AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

Patea Mail, Issue 949, 23 October 1882, Page 4

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

The trial at Perpignan of the Abbe Auriol, which has just resulted in the sentence of the accused to penal servitude for life, reveals an extraordinary picture of depravity. At first the case assumed the form of a simple charge of impropriety of conduct, Auriol having been detected in certain familiarities with his mistress, Alexandrine Yernet, with whom he was travelling by railway in the direction of the Spanish frontier. His sacerdotal functions and identity having been discovered in spite of the false whiskers and the civil attire which he had assumed, an inquiry was instituted, and it was found that the inhabitants of the little parish of Nohedes, of which he was the cure, had already commenced an investigation into graver matters in which he has been involved. Auriol’s relations with the .woman Yernet, who was the parish (or rather communal) schoolmistress, had already attracted some attention, insomuch that she had been induced to exchange her post for that of a schoolmistress in a village at some distance. Auriol had, however, still found means by the aid of his disguise to obtain clandestine interviews with her in the neighboring town of .Trades, besides maintaining a correspondence with her which was carried on in cypher. According to his own admissions before the judges of the Criminal Court, he had originally obtained ascendancy over Mdlle. Yernet by showing her a pretended canonical dispensation for his marriage with her, which he had forged for the purpose ; but; after the revelation of the fraud, she consented to become his mistress. Having finally determined to elope with her, Auriol, to his own confession, conceived the idea of obtaining funds for the purpose by poisoning two unmarried ladies (JVTarje and Hose Funda), living in Nohedes, described as “ pious persons ” over whom he possessed sufficient influence to induce them to bequeath to him the whole of their little property. Marie Funda, who was 48 years of age, and was the elder of the two, died on July 18 of last year very suddenly, about half an hour after taking a certain potion which Auriol had prepared and administered to her, no medical man having been called in by him from first to last. Though the circumstances of her death were something more than suspicious, they do not appear to have excited the least suspicion in the mind of her younger sister, who, being “ entirely under the influence of the cure,” was induced shortly afterwards by him to take up her abode at his house. Only one month after her sister’s death Rose Funda, at the pressinginstanceof Auriol, attended before a public notary at Perpignan, where she in like manner made a will constituting the abb§ her universal legatee. Only a * fortnight later—that is, on August 30 — this second victim, having partaken of a drink administered to her b} r Auriol, died also very suddenly, with all the symptoms of suffering from an irritant poison. Notwithstanding these strange circumstances, however, no steps were taken towards an enquiry until three weeks after the last murder. Auriol when arrested was in the act of flight, having that same morning realised the whole of their property, which enabled him to take with him a sum of 11,261 francs. The accused, who is described as a tall, robust man, 28 j’ears of age, with a round face, a fresh colour, and bright eyes, seems to have lost selfpossession under the preliminary private examinations, and, in despair at the contradictions in which .his replies had involved him, he made a voluntary confession of his crimes. He afterwards stated that Marie Funda was poisoned by him with white hellebore, prepared from the herb common in that country, and her unfortunate sister Rose with prussic acid, a quantity of which was found in a bottle in the portmanteau with which he was travelling when arrested,. The postmortem examination failed to discover traces of poison in either of the bodies, which had been exhumed for the purpose ; but the medical testimony was to the effect that there was, under, the circumstances, nothing remarkable in the fact that the poisons mentioned left no trace. The accused, however, emboldened apparently by this circumstance, withdrew his confession, and declared that he had accused himself of imaginary crimes by way of a sort of expiation. He also denied the alleged impropriety of his relations with Alexandrine Yernet, and declared that he had been the victim of the calumnies of Radical and Republican enemies in his neighbourhood. The evidences of the witnesses, however, established beyond doubt both the fact of the murders and of tbs cruel deliberation with which they were carried out, besides which a note in cypher, in Auriol’s hand, was produced, in which, addressing his mistress at the time of one of the murders, he wrote—“My Beloved, —Will made. She has been taken ill since. All going well.” Beyond this nothing transpired to show whether his mistress was cognisant of his crimes. Immediately after his arrest she disappeared, and is stated to have entered a convent. Other accounts, however, affirm that she is now in Spain ; and all that is really known is that, having signified a desire to enter a convent, she was hurriedly taken to Toulouse by the Abbe Caries, cure of St, Vincent at Carcassone. This witness was sharply reproved by the President of the Court for thus aiding a young woman to leave the paternal roof and abscond under such circumstances, the President adding that such incidents 'were “ of too common occurrence.”