The Sun. — 1834-03-29 (London, England)

GOD-. sox, and contradicted himself so as to be quite incredible.  The prisoner was acquitted.  The Court of Assizes at Rheims was a few days ago occupied with the trial of a woman and her father, charged with the murder of the husband of the former. The trial excited very great interest. The following are the particulars of the case, as given by the Gazette des Tribunaux. The female prisoner, Florentine Simonnet, had for some time resided with her husband at the village of Ablancourt. The husband, it appears, was a man of brutal character, and in his fits of drunkenness was in the habit of severely beating his wife. In consequence of this ill-treatment, the prisoner, even within a year after her marriage, had expressed to her father her desire to get rid of him by poison or other means. Jacques Simonnet, the father, resided with them, and had assisted his daughter, upon several occasions, in her attempts to procure a separation from his son-in-law. On the Ist of January last, after partaking of a repast prepared by the female prisoner, the unfortunate husband was seized with violent spasms, and died two days afterwards. The symptoms in some respects resembled those of cholera, but the inhabitants of Ablancourt, from their knowledge of the differences which had arisen between the prisoner and his wife, had suspicions that the death was caused by poison, and reports of the circumstances having reached the authorities, the prisoner was apprehended. At the post mortem examination of the body, the surgeons detected the presence of arsenic, and gave their opinion that the deceased had been poisoned with that mineral. Both father and daughter at first denied any participation in the crime, but the female prisoner subsequently asked for permission to make a fresh declaration, and then, with the most perfect calmness, admitted that for a long time past she had conceived a very strong desire to poison her husband ; that six months previously she had bought 15 sous' worth of arsenic, and that on the Ist of January, profiting by the intoxication under which her husband laboured, she had at four different times put arsenic into his food. Before the prisoner made this confession, however, she had made a very different statement to three women confined in the same prison with her. She at first said that her father was equally as guilty as herself, and that it was by his persuasion that she had poisoned her husband. She also stated that she had before put arsenic into an omebleitttteershtheathhado wouldmade fornot honintb.utTthheapytriwbspsheootemontkeeerferno:untotohonecdwobtnrihettfiloetnsmhsogi she told this story remarked ttoohonuahT,tledhatrhen,b;:hat as one of the herself tsohbeehrtahedseptoeoneldtlyinthggeumiwlthyfaatplseershhsooeond,hsa,andadndssaihsedtotuthtoelynthpseeasirde_ butwthatprisoners distress. interrogatedtehhnac f evincedamt Shehige hrthentwb be was great r saved,eai nd admitted oiectmet einot dt; seemed in much sisted in the innocence of her father. At the trial she persisted in her confession, and the prisoner Simonnet, in defence, denied any knowledge of the crime. The jury acquitted the father, and found the wife guilty of poisoning her husband, but with extenuating circumstances, and therefore the capital penalty was not pronounced, but she was sentenced to hard labour for life. It was subsequently stated in court, that the male prisoner Simonnet, although he had always persisted in his innocence, had laid a wager of five francs with a fellow prisoner that he should be wild .mued and executed.