The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1868-03-20 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

FRANCE.  On Friday, at the Court of Assize of Niort, a criminal trial for poisoning commenced, which will rank amongst the causes celebres of France. Three persons are indicted for having caused the death of Pierre Tryier, single man, in possession of a fortune of £l2OOO. The prisoners are—the widow Teyier, nee Chariot, sister-in. law of the victim; Frances Richard, his servant; and Francis Chariot, father of the widow Teyier. It is a singular circumstance that Francis Chariot was the partner of Martin Beau in land speculations. Beau was sentenced last year by the same Court of Assius to the galleys for life for wilful murder by poison. The crime was perpetrated at the Chateau de is bfeilleraye, in the arrondissement or district of Partheny, department of the Deux Sevres, the chief town of which is Niort. The poisoning seems to have been conceived and perpetrated with a slowness and a perseverance implying a well-corn. bitted plan; but it appears, notwithstanding, that the authorities were on the alert even before the death of Pierre Teyier. Pierre Teyier had always enjoyed remarkable good health, but in the middle of 1867 he complained of having an inexplicable weight on the chest, a burning thirst and nausea, and he vomited frequently. lie emitted a fetid odour, and succumbed at the end of one month. A postmortem examination took place, which resulted in the discovery of arsenic, and death was declared to be the result of the mineral. Arsenic was found net only in the viscera, but also on the boards of the floor OD which he had vomited. Who were the poisoners? The only persons who had constantly attended upon Pierre Teyier during his illness were his servant Frances Richard and his sister- in. law, the widow Teyier. They alone prepared and gave to him his food and drink; and if, by chance, another servant attended upon his master during the night, he received the potions ready made which he was to give him. The judicial authorities had visited the patient's house several days before his death, and were able to take his depositions. Madam Teyier, it appears had had some differences with her brother-in-law relative to her husband's succession, but the quarrel had been smoothed over, and at long intervals she visited him. Her two daughters were the presumptive heirs of Pierre Teyier, their uncle; but the inheritance was not to come to them soon, considering the health of the uncle. M. Teyier had, it seems, a hatred of marriage, and had his sister-in-law married again, of which she had some idea, he would probably have left his property to his first cousin, with whom he was friendly. As to Francis Chsrlot, Mdme. Teyier's father, he had a direct and personal interest in the prompt death of Pierre Teyier, because he was his debtor for a. sum of 30,000 f., to be paid Sept. 29, then close at hand. As to the prisoners' system of defence, the act of accusation says that they began by asserting that if Teyier bad been poieoned the crime was to be laid at the door of the physicians themselves. "Sir," said the widow Teyier to Dr. °Anne, "it is you who put him in such a case. The drug you gave him last Thursday did not come from the chemist's • you took it from your bag ; you committed a mistake; since that moment my brother-in-law became worse and worse." But seeing that such a system could not be supported, Chariot and his daughter had recourse to another defence. They summoned to the bony of Teyier several physicians, with the view of destroying, by means of the confusion and the opposed diagnoses hastily made, the authority of the conclusions of the doctors who had attended the .iatient.