenant in the same regiment,
and P. J. Benaguese a sergeant also in the same '
regiment, for having committed a gross outrage
upon a respectable married woman who had gone to '
them upon business of the regiment, and whose
death was aleged to have been the result of the
brutal treatment she had received.
After the complaint addressed to the Procureur-General by M. Paillard, the husband of the victim,
had been read, the principal facts were detailed.
The evidence was to the following effect :—Mme.
Paillard, whose maiden name was Renault, ant
who had married a butcher at La Chapelle, St.
Denis, was 27 years of age, intelligent, and affec-
tionate. She was from her le: auty called at Le
Chapelle la belle bouchere, but she was not vain of
the distinction, and was entirely devoted to her
husband, her children, and her business. It bad
been arranged that Leandri should pay for the
meat which the regiment received, at his lodg-
ings, 63, Rue Chabrol, and she or her husband •
went to him every five days for their money.
One day in November, when she returned from
hini, she stated to her husband's man, Duval, who •
had accompanied her, that she had been greatly
frightened, as he had locked her in his room, and
had only let her out on her telling him that her
husband was waiting far her. The moment 'her
husband came home she told him the same, and
added, "I spoke to him very firmly, and he let me
go ; but I was quite ashamed on leaving his room,
because there were some sergeants wai ing iu the
adjacent room." It was then agreed between her
and her husband that she should not go again to ..
Leandri, and they sent one of their men for the
money, but the officer received hitn rudely. She,
in consequence, on another occasion went to
him, but at the same time her husband was in
the barracks close by distributing the meat, and.
she took care to make her children accompany
her. It was then that Leandri wanted to send
the children away to buy sweetmeats, so as to have
her alone, but she peremptorily declared that they
should not leave her. Shortly after her husband,
having committed some violation of the ordinances
relative to the sale of meat, was condemned to six
days' imprisonment, and on the 23d Dec. he went
to the prison of Ste. Pelagie to undergo the punish-
ment. His wife accompanied him there, embraced ,
him affectionately on leaving him, and wrote to
him on the three following days to tell him hew
herself and the children were getting on. On the
20th she wrote to say that ehe had been to Leandri,
and had found him -with his brother and another
officer, and that from what they bad said she hoped
that she and her husband would continue to have
the custom of the regiment. On the 29th Paillard,
having been released from prison, returned home
and found his wife in bed and suffering from deli-
rium. She was attended by Dr. Arnault, but
he called in three other doctors. She recognised.
her hulband, told him she was very ill, and begged.
him to send her to the Hospice Dubois, where she
could be healed more cheaply than at home. To
the questions of her husband as to how her illness
was occasioned, she said, "I have caught a terrible
cold !" She appeared to get better, but after tour
or five days became worse than ever, and had fre-
quent attacks of delirium: When in her moments
of calm she was spoken to, she turned her face to
the wall and frequently did not reply. She was
accustomed to see her husband night and morn-
ing, and used to ask him how business was
going on, to tell him to take care to keep his
accounts regularly, &c. She frequently, in her
moments of calm, talked strangely. For example,
she once said to her mother, who attended her,
" Mother, to retain the custom of a regiment, a
tradeswoman should not be virtuous !" " What
do you mean ?" "Ah ! that scoundrel Leaudri—
he has made propositions to me !" On another
occasion, when she thought no one was in the room,
she was heard to exclaim, "My poor children I
my poor husband ! I am a ruined woman !"
" What is the matter with you ?" asked the nurse,
coming forward. " Men are sometimes sad scoun-
drels I" she said, turning to the wall and.
bursting into tears. A little after, she was
again seized with delirium, and cried out,
" The brigands ? There are three of them--.
drive them away ! Ah, Monsieur Leandri,
leave me ; let me go !" and then she gesticulated
as if trying to escape, and uttered loud cries. Scenes
like this were of frequent occurrence until the 7th
of Feb., whe she called her husband to her, and
begged her mother and nurse to leave the room.
She then spoke thus to him :—" Paillard, I have
something to tell you, but I must tell it to you
alone. I went to the paymaster to receive our
money; he was with his brother ; they fastened
the door, and threw me on the bed. The treated.
me most brutally—they are scoundrels ? It was in-
famous to treat the mother of a family in such a way!"
As she said this she was calm, and her voice bad
its ordinary tone, though weaker than usual. Eter
husband asked her if the men had succeeded in
their attempt, but she did not answer, turned to
the wall, and burst into tears. Shortly after she
became agitated, began talking to herself, and was
se zed with delirium. Her mother and the nurse
were in the room whilst she made this revelation to
her husband, though she thought they bad left it ;
and they confirmed the truth of it. Not content
with the disclosure made to her husband, she gave
her mother a precise description cf the scene that
weighed on her mind—how the men had seized.
her, how they had held her, du., and she gavo
an equally minute one to the nurse. On the
9th of February she died. Dr. Colon, one of the
medical men who attended her, and who had sub-
sequently examined her dead body, expressed the
firm conviction that she had been the victim of
gross brutality. On the other baud, it appeared
from the depositions of other witnesses that Mine.
Paillard, towards the end of December, had had. a
fausse-couche, but that before she had sufficiently
recovered, she had resumed her customary atten-
tion to her husband's business. It was besides ad-
mitted by her husband's man, who had accompanied
her to the paymaster on Dec. 26, that on her return
from that person he had noticed nothing at all ex-
traordinary in her ; and it was shown that on the
same day she had not only written the letter above
quoted to her husband, but had prepared one of
thanks to Lieut. Leandri for having preserved to her
the custom of the regiment. It appeared, too that on
the 27th, the day after the alleged attempt, she
had gone to market in an open cart, though it was
very cold and was snowing hard ; and that it was on
her return home on that day, not the 26th, that
she was seized with illness, and had to be helped
from her out into her house. According, too, to
Dr. Trosseau and another medical man, the woman
had died, not from the effects of violation, but from
a malady peculiar to women under certain circum-
stances. They also stated that this malady pro-
duced hallucinations similar to what were stated to
have oppressed the woman in her delirium. And
lastly, it was stated that the three accused on being
interrogated had energetically denied their guilt.
At the opening of the court, Lieut. A. Leandri
elicteitnhgaitiecirrtiatitnedjottotrmake an observation,hals,lvhichhadrepphdcohmeepdlatin-
he
indictment, had omitted to publish the following
letter written to him by Madame Paillard, on
December 27, the day after the alleged violatiere
" Sir,—As you have promised to be so good as to let
vvliayou tell those gentle.
will meet you by putting
the
haveprihe thhte7oc. regiment
the in,
kilo.aga
men, and be so good as to send me an answer whether
his brother denied all
fay.Bouortahblethoir soffi unfavourablecerai and his
knowledge of the circumstances imputed to them.
Evidence was then gone into, but as far as it pro-
ceeded it is of an extremely weak description. The
general opinion is that the prisoners will be ac-
quitted.

CAPTURE OP A WILD MAN IN MISSOURI.—A. St.
Joseph's correspondent of the St. Louis Republican tells
the following story :—" A wild man was caught last
week and brought to town. He was surrounded in a
sort of lair beneath a dense cluster of undergrowth, like
the habitation of a wild beast, and filled with the bones
and skins of cats, which seemed to have constituted his
principal article of food. For this strange diet he has
a peculiar penchant, and eschewed almost every other.
He hunted cats with an avidity prompted by an extreme
voracity, and it was in the pursuit and slaughter of these
animals that he was first discovered. Frequent attempt&
were made to capture him, but his agility and speed were
such that he appeared to run upon the tops of the• bushes,
and fences offered no impediment to his headlong course.
At length a great number surrounded and secured him.
He attempted battle, but was overcome. When brought
to the Court-house be presented the strangest appearance
conceivable. His height was about 54 feet his hair
Ong, reddish brown, and matted ; his eyes large, grey,
and restless ; his finger nails as long as the claws of a
tiger ; his deportment crouching, half timid, half threat-
ening ; and his garments consisted of a thousand tatters
of cloths, barks, catskine, &c., bound together by cat-
guts. He said he was from the state of New York, and
had been n
permitted
m3itateYdetlorsslan unbound,
Wd
hilehe
he mw" being
g
a"saudmidneend'spring over the heads of those who surrounded
is the
was woods
him, and darted away with the speed of the reindeer. The
crowd pursued him, but in vain. Over the hills be fairly
flew, before both footmen and horsemen, until be was lost
to them. Nothing has since been heard of him." He is
certainly a strange being, and is literally a wild man. His
age can hardly exceed 40, and yet he has lived so much
away from the society of man that he has nearly forget-
ten his language, and has the most vague recollec-
tion of things. He remembered New York, but did not
know where he was, nor the form of government, ueder
which he lived.