EXTRAORDINARY OUTRAGE UPON A WOMAN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 339, 8 January 1866, Page 1

EXTRAORDINARY OUTRAGE UPON A WOMAN.

The French papers are filled with the details of a most horrible outrage committed in Paris, and whose incidents are similar to a case which caused great excitement in Dublin a few years ago. A gentleman named Clausse had engaged a coachman, Vincent, who soon showed himself insolent, negligent, and drunk. Madame Clausse besought her husband to get rid of him, but he neglected to do so. One evening -last August, Madame Clausse was returning from a visit to her father and mother, who lived in the neighbourhood of Paris, and was driven by Vincent. Sbe was accompanied by two young children, and was shortly expecting the birth of a third. On stepping into the carriage, she noticed that only one of the lamps was burning, and requested that the other might be lit. Vincent refused, and the lady, used to his rudeness, then entered the carriage. After driving for some distance, she noticed that they were not learning by the right road. At last as they came to a very dark and lonely place, she began to get alarmed, and called out to the driver. He then descended, extinguished the light, opened the door and struck the unhappy lady upon the head with an iron key. She rushed out at the other door, followed by her children, the ruffian pursuing her and striking her upon the head. At last she fell on her knees, and Vincent, seizing her, threw her flat on the ground, and while the young children vainly used their feeble efforts to defend their mother, the monster attempted to perpetrate even greater atrocities, which we cannot describe. For a long time there was a desperate struggle. He broke the uubappy woman’s teeth, tore her hair, and at last, exasperated with the desperation of her defence, raised his hand to give her a last blow with the key, when he beard an approaching footstep and ran off. Madame Clausse besought assistance of the passer-by, but was unheeded. She then got upon the box of the carriage, and placing her children inside, proceeded, all bleeding and exhausted us she was, to drive herself to Paris. It was not until she had gone some distance that she could obtain help ; and when she reached her house she was in such a deplorable state tiiat her servants at first did not recognise her, and refused to receive her. Wonderful to relate she survives, without suffering the serious consequences that might have been feared for a woman in her condition, and her deliverance from death is ascribed to the thickness of her hair, which, worn in the modern fashion, saved her from a fractured skull. As it was she received no fewer than twentythree blows upon her head. The villian Vincent is now upon his trial, and pleads that he was drunk.