Bridlington and Quay Gazette. — 1889-12-21 (Bridlington, Humberside, England)

MONSTER IN A CASSOCK.  A notorious French clerical criminal is shortly about to Le tried at the Aveyron Assizes. He is a priest with the altcgether inappropriate name of Moussaint Boucles, and his crimes have been so numerous and peculiar that doubts have arisen as to his sanity. The Paris corres. pondent of the Daily Telegraph says :—Boudes is now i 57 years old, and was borne of humble parents at Thonels, in the Aveyroo. Sent to the ecclesiastical seminary at Perigneux, he distinguished himself there at an early age— not by his talents for study, but for thieving. His petty larcenies having been discovered Bowies was expelled, and sought refuge in a monastery ot Italian priests, whose language he learned. He had, however, to leave this place owing to his immoral conduct, and he n,xt wandered along the shores of the Central sea until he fell in with the unsuspecting Bishop of Castellamare, who, enchanted by the fellow's apparent evangelical meekness and piety, ordained him. Bowles, now a priest, turned up at Marseilles, where he acted as a kind of secretary to a famous preacher, whose manuscript sermons he stole and returned to his native department with them. His stolen pulpit thunder gained him fame in the region, and he was appointed Vicar of Lagarde by the pariah priest there, the Abbe de Moncam. The evangelical Boudee at once began to covet the post of cure for himself, and he set to work to obtain promotion by endeavouring_ to poison the parish priest. Tr this intent he pat sedative water and some chlorhydrate of morphine in the Abbe de Moncam's white wise; but the trick was seen through by the abbe, who, noticing that his wine was slightly muddy, had it examined by a chemist. M. de Moncam had every prod that his vicar had intended to get him oat of the world ; but in order to avoid a scandal be said nothing about the matter, and asked the chemist to help him to keep the terrible secret. Shortly afterwards Boucles was removed to the town of Viviez, where he was appointed Cure, and continued his career of crime. He would, perhaps, have gone on longer unpunished but for the fact that he wrote to a Paris house for a supply of cloth in the name of tne care of a parish in the Tarn. The Paris people were suspicions and made inquiries. The cloth was sent to him, and after he took it proceedings were instituted against him. Boucles was at last suspended by his Bishop, and he was shunt to be arrested when he disappeared, eventually turning up in a monastery, where he pretended to be repentant. From this place he was taken by the polioe, and, in addition to numerous charges against him, he was also accused of having murdered the Abbe Abbar, Cure of Saint-Cirq, who was frightfully beaten and strangled by some person or persons, who plundered his house after having murdered him. Bowies was tried at Montpelier; but the doctors having declared , that he was not responsible for his actions, he was put into an asylum, whence he escaped. Under a false name, he worked tor a while as a farm labourer, and then obtained a place as teacher in a college at Albi, where he was lately arrested at the suit of the friends of a very elderly lady, from whom he embezzled a large sum of money, after having gained her confidence. When in arrest Boucles was recognised and identified. His trial will begin on the 19h instant; but he solemnly protests that he will be able to prove his innocence.