Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-08-16
MARIE BIERE's CASE.
Lsehaud's EIOquenee and Ingenaity in
Criminal Practice.
Cornhfll MAGAZINE


NJ. Lachaud, who exercises a In agicsI in
| huence over juries, was three years ago called
| upon TO defend girl named Marie Biere,
who had shot at her paramour with a re-
volser and wounded him so dangerously
that for weeks he lay at the point of death.
Marie Biere was not an artless girl wreakins
frantic vengeance on a man who had seduced
her, but person of worthless antece-
dents, who, having formed a tiasion
with young gentleman of property,
wished to induce him to marry her
and shot him because he was going to m AIRY
somebody else. 1t ought to have been re-
garded as an agsravating circumstance in her
crime that her paramour had not seusht to
cast her or pelniless, but had liberally set
tied an income of ETA a year on her life;
and yet it was precisely on this fact that NJ
Lachaud based his most mastery defense OF
the girl and obtained her acquittal. He fully
admitted how bad Mile. Biere's antecedents
had been; "but," he asked, with his fiery
eloquence, "what has that to do with il? If
this poor creature conceived true and ten
der feeling of love for this man, if she had
cherished the dream of becoming his wife
and leading a life of purity thenceforth, was
1t not most pitiable thing that her hopes
OF redemption should have been destroyed?
You saw how she spurned his noDey-her
love had purified her-he had won her heart
and his desertion had made her desperate. Are
you going now by your verdict. to affirm
that women who have once fallen shall never
be allowed to love, shall never blot out the
past, shall be subject all Their lives to the
degradation of offers such as this by which
Marie Biere's lover sought, as he cynically
said, to compensate her? Compensation at
the rate of 300 francs month for a broken
hearth Compensation by insult for wrong
most cruel, most worthy of good mems COM
passionp
There were numbers of iue ladies, actresses,
authors-the author of the Dame daz Came
has among them-who wept in court during
this stirring address; and the bewildered
Jury brought in verdict of not guilty, which
was hailed with tremendous applause, waving
of handkerchiefs and hats. Marie Biere, in
leaving the court, received an enthusiastic
ovation from the crowd in the Sale des Pas
Perdus, and for several days afterward the
girls lodgings were beset by warm-hearted
people, who brought her bouquets, cards and
more substantial gifts. But her scquittal
produced most disastrous consequences. 1t
led, in fact, to very epidemic of shooting
and vilriol-throwing. In the course of the last
two years at least twenty girls have been ar
raigned at the Assizes for seeking reparation |
for their blighted hopes III ct ds1nis, and NJ |
Llchaud's famous speech, repeated with every |
kind oil variation suitable TO particular cir |
by barristers great and small, has |
Always leu 10 acqulptais. In one OF these
cases NJ. Georges Lachaud, nephew of the |
great Lachaud, had to meet the remon-
strances of the public prosecutor, who plainly |
pointed out that the constant acquittal of 1
adyenturesses who had no object but TO bring
themselves into notoriety by committing
murder was really public scandal and /
ianger to society. 81 contend, on the con-
rsry, that such scquittals are tending I'M
to moralize society,"" answered
VI. Georges Lachaud. "By proving that you
lave no sympathy with young men of loose
avs have failed to make them virtuous, hut |
ne such verdict as you may render can
righten them into becoming So"