eye dull, but without that furtive and unquiet look it formerly had; his lower lip drooped; the features were shrunk; and his skin was of a yellowish brown color, but without any particular odor. At the commencement of the trial, Dr. Chambeyron was called on to testify, when he repeated the facts contained in his report, together with the following additional views.

"It is evident to me that in the month of June last, Pechot was in a state of mental alienation. It was not mania, that kind of alienation which is characterized by a rapid flow of ideas, an imperative necessity for keeping in motion, and a state of excitement which sometimes amounts to fury; nor was it dementia, that enfeeblement of the faculties which is sometimes vulgarly called imbecility or childishness. Still, although we did not then observe the physical characters of the latter form of insanity, it was imminent, if not already begun, for now the features and attitude present the characters which were wanting then. The present dementia is, to my mind, an indication of the preexistence of another form of insanity, because it is the common termination of all the varieties of insanity." Was it monomania, or that delirium which is confined to a single series of ideas? "I cannot say that it was, because, in the absence of any kind of information respecting the case, I could not discover the special object of delirium. But certainly, Pechot was in a state of profound melancholy which rarely proceeds in its course, without a fixed idea, true or false. In fact, he seemed so absorbed in his own thoughts, and his faculties so heavily oppressed, that his replies, whether correct or foreign to the matter in question, were made slowly and with an effort, as if he were fatigued by me, and ready to say, 'you annoy me.' Indeed, all his replies might be interpreted by the single expression, 'I have something else to do, but to think of what you are saying.' In this condition of mind and body, I strongly believe that it would

require but little to put a man beside himself. He is jealous, exceedingly irascible, his anger is disproportioned to the cause that provokes it, and a little teazing is sufficient to produce an explosion of fury whose results it would be impossible to foresee. Such a condition, let me repeat, is not dementia, but it undoubtedly leads to it."

แ

The president of the court having inquired of Dr. Chambeyron, if he thought an insane person could commit homicide without being conscious of the act, he replied in the following language: Certainly not, especially if he were a maniac or monomaniac. The maniac who strikes or kills is so conscious of what he is about, that frequently, he will strive for an instant against the impulse, and sometimes successfully, though most commonly it hurries him on; indeed he may feel himself under restraints, even while in the act of giving the blow. In this respect, he differs from a rational man only in the circumstance, that he rapidly passes from a state of apparent calm, to one of the most violent irritation; and this, too, in consequence of the most futile cause, frequently even of a cause that no one but himself can at all appreciate, or one that is entirely imaginary.

"The homicidal monomaniac is aware of the ferocious instinct which impels him to murder; he deplores his condition in which he may recognise a true disease, and which he tries to combat by his own efforts, or the aid of medicine.

"For a stronger reason, the monomaniac who commits a premeditated murder is conscious of the act. He weighs and compares for a long while the motives that induce him to act or refrain, though indeed he deceives himself with regard to their relative value. He lays his plan, and displays in his reasoning a logic that would be admirable, were not the premises absurd. In the execution of his project, he displays a coolness, an address, a force of attention, truly inconceivable. The crime consummated, he passively

awaits the penalty, or eludes it with a dexterity that the most experienced villain could scarcely equal."

In these three cases, it is not consciousness that is wanting, it is free will.' Pechot must have obeyed a sudden impulse of the kind first mentioned.

The views of Dr. Chambeyron are strongly corroborated by the other testimony, of which we find only the following summary. "Mr. Letourneur, officer of health, has, within two years, been frequently called to Pechot, whom he found in a state of melancholy and depression which he considered to be the commencement of madness. Towards the middle of 1835, Pechot lost his wife, and from that time his mental disorder was rapidly aggravated. He would keep his bed for months together, rising scarcely long enough to have it made up. His disorder got worse also, after the sale of a cow and two barrels of cider, in which business, he imagined, very incorrectly, however, that he had met with a great loss. He declared he was ruined, reduced to beggary, though the house he lived in and the greater part of the land he cultivated belonged to him. He was constantly exclaiming, 'what will become of my children, when the grain that is now in the barn shall have been used! Poor things, I must dispatch them with my axe.' He was unwilling to labor, under the conviction that God had deserted him, that nothing would go well with him, and the seed which had been sown in his fields would no more grow than if sown on the rocks. His brother, sister-in-law, and their domestic, did his work in spite of himself; he trying to prevent them by treating them roughly, and snatching the tools out of

1 Dr. Chambeyron here adds the following note, explanatory of the different ways in which the insane impulse affects the will, in the three different kinds of insanity:"1. A sudden impulse not leaving sufficient time for deliberation. 2. An instinctive continued impulse mastering the will, though discerned by the understanding. 3. An impulse equally continued, sometimes distorting the judgment, at others, resulting from a primitive derangement of this faculty."

their hands. He was unwilling to have his servant labor, and sometimes he suspected her of robbing him. From these two causes arose quarrels to which, however, Anne Lerussard paid but little attention. Sometimes he would chase her; she would pretend to go away, and hardly would get out of sight, when he would go seeking her from door to door, entreating her to return, for without her, who would take care of him and his children? who would keep them out of misery?' He would request the attendance of priests, and when he saw them coming, would run away, exclaiming, that they were the people who had buried his wife, and were the cause of all his troubles. He would hear it remarked that he was mad-a charge that always irritated him and added to his melancholy. He was continually revolving in his mind plans of suicide, without seeming to have the resolution necessary to put them into execution. One day he begged his neighbors to put him into an oven and keep him there by force. At another time, he tried to borrow a musket; at another, he lowered himself down from the brink of a well, but got up again, either of his own accord, or at the command of some people who saw him. The burden of his speech was, 'this is the day when I must go.' At last, on the 5th of April, 1836, seventeen days before the death of Anne Lerussard, he threw himself into a pond, after having threatened to stone her to death, or drag her into the water. An old man, one of his friends, accidentally passing by, rebuked him for his conduct. He suffered himself to be taken out without resistance, by his brother, who, having been informed by himself of his design, had followed him at a little distance."

Dr. Chambeyron, now being asked by the president, if he persisted in his opinion respecting Pechot's mental condition, took the opportunity to enforce the views he had already expressed, and which were strengthened by the evidence. "Pechot," said he, "is incontestably insane.

You have seen him here attending this trial with a stupid apathy. You have heard him scarcely answering in unintelligible monosyllables, when asked by the president what he had to say to evidence which bore most strongly against him. He seemed to arouse himself only to combat testimony which went to establish the existence and long duration of his mental disorder. Then he reproached the witnesses with saying whatever they pleased. They told the truth. The melancholy which I recognised in June extended back two or three years, during which a sense of despair had weighed down the mental faculties of Pechot. Now they have lost their elasticity, and will no longer rise under the weight. The dementia which I feared is arrived; it runs its course rapidly, and in less than two years, this unfortunate man will have sunk into the last stage of fatuity."

Pechot was acquitted, but he did not seem to understand what was passing around him, and retired with the gendarmes, repeating his old strain; "where are you carrying me? I believe you are going to kill me."

Dr. Chambeyron closes the account of this case, with the following practical reflections, which are entitled to most serious consideration.

"There certainly cannot remain a doubt as to the reality of Pechot's insanity, or its existence previous to the murder he committed, and its uninterrupted continuance from that time to his trial. Having struck the deceased, and left her for dead in the stable, he fled to the barn and barricaded the door, exclaiming that the gendarmes were after him. The next day he shut himself up again. An insane person, therefore, may appreciate the act he has committed, and foresee its consequences. On the other hand, Pechot, after having concealed himself, walked out into the village, a fact which proves, either the weakness of his understanding, or the versatility of his thoughts. The means he took to avoid