The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-01-05 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SENSATION TRIAL IN PARIS.  The trial for the Champerret murders was brought to a conclusion on Salu,car oefore the pee manent courtdnarttal of l'aria, writes the correspondent of the Daily Sews:—  . _ Diming the two days that the trial lasted the hall in the Rue du Cherche-Midi, where the court-martial sits, was crowded by civilians to an extent rarely seen in that locality. Ihe story of two soldiers from St. Cloud having laid about them with their sabres in a public-house Close to the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris, killed one person and nearly killed three others, natus rally excited great sensation in Paris, and the neighbours of the victims in the quarter of the Parc de Neuilly flocked to the Rue du Cherche-Midi to see the denountent of the terrible drama. The two prisoners, private soldiers in the Voltigeurs of the Impes rial Guard, named Ciosi and Agostini, are both Corsicana The facts indisputably proved in evidence are that they, having obtained leave of absence from the St. Cloud barracks, went to the Lyons railway station at the other extremity of Paris to see a countryman off to Marseilles. On their way back they stopped • for refreshment at a small wine shop kept by one Vitte in the Rue du Bois at Champerret, just outside the barrier. After drinking, they asked to sleep there on the ground that one of them was so footsore that he could not get back to St. Cloud that night They were provided with shakedowns in a back room of the wine-shop; and in the course of the night they went away, having kilted a lodger in the house, named Boromier, knocked out an eve of the landlord, Vitte, besides cutting him badly about the head, and murderously aisaulted his wife and brotherin-law. These are facts about which there is no doubt. The evidence, however, completely negatives the rumour originally spread that the StlillkUltinliS were executing a Corsican vendetta, and also the report that they meant to rob the house. The lamentable affair seems to have been the result of a drunken brawl. Vitte, the landlord deposes that he sat up late expecting the murdered man, &wonder by name, who was lodging in his honer ; that when Boromier came home Croat, who had gone to bed, got up, and while -sitting in his drawers drank hot wine with Boromier and "chaffed" with him. The soldiers and the civilian bragged about their prowess in boxing, and began spurring, but were begged by the landlord to leave off. The story told by Cioni is that after the landlord was asleep Borismier suddenly seized him by the throat, saying, " This is the way I treat a professor of boxing," and that then thinking he was in danger he took his sword to defend himself and cut Boromier in the head; that the scuffle called up his comrade Agratini, Madame ?Ste, and her brother; and that the wounds iutlicted mien them and the landlord were given while they were forcing their way out of the house. The Judge-Advocate suggested that robbery must have been the motive of their crime, because while they were in the house a creditor of the landlord called for some money, and the latter suffered him Mt. in accusnut, which he declined to accept saying he would call anceher day for the whole. It was admitted, however, by the prosecution that no rob bery was committed, anti that there was no proof of any having been contemplated. The men had fair characters in their regiments, and b sth wore the Crimean and Italian medals. The Court found them guilty of assassination with premeditation, and sentenced them both to death. A circumstance which told materially against the pcisoners was that, ace- irding to the medical evidence, Vitte, the ,anillord, who was most greviously injured, must have been attacked in his sleep, and he had no recollection of any struggle. The Champerret affair is used as an additional and weighty argument on behalf of the growing opinion i that soldiers when siff duty should not be allowed to go about with their arms.