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 proceedines of the court-mar ial
now sitting in Paris to try Lieutenant A. A. Le-
andri, paymaster of the 95th Regiment of the line,
P. J. Leandri, lieutersant in the same regiment,
and T. J. Beneguet, 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 alleged 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 fats were detailed.
The evidence was to the following effect :—Mme.
Paillard, whose maiden name was Renault, and
who had married a butcher at La Chapelle, St.
Denis, was 27 years of age, intelligent, and affec-
tionate. She was from her b auty c tiled at La
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 had
been arranged that Leandri should pay for the
meat which the regiment received, at his. lodg-
ings, 03, Rue Chebrol, and she or her htisband
went to him every five days for their money.
One day in November, when she returned from
him, 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 un her telling him that her
husband was waiting fir 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 .ruotn,
because there were some sergeants waiting in 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; hut the officer received him rudely. She,
in consequence, on another occasion went to
him' but at the same time her husband was in
the barracks close by distr.buting 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,
haying 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. Pelagic to undergo the punish-
ment. His wife accompanied him there, embrace!
him affectionately on leaving' him, and wrote to
him on the three following days to tell him hove
herself and the children were getting on. On the
20th she wrote to say that she had been to Leandri,
and bad found him with his brother and another
officer, and that from what they bad said she hope.l
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 husband, 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 four
or five days became worse than ever, and had fre-
quent attacks of delirium. When in her momenta
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 Leandri—.
ho 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
regain seized with delirium, and cried out,.
" The ' brigands 3 There aro three of them—
drive them away ! Ale 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 aro 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 had
its ordipary tone, though weaker than usual. Her
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
seized with delirium. Her mother and ,the nurse
were in the room whilst she made this revelatioa to
her husband, though she thought they had 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 t. f the scene that
weighed on her mind—how the men had seized
her, bow they had held her, dc., and she gave
an equally minute one to ie 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 hand, it appeared
from the depositions of other witnesses that Mme. .
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 cart 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 t
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
being permitted to make an observation, complain- ,
ed that certain journals, which had reproduced the •
indictment, had omitted to publish the following
letter written to him by Madame Paillard, on
-December 27, the day after the alleged violation
" Sir,—As you have promised to be so good as-to let
me have the regiment again, I will meet you by putting
the l
Will you tell those gentle-
men, send me an answer whether
eraincd e atbe 70
soc.
good the
a ks il
t kilo.
favourable or unfavourable ?
Both this officer and his brother denied all
knowledge of the circumstances imputed to them.
Evidence was then gone into, but as far as it pro-
ceeded
is
stht t
extremelyah weak description. The
general
alit opinion is
of
anthe
prisoners will be,ac-
er
ac-
quitted.

CAPTURE OT 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. rile was surrounded- in si
sort of lair beneath a dense cluster of undergrowth, like
the habitation of a wild beast, and filled with the bonier
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 there
animals that he was first discovered. Frequent attempts
were made to 'capture bim, 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 mum.
A t length a great number surrounded and secured bin .
He attempted battle, but was overcome. When brought
to the Court-house he presented the strangest appearance
conceivable. His height was about 5. feet ; his hair
long, reddish brown, and matted ; his eyes large, grey,
apd restless ; his finger nails as long as the clews of a
tiger ; his deportment crouching, half timid, half threat.
ening ; and his garments consisted of a thousand tatters
of cloths, barks, catskinp, &c., bound together by cat-
guts. He said be was from the state of New 'York, and
bad been in the woods 36 years. While he was being
of
the who
reisnudrereorr.
The
examined, and was permitted to stand unbound, he made
a sudden spring
awayov sbru tth
in with
the
n. speed
ebvet aadso
f Overth the hills he fairly
chriomw,danpdursdaured tedhim,
flew, before both footmen and horsemen, until he 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 muck
away from the society of man that he has nearly forgot-
ten his language, and has the most vague recollee.
tion of things. He remembered New York, but did nn{
know where he was, nor the form of government wider
which he lived.