“The fact was he had been longer than usual without coming to visit her. After conversing for a few minutes they went to bed. The next morning, about eleven o'clock, Latour felt his mistress getting up; but she shortly came back, and again laid down by his side, but without entering the bed. Latour wanted to have connection with her; but he immediately experienced a violent pain and found himself deluged with blood. Nevertheless he had the strength to get up and to go to a doctor, who gave him prompt assistance.
“The medico-legal reports showed that the unfortunate man had undergone an attempt at castration, and it was for this crime that Claire Grimaud appeared on this count before the Assizes.
“After the reading of the indictment, and at the request of the prosecuting lawyer, the presiding judge ordered the case to be heard with closed doors. The public were only admitted at the judge's summing-up. The female prisoner maintained that, until the moment of her knowing Latour, her conduct had been irreproachable. She had always been faithful to him and had recently given birth to his child, a boy, while in prison. It was owing to the refusal of her lover to marry her and to recognize hey child, that, she stated: she gave way to a moment of indignation, which we may add, the poor devil of a wooer, for his part, must have found uncommonly smart.
“The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the counts presented to them, and the Court therefore pronounced the acquittal of the accused, who was immediately set at liberty.
“It is to be hoped however, that this sentence will not encourage other young ladies to follow the example given them by the passionate, penis-hacking Southern woman.”
The fortitude displayed by some men who have received injury in their genital parts is simply amazing. Extenuating circumstances may of course, be pleaded in those cases where honest steady women or girls are set upon by force, and attempts made to mount them against their will and consent. The man has then only to thank himself for all he gets. But if a woman invites a man to visit her and then, out of revenge strikes a blow, as dastardly as unexpected, at his copulative organs, she should be birched on the bare arse in public twenty times a year, suffer excision of the clitoris and made to undergo the operation of ovariotomy. We cite a further case, showing that truth is stranger than any fiction.
“On the 1st of December. 1836, the Court of Assize had to judge one of those crimes which are so rare that but a bare mention is made of them in article 316 of the French penal code, and of which the XIIth century has transmitted to us a celebrated and lamentable example (1). But in this case it is not a man, but a young girl, who was able to conceive and to execute so atrocious a vengeance! It is not the jealousy of a rival, but the despair of an abandoned damsel, who came to resuscitate this sort of assassination forgotten by our new civilisation.
(1) Heloise and Abelard.
“Victoire Collet, of Thodure, attributed to Michel the paternity of two children to whom she had given birth, and Michel was seeking to contract other ties. After fruitless efforts to dissuade him from his purpose, Victoire, resigned to his marriage, was contented to ask for some pecuniary help. Michel, already affianced to another, and the banns about to be published, refused. Shortly afterwards he went to her place to claim some articles which she had taken possession of in order to oblige him to make her more frequent visits.
“He went there in the night of the 18th to 19th September, and the caresses of the discarded woman caused any misgivings of evil he may have harboured to vanish. Never had her reproaches been less bitter; Michel yielded. Victoire spoke of her legitimate fears of conception by reason of the already twice untimely results of their connection; and, when Michel, thinking of only sensual satisfaction, sought to press his favours home upon her, his mistress, armed with a knife, cut off his genital parts. Michel did not die from his wound within the next forty days. Victoire Collet who, at different times, had thrown out hints of her contemplated sinister vengeance, alleged in justification, that she had endeavoured to resist an attempt at rape.
“The argument presented to the Court, established pretty nearly the facts as related in the act of accusation, and revealed other intimate circumstances which made a deep impression upon the audience. The public was particularly affected when Michel being asked if he could not have taken hold of Victoire at the moment of her mutilating him, replied in a tone of the deepest emotion: Ah! sir, if I could have caught hold of her, we should not be here!.. I perhaps, but she would not!
“The prosecuting counsel maintained the indictment, not only with regard to the perpetration of the crime, but also as to its premeditation.
“M. Denantes, the defender of the accused, endeavoured to throw some interest on the case, by stigmatizing the cowardly abandonment by her seducer of this hot-blooded and revengeful female; and alleged in explanation and excuse for the crime the despair of the woman betrayed, and the anguish of the abandoned mother.
“He tried to invoke the protection of the legal-proviso offered in this case by article 325 of the penal code, to outraged modesty. Notwithstanding what the prosecuting counsel had said, he still alleged modesty of Victoire, in spite of her previous relations with Michel, the possibility of the outrage, and the right to resist it.
“With jesuistic quibble relative to the qualification of the offence, he maintained that there had been no physiological castration, therefore no castration in point of law. In fact, the mutilation does not interest the parts, the amputation of which constitutes castration. The crime imputed to Victoire must therefore be considered simply as cutting and wounding.
“The presiding judge summed up, the jury retired, and after an hour's deliberation, returned a verdict of guilty on the main issue, rejecting the plea of excuse, but admitting mitigating circumstances.
“The Court, on its part, maintained the qualification of the crime.
“In consequence thereof, Victoire Collet was sentenced, for the crime of castration, but with mitigating circumstances, to ten years' imprisonment.
A NYMPHOMANIAC
Brandon watched the cab which conveyed Mr. Sinclair to her residence, until it had turned a corner and was out of sight. He had purposely drawn back when he heard her give her address to the cabman, for though he loved the little woman and bitterly repented his conduct towards her, he had resolved that he would not endeavour to make her acquaintance, unless accident or fortune should favour him in that respect.
When the cab had disappeared round the corner, Brandon picked up his portmanteau — for, being an experienced tourist he never overburdened himself with luggage — and started off at a swinging pace towards one of the suburbs.
At the end of an hour's walk, he stopped in front of a small villa, pushed open the gate, and entered the garden. In another moment, the front door was thrown open, and Maud came running down and threw herself into his arms.
He kissed her lovingly, for his conscience rather smote him when he remembered that he had been unfaithful to her a good many times during his absence, and had wound up with a criminal offence which might have led to his being locked up for some years.
She linked her arm through his, and they walked up the garden together. He turned and took a good look at her, and could not but be struck with the change in her appearance. She was untidily — almost shabbily — dressed, which had never been the case even in their worst days of poverty, but it was in her face that he discerned the greatest change. Her eyes were sunken, and glittered with a strange brilliancy, and her face was preternaturally pale, with a red patch over each cheek-bone.
“You are not looking at all well, little woman,” he said gravely. “Do you fell ill?”
She gave a strange little laugh, and cast down her eyes.
“Oh, I'm all right, I think,” she answered; “but it has been very dull without you, and I missed you a good deal — especially at night;” she added, leaning against his side amorously, “but you will find I shall be all right to morrow morning if you are the same as you used to be, and have not left your heart with some pretty Swiss girl.”
There was something in her tone more than her words, that vexed him.
“But you are looking very well, dear boy,” she went on, “and that is enough for me. And now come along and have some dinner — I've got something you like.”
She ran lightly into the house to see about his dinner, and he stood thoughtful.
It seem to him that there was an erotic meaning in all her words, and, however amorous a man may be, be seldom likes to find that in his wife, though he may in his mistress.
