The trial of Michel Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompard for the
murder of Gouffe, the process-server, which began at the Seine Assizes on Tuesday, is attracting a great deal of attention in France,—the Judge receiving as many as five thousand :applications for the eighty places at his disposal. The case is an ordinary brutal murder ; but the Judge, by dint of bullying the prisoners and by dwelling upon every sensational detail of the evidence, has contrived to give the proceedings a specially revolting character. The Procureur-General, who conducts the case in person, and who, according to M. de Blowitz, is by profession and inclination a writer of sensational novels, also does all in his power to heighten the melodramatic aspect of the crime. Each prisoner tries to show that it was the other who instigated the murder, and the woman also alleges that she was hypnotised by her partner in guilt, and so was in no sense responsible for her acts. This is denied by the medical witnesses for the prosecution, who declare 'Gabrielle Bompard to have been a free agent, and who dispute the theory that crimes can be committed under hypnotic suggestion. Dr. Liegeois, of Nancy, is, however, to be examined in support of the prisoner's contention, and will propound his theory of mesmerism and crime in Court.
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