MEDIAEVAL JUSTICE.

Shannon News, 21 January 1929, Page 2

MEDIAEVAL JUSTICE.

OUTBURST OF INDIGNATION IN THE PARIS PRESS.

Cries of indignation, whistling, and hooting greeted the verdict of the jury at Toulouse Assizes on Saturday, October 27, 1928, in the Case of Count Pierre de Rayssac, a member of one of the oldest and noblest families of Languedoc, who was accused of lb.murder of his illegitimate child, a baby boy of nearly two years old. The facts were uncontested. The motives for the crime were family pride, lest the - escutcheon should be stained, anti family avarice, lest a few shillings a month should have to be s'peni on the upkeep of this unwanted infant. The jury found lack of premeditation where premeditation was proved throughout; and extenuating circumstances where there fere none. Before such a verdict the Judge could inflict no harder penalty, than ten years’ penal servitude. The reluctance of French juries to invoke the guillotine is a familiar thing in these days, but it was not expected that a jury would ,go as far as it could towards acquitting a guilty man whom universal morality would regard as a monster. The whole of the French press is naturally shocked at this new and extraordinary failure of the jury, system.

The story is the usual sordid one, but ending in this instance in the atrocity of an ignorant servant girl seduced by the master and thrown into the street when her condition was known. A few pounds were sent her at the beginning to shut her mouth, but for nearly two years the young mother had to fend for herself with the baby in her arms. How good a mother she proved herself is shown by the splendid physical'state and beauty of the little boy. At length, finding herself penniless and unable to get regular work, she wrote to ask for a little help. A family council of the De Rayssa.cs was held, and it was decided that an end must be put to this scandal. De Rayssac motored to Carcassonne and. met the girl, who had hoped that the sight of the child would move him. So far from that, he, a rich man, declared he could not be burdened with the brat and that he and his family were not prepared to contribute 15 s a -month for maybe ten years, maybe more. He ordered her to go at once and hand it over to the Poor Law authorities. She tried, but the Poor Law would not take it. “Try the private .orphanages, ”he ordered; but again the doors would not open.

Night was now falling. “I know where to put it,” he said. He took the boy from the arms of the weeping girl, and went off with it in -his car. On the road he undressed the child completely, and hid its garments in the fields, so that there should be no means of identification. He then wrapped the sleeping infant in a warm rug, and- ■ proceeded several miles x to the canal bridge. There he dismounted with the little bundle, and emptied the child from the rug into the icy water. It wag almost by chance that a Poor Law' official identified in the corpse picked out from the canal the child that had been offered a few days before. Arrest followed swiftly. The verdict of the jury is a unconscious tribute to the power of rhetoric, as great in France, especially South France, as it was in Rome in the days of Cicera. The De Rayssae family -was rich enough to secure the services of . that glory of the Paris Bar, Maitre. de Moro Giafferi. His speech for the de- • fence was a masterpiece of distorted sentimentality. He pleaded with the jury to turn their thoughts from the dead to the living, to think with pity of the illegitimate child that was dead, but to think with even more active pity of -the legitimate baby that /was living —for De Rayssac has since married and has an heir —and what the stain of a condemnation would mean to it all its life; to think of the noble record during generations of the De Rayssac fam- ' ily and its good works towards the ‘Gentlemen of the jury, I appeal to your pity on behalf of the De Rayssac family, in the, name of the good that its living members have always done and in the name of the blood that its dead have shed for France.” It was n peasantry; to think of Pierre de : Rayssac’s own brother, killed gloriousa magnificent peroration he-eonclu|ie.d:

ly in battle during the Great WaL In franc damages she had asked for in order to bo entitled to representation at the trial.