Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/50

Rh "I believe I told him that."

"Do you still persist in your declaration that you wished to strike more august victims?"

"No, Monsieur. I was so wearied by the painful position in which I found myself, that, not being able to destroy myself, I wished to hasten, by every possible means, the end of my torments. I would have accused myself, I believe, of wishing to assassinate the Eternal Father, if the idea had come into my mind."

The President read from the notes of a prior examination in which Papavoine explained how the idea had come to him to say that he had wished to kill the Enfants de France. An officer wearing epaulettes had said, as they were conducting Papavoine through the streets of Vincennes, "Look! there is the man who attempted to assassinate the Enfants de France." These words, heard by the accused, had given rise to the idea of declaring that such had been his project.

The President then continued:—

"You pretend that you were led to commit the act of the 10th of October in consequence of the effects of a fever, by a sort of mental aberration; but your conduct since your departure from Beauvais shows that you were in full possession of your reason. The letters that you wrote to your mother are full of sense; so it was not madness which impelled you."

"What motive could I have for killing those children? I had no interest in so doing.

"That is your secret. Up to this time no one has been able to discover anything upon that point. However, on examining all that has passed before and since the murder, it must be that the access of madness seized you on seeing the children, and left you as soon as you had struck them. Immediately after the crime you were confronted with the mother, who cried, "There is the murderer of my children." And you said that you did not know her. You were brought before the bodies of the children, and you declared that you did not recognize them. All your responses were full of sense."

"This crime was so far from my thoughts that I really believed that I had not committed it. Besides, I have a family, and I did not wish to dishonor them by confessing the crime."

"For a whole week you denied being the author of the double crime committed at Vincennes; you said that they were mistaken, and you maintained this with spirit; and it was not until you were warned that the mother of the children and several others identified you, that you said that you had intended to strike the Enfants de France. Explain all these circumstances to the jurors. They prove that you were not mad."

"I was filled with terror, with fears, but I never felt a desire to shed blood. I did not act like a sane person."

"When you said that you wished to strike the Enfants de France, you surrounded this declaration with so many circumstances—some true, others probable—that it is impossible that you did not have full possession of your reason to invent them. You said, for example, that one of the children whom you killed resembled one of the Enfants de France. You defend yourself very skilfully at the present moment, and you appear to be in possession of a sound mind."

"I do not claim that I am always insane."

Other witnesses were heard. The most of them, while testifying that Papavoine was naturally of a morose and melancholy temperament, were loud in their praise of his probity and uprightness. He was an honest man, very humane and fond of children.

Papavoine was eloquently defended by M. Paillet, a young advocate from Soissons and a friend of the Papavoine family, the defence being temporary insanity.

His skilful argument impressed, but did not convince, the jury and the judges. The theory of the defence was too bold and