Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1867-08-17 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

SENSATION TRIAL IN FRANCE.  The Parisians are not one whit behind you Londoners in their fondness fur "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 Frigard. 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, Becaccio, and other inedlieval racer/Weer% delight in describing. She hart a little money, which she had 10,1)..ed with the Coreptalirel'Eacompte. Chance appr,ars to have placed her en eilipare with Madame It cigar 1, who had a husband and fatnilv at Cacti, ruined by a bankroptcy, and who had some to Paris to see if she could not retrieve her fortunes. She determined upon buying a kind of eating-hon-., and the prosecution charges her with having dons so with Madame Mertens' money by means of forged cheques, and to have killed her to trecent her discovering the ;rand twarAsed upon her. The prisoner admits she ingratiated henklf with Nfatlante Mertens by acting as a thaper•in, and facilitating her amours by giving them a cloak of respectability. The prisoner and the deceased went to Fontainehlelut in May last. They went together to have a drive in the forest, and then dismissed their carriage. A few hours later trio prisoner returned alone to the hotel, saying that she had lost her companion, paid the 1411, and return rsd to town. On the following day she drew the reinsieder of the money deposited by the deceased at the Comptoir d'Eacomt.te, and completed the purchase of the shop for which she was in treaty. A few days later the corpse of the deceased was found lying by to. roadside; insects had eaten away part of the face. A pod-niortem examination led to the discovery that there was no apparent cause of death, but the intet ence drawn by the doctors was that it had been caused rt 'ring a heavy slumber, by suffocation. Madame Frigerd was thereon arrested, and as she was found to have appropriated the money belonging to the deceased she is charged with wilful ururder. She repudiates the accusatiou ; persists in asserting that she had gone into partnership with the deceased, and produces a deed to that effect, which the prosecution consider a forg,re. The prisoner also asserts that the cheques with which she drew the money were given her by the deceased, as a requital for the assistance she gave her in her kers affairs. She says that Madame Mertens's ohject in going to Fontainebleau was to meet ow-, of her loeent, a man who. she says, was habitually called " Ouilley (qu. Willy?). though his name was Williams ;" that they met together at a spot near the restaurant in the forest, where she and the 11.,alled hail breall ; that " awl her friend left her to take a solitary walk, and as they dirt not return she elec-ed to go home, The police have been unable to find any trace of this " Williams," and the prosecution ineist that he is myth. The deceased appears also to have live,' with a Mr. Bunlet, Who"meant to MARY her," ace reeling to the prisoner, but he is at St. Petersleirgh, and WI the President observed, dries trot seem inclined to return to hive evidence. These are the whole of tis leading facts, pro and eon. M. Lachaud is the prisoner's counsel, and it may seem strange to Englishmen that the own is sitting on a Sunday—Wrench assize courts sewn to have a peculiar fancy for ricsecratleg the Sabbath.)—The difficulty ii. the case is how the deceased came by her death. She WWI a strong, powerful woman ; the prisoner is weak and small The doctors who gave evidence, however, expressed an opinion that the prisoner, however weak, could suffocate the deceased, however string, pn,vided she knelt on her chest, sold applied a gentle bit continnous preseure to her windpipe, a theory which M. Lachaud will no doubt try to upset.