First class of facts. - On the 3d May, 1828, D. gave no signs of delirium nor irritation; and retired peaceably to rest with his wife. These circumstances did not escape the witness who had passed the evening of the 3d May with him and his victim. After the murder, D. took measures to avoid the pursuit of justice. The precautions seemed to prove a consciousness of the crime he had committed, and that he feared the punishment consequent thereon. In the different interrogatories which he underwent, he appeared to have his reason; and also during his stay in Bicetre, at least neither his words nor actions resembled the usual ones of the insane patients. The numerous letters which he wrote proved that he was not deprived of all intellect.

Second class of facts. - D. had a maternal uncle who was insane; consequently, he was predisposed to insanity. He had never betrayed any perverse inclination, and was of regular habits until the close of 1826, when suddenly his character and habits underwent an entire alteration; since which time, he evinced many symptoms of madness. The derangement of his mind was verified by the certificates of three physicians who attended him, and by public notoriety. D. was a monomaniac, he believed that he had enemies, that they desired to be rid of him, and to kill him. He was convinced that his friends, his father, and his wife, plotted against him. His delirium was remittent, and increased from time to time.

In the spring of 1827, he had attempted suicide in order to escape the conspiracies of his pretended enemies. In the spring of 1828, after having embraced his wife, he went peaceably to rest with her, without provocation or anger; and awakened by some distressing dream, or by his imaginary fears (let it be remembered that at the outset of his disease he had awakened' with a start), his reason wandered, he saw in his wife, lying by his side, a conspirator; it was necessary to deliver himself, and he struck the unfortunate woman, who was fast asleep, not with any instrument of death that was within the house, but with a mallet, which he went into the yard to fetch. Far from flying instantly, he delayed his departure, searched in the wardrobe for a napkin, with which he covered the corpse of his victim, and placed a cross upon it. But then his fury having no longer an object, the sight of the corpse made a powerful impression on the murderer; the delirium ceased, reason awoke, and the unhappy man comprehended all the horror of the act he had committed, foresaw the consequences, fled, and endeavored to escape the pursuit of justice.

D. experienced that which has been noticed in many insane persons, namely, that after a violent physical or moral impression, or the accomplishment of a design conceived during delirium, they appear to recover suddenly the use of their reason, and act almost if not quite in the same manner as if they had never lost it. (Insane persons have been instantaneously cured by a powerful moral impression.)

Although D. took great precautions in his flight, he nevertheless left traces by which he could be recognised, which would not hare been done by a man with the fall use of his reason, nor by one who considered himself a criminal. Thus, although he hid his blood-stained clothing, it was in his own cellar; and although he fled, it was on his father's horse. He left articles in an inn which would betray him, and carried letters about his person which convicted him. When arrested, he gave a detailed account of the murder; and gave several reasons for it, which were evidently false. In prison and in the hospital, the letters which he wrote bore the impress of a disordered mind. In the following year, the spring of 1829, he became restless, and appeared to have hallucinations; four days afterwards, he went quietly to bed, and during the night killed one of the patients, not with any installments at hand in the dormitory, but with a stick which he fetched from another room - not after a quarrel, an affray, or a fit of anger, but during the sleep of his victim.

From the identity of the season and the hour in which the two murders were committed, the choice of the instruments of death, the absence of all anger or provocation, the sleep of the victims, the calm state of the murderer during the nights of the 8d of May, 1828, and the 18th of April, 1829 - from the identity, we say, of the circumstances, we draw the inference that D. was excited to commit both the murders by the delirium to which he had been a prey since the close of 1826, and that, in the commission of these two acts, he was not in the possession of moral liberty.

We think, therefore, that hereditary disposition, the conduct of D. during his stay at Bicetre, the treatment which he underwent for insanity before the 3d of May, 1826, the report of the faculty who attended him before that period, and the circumstances attending the action imputed to him, prove that D. was laboring under mental alienation when he committed the murder of which he is accused; that the precautions taken by him on the night of the 3d of May, 1828, and since that time, to elude the pursuit of justice, also prove that the criminal had not the right use of his reason, and is accordant to a state of dementia, taking that word in the sense of civil law, and not in that accepted by the faculty, who give to that state the name of monomania.

Resolved in Paris, the 6th of July, 1829.

(Signed,) Esquirol,

Ferrus.

An extract from the verdict in the case goes to show that the court, after deliberation, consider sufficient proof has been established, that Jacques Jean-Baptiste D. was in a state of dementia on the night between the 3d and 4th of May, 1826, in which the action imputed to him was committed, and that thus, according to the terms 84 of the penal code, there is neither crime nor offence, and that no farther proceedings can be instituted against D. The court, nevertheless, orders that he shall be placed at the disposal of the King's attorney, who will take necessary measures for the safety of the public and of the accused.

This case, which we have given in all its details, because it appeared an excellent type, presents to us a fresh example of the danger of hallucinations and illusions in melancholy monomania. Daily experience proves that these mad persons are convinced they receive insults, are made mouths at, that the countenances of those around them express hate, and a desire to harm them; or they take them for devils, monsters, etc. It is evident that, when D. killed his wife and the insane patient by his side, he obeyed hallucinations of hearing, and probably also illusions, as in the case of Soyez. It is extremely probable that these two murders, executed at long intervals, would have been followed up by other catastrophes, if the most rigorous confinement had not been maintained.

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