The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1846-03-17 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES.—A trial took place at the last assizes of the Herault which created great sensation. The following are the circumstances of the case, as stated in the indictment. Emilie Vidal, the daughter of a man of large property at St. Pons, was married to Corbiere, a physician, and in due time had a cittld, of which she became so fond as to neglect all her other defies. To divert her mind into the right channel, she was placed particularly under the direction of M. Dousset, the cure of the village of Felines d'Hantpool, near St. Pons, in which the Corbieres lived, with the hope of exciting in her the religious sentiments in which she was deficient. Soon afterwards the child died, and the priest took the opportunity for turning the affections, or rather the passions, of the mother towards himself, and ultimately succeeded in seducing her. Availing himself of the influence he had thus acquired over her, he got her to sign notes of hand in his favour, and at last to make a will, leaving him a large part of her fortune, over which she had the control. under the pretence of saying perpetual masses for her soul. The husband was at last made acquainted with these infamous proceedings, and went to the house of the priest to reproach him with them. During the altercation which ensued, Dousset made an attempt to stab M. Corbierre with a knife, but he escaped unhurt out of the house. As he was going away, the enraged priest took up a gun and fired at him. Again he escaped, the charge having only touched his coat. Another violent scene took place between them some short time after, and the paramour struck the husband a violent blow on the breast with an iron bar. M. Corbiere was immediately seized with phthisis, which he attributed to this injury, and soon after died. Dousset then conceived the following stratagem for securing to himself the whole of Madame Corbiere's fortune. He prevailed on her to consent to marry', his own father, a very aged man, to whom her property was to be made over, and which he, the priest, would inherit on his father's death. But this plan could not be I carried into execution until the legal term of her widowhood was expired. To overcome this difficulty, and the consequences which delay niieht produce, he made the two parties sign a mutual contract of marriage, under very heavy penalties. This was on the sth of March in last year, only a month after the death of M. Corbiere. He at the same time made each of them sign a bond for a sum, left in blank, to be paid to him in case the marriage should not be solemnized. This he afterwards filled up himself with a very large penalty. These transactions, on being made known, excited suspicion that M. Corbiere, the husband, had been poisoned, and the magistrates ordered an exhumation and an autopsy of his body. No traces of poison could be discovered ; but Dousset was indicted for an attempt to murder the deceased by the blow with the iron bar, and also for endeavouring by fraudulent means to deprive M. Vidal, the brother and heir of Madame Corbiere, of the property to which he would succeed on her death. After a long hearing, in which all the facts stated were fully investigated, the jury delivered a verdict drclating the prisoner guilty of fraud, but acquitting him of the charge of attempting murder. The Court condemned him to close confinement, with labour, for eight years, and to be exposed on the pillory in the market-place of Montpellier. When this judgment was pronounced, Dousset spoke not a word, nor did he show the slightest emotion.—Golignoni's Messenger.