The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-08-17 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SENSATION TRIAL IN FRANCE.  The Parisians are not one whit behind you Londoners in their fondness for "a good murder," and the chief topic of interest just now is the curious trial going on at Melun (writes a Paris correspondent.) The prisoner is an active, intelligent little woman, named Frigate!. The victim was a Belgian widow, of the name of Mertens, who appears to have been very partial to adventures of that peculiar character which Brantome, Bodied°, and other inedileval raccenteurx delight in describing. She had a tittle money, which she had lodged with the Comptoird'Escompte. Chance appears to have placed her en rapport with Madame rigard, who had a husband and family at Caen, ruined by a bankruptcy, and who 'had come to Paris to see if she could not retrieve her fortunes. She determined upon buying a kind of eating-home, and the prosecution charges her with having done ItO with Madame Mertens' money by means of forged cheques, and to have killed her to prevent her diecovering the :mud practised upon her. The prisoner admits she ingratiated herself with Madame Mertens by acting sea chaperon, and facilitating her amouni by giving them' a cloak of respectability. The prisoner and the deceased went to Fontainebleau in May last. They went together to have a drive in the forest, and then dismissed their carriage. A few hours later the prisoner returned alone to the hotel, saying that she had loot her companion paid the bill, and returtied to town. On the following day she drew tie remainder of the money deposited by the deceased at the Comp. toir d' Escompte, and completed the purchime of the shop for which she WU in treaty. A few days later the corpse of the deceased was found lying by toe roadside; insects had eaten away part of the face. A post-mortem examination led to the discovery that there was no apparent cause of death, but the infeleilee drawn by the doctors was that it had been caused ii ir. ing a heavy slumber, by suffocation. Madame Frigard was thereon arrested, and as she was found to have appropriated the money belonging to the deceased she is charged with wilful murder. She repudiates the ac• cueation ; persiets in asserting that she had gone iuto partnerehip with the deceased, and produces a deed to that effect, which the prosecution consider a fors, ry. The prisoner also aseerts that the cheques with which she drew the money were given her by the deceased, ass requital for the assistance she gave her in her lose affairs. She says that Madame Mertens's object in going to Fontainebleau was to meet one of her lovers, a man who, she says, was habitually called "Onilley (qu. Willy ?). though his name was Williams ;" that they met together at a spot near the restaurant in the forest, where she and the deceased had breakfasted; that' Willy and her friend left her to take a solitary walk, and as they did not return she elec,,ed to go home. The police have been unable to find any trace of One "Williams," and the prosecution ineiet that he is a myth. The deceased appears also to have lived with a Mr. Burdet, who "meant to marry her," according to the prisoner, but he is at St. Petereburgh, and as the President observed, does not seem inclined to return to give evidence. These are the whole of the leading facts, pro and con. M. Lachaud is the pd. Boner's counsel, and it may seem strange to Englishmen that the court is sitting on a Sunday—(French assize courts seem to have a peculiar fancy for desecrating the Sabbath.) —The difficulty in the calm is bow the deceased came by her death. She was a strong, powerful woman; the prisoner ill weak and small. The doctors who gave evidence, however, expressed an opinion that the prisoner, however weak, could suffocate the deceased, however strong, provided she knelt on her chest, and applied a gentle Int continuous pressure to her windpipe, a theory which M. Lachaud will no doubt try to upset.