The Sun. — 1822-08-14 (London, England)

PARIS, AUGUST 11. The Constitutionnel contains' the following account of a horrible murder (commitied-i asit supposed, by i-Priest), from the Mayor of. thS* Commune where the Crime took place. • "On Monday, May 8, 1822, in the afternoon, 11. rel:***, ecclesiastic, of the age of 28, Cure of 'Quentin-sin-liere-,:isent to the houseof a young woman, whose tragical and I immune, ed in my notice of June stb, (bla,rie Gerin, .whose murk& • name was Chanalet), and remained there • about two hotirs.l—#.' This woman, who was very pious, Was to have gone-the-atm day to communicate at Venrey,,a neighbouring parish,:where the - • first communion of children was' to take place ; and it appease that the Cure appointed her-an hour to hear her in confession in the evening. She was seen entering the church about aix-in theevening ; she went in alone, and was notieen• to come out:: " The husband of this unfortunate woman wentat 9 o'clock,` to seek her at the houses of several -of her relations; levient: with a female cousin of his wife to the personage-house,'oonguous to the church.. The Cure, who made- them wait, it few instants, said, at firsh Ise had not seen her—then,. recolleaiag himself, added, he had seen her devoutly praying, but without speaking to her. " While he spoke, the Cure walked out from the parsonage, as if he feared they might come in. The Cure afterwards held the same language to different persons,:--to others he said,- thatnot having found this female in a decent dress `enough, he bud declined hearing her confession. The Wednesday, itAnustbx remarked, was a working der. • " About half-past four o'clock in the morning, an inhabitant of the town, descending towards the plain by a path, not . frequented at night, perceived a little from it, and about two hun. dred yards from the parsonage, blood in abundance,-=a-penknife stuck in the ground,—and a string, about 6 metres long, both bloody. In the same place were found rags of flesh and some fragments of bone. Traces of blood led other persons to the • banks of the here, where the neck handkerchief of the unhappy woman was recognised, without doubt placed there to give rise to the idea that she had drowned herself. The idea of assassination occurred to no one in a country which, within the memory of man, had not been stained by any crime. Suicide ir.s thought of. It was imagined, contrary to all probability, that after having stabbed herself with the knife (which was afterwards recognised as not belonging to her), she had still strength ' enough to go and throw herself into the here. It is 890 packs from the place where the knife was found to the bank- 'of, the here, where the handkerchief was. • " The despair of the woman was explained by the great- rigour of the Cure in confession ; and it was imagined, that haring been refused absolution, she had destroyed herself. Her death was said to be the work Of ,the 'deVil, and credulity and superstition propagated the story. On the 16th of the same month, however, the character of the terror that was created was changed, when some shepherds discovered in a creek -of the Isere, two hundred paces from the place where the handkerchief was found, the thigh and theleft leg of the victim,— On the Thursday following, the day of the Ascension, the bust was found about six leagues below St. Quentin. The identity • was established. " It appears hence certain, that the body of the victim was carried whole by the assassin to the place where the rope and knife were found, and that he there dismembered the body ! " On Friday, May 17, about • ten in the morning, the gendarmerie came to St. Quentin and went to the parsonage to snake investigations. Almost immediately after the departure of the gendarmes the Cure went off himself, and the same day gained Les Echelles, a frontier of Savoy. He was arrested a few days after, and conducted to the prisons of Chambery, where he remains detained. No other inhabitant of Sr. Quee. tin has left it since May 8. I could enter into other details— speak of groans heard the evening of the same day-in the neighbourhood of the church. But the procedure will undoubtedly dissipate the darkness in which crime would envelope itself. - • • . • (Signed) " DAVIN, Mayor." We are somewhat surprised (says the Constitutionnel) at learning that a man accused o so execrable a crime has not yet been delivered up. The Piedniontese -Government made tes difficulty in giving up Didier, accused 'of s political conspi, racy... . . . . Is it that men accused of murders that make one shudder appear less dangerous than those cast Furth by our sad civil dissensions ?, • • • #