all healthy, sound, and robust, the older ones having intelligent physiognomies. A. himself up to January, 1891, had never been sick, since then he has suffered much. I will return to the symptoms presented: He never had convulsions during his infancy, he has never had typhoid fever or any miasmatic fever. It is possible he may have had syphilis before his marriage; at least, he pretends that he had, but his four children are perfectly constituted; they do not present any sign of hereditary syphilis, and his wife has never suffered a miscarriage. We may then suppose that if he has been affected as he says by a disease of the genital organs, it was a question of only a slight venereal disorder, but whatever the case may be, we must notice the possible, if not probable existence of syphilis in his antecedents.

From a mental point of view A. has always been moral, as appears from information gathered from his wife, from his employers, from his neighbors, from the Mayor of his Commune, and others. Gifted with an ordinary intelligence, he had the tastes and habits of his class. Sometimes he drank a little, but he was not a drunkard; he was a hard-working, orderly father of a family, and enjoyed the esteem of all; he had no enemies. To resume: A. was a robust man, free from all neuropathic blemishes either hereditary or acquired; of good morals, well-balanced, possessed of ordinary intelligence, well-behaved, and lived peacefully with all.

But nine months ago, in January, 1891, his health, heretofore good, commenced to change. He was taken with violent attacks of headache, which became more violent daily; he consulted several physicians, but none of the prescribed medicaments gave relief, at the same time his eye-sight grew weak, especially that of the right eye, and soon he could neither read nor write, and shortly all work became impossible for him. He undertook a job, but almost immediately was obliged to abandon it. His violent headaches prevented his continuing; during the paroxysms he had giddiness and vomiting. These

continual sufferings soon began to affect his character. He became sad, distrained and gloomy; he spoke little, and his replies were dry and overbearing; he became excitable. His wife, who gave this last information, also noticed that his memory was failing. It was also evident to persons living near him, as an example of this weakening of the memory, being asked by a relative the name of his youngest child (two days after its baptism), it was impossible for him to answer; he did not even remember the family name of the godfather.

We notice that A. had been attacked almost since nine months with a progressive disease, and which at last was characterized by the following symptoms: Violent and frequent accesses of frontal headache, with giddiness and vomiting, modification of character, which has become gloomy and irritable, double amblyopia, especially marked at the right side, finally troubles of memory.

We come now to the narration of the four murders committed on the morning of September 10th, 1891. The evening before, A., who lives in a small hamlet in the Commune of Dampierre, in the department of Eure and Loire, had gone to see a physician in a neighboring town. He had also consulted a quack, who had the reputation of being able to drive away spells and charms. This idea of being bewitched had already generated in the head of A. before the day of the catastrophe, but exactly when I have been unable to discover; neither he nor his wife can or will answer this question categorically. This evening, returning home, several persons who saw and spoke to him remarked nothing abnormal in him, neither in his person nor in his manner. He was not drunk, although he did drink some during the day. The papers in the case contain the enumeration of the drinks he had taken in the wine-rooms, and we see that he has not taken any considerable dose of alcohol. Having returned home, he passed a horrible night, during which he was a prey to anguish, hallucination and delirium. This is gained from the interrogation of his wife. To-day,

he himself remembers very well the different accidents of this night, and narrates them willingly. He retired to bed and slept a little at first, but awakened in a short time, tormented by a violent headache and by sentiments of anguish, someone stifles him, he is choked, he suffers frightfully, he tries to explain his sufferings from the fact that he has wrongly taken the prescribed medicine, that he is poisoned and is going to die. He thinks that in praying he may be delivered, and he begins to recite a prayer in a loud voice, and insists that his wife do the same. This was an act foreign to his habits: he never said any prayers.

choked up,

After a short time, he feels little better and returns to bed and sleeps a little, but for a few moments only, pain reawakens him again, this time to terror and anguish ; hallucinations of hearing and sight are added, and a delirious idea suddenly takes root in his brain. Voices talk to him and tell him that he is lost, he is stifling and his head is ready to burst, his throat is he sees one of his neighbors, M., at his side. Now arises this idea, it is his spell which stifles him, and it is M. who has cast it upon him. He bites himself in the arm (the scar of the bite was still to be seen two weeks after), trying to diminish his mental and moral sufferingsin provoking bodily physical pain. But his anguish persists in intensity, the hallucinations continue, he still sees and hears M., he laments, he gesticulates, he is covered with perspiration. At this moment arises an instantaneous impulse! He must kill M., who is here, at hand-M., who has cast this spell upon him, after which he will be delivered. He will be at peace and suffer no more. From this moment everything appears strange to him, he has only one aim, one thought, to kill M.; all his physical activity is directed toward that end; this homicidal impulse suffers no control. He does not know why he must kill. The conscience is entirely filled by the desire to kill; there remains no room for any other idea. Here is what happened: A., half-clad, takes his gun and

fires through the window upon M., whom he believes he sees outside. Several pains of glass are broken, then he goes out and pursues his enemy, whom he perceives flying before him, he fires several shots; at last his gun, which is in bad condition, and which he has loaded badly, in his precipitation, bursts in his hands, he gets rid of the stock and keeps the barrels, of which the one which is burst presents at the level of the rent, cutting borders, and sharp points. It is with this redoubtable weapon in the hands of a man of his strength, that in a house, into which he had forced himself, while still pursuing M., he kills a woman, and a little boy, mother and son, also another woman who had run to the help of the first two victims, and at last an old man whom he finds in his way as he goes out of the house. After the fourth murder, he tries still to force himself into another house, where two frightened women had taken refuge. However, he does not make great efforts to break the door, the two women having given him their names he is satisfied. He becomes calm and returns to his home, and tells his wife all that has happened. His fury had cooled down, he was still trembling greatly, and his face was covered with perspiration, but he talked without raving, and could give a perfect account of all that had just happened, and of the murders he had committed. At this moment, he said coldly that he regretted to have můrdered four persons, that he had taken them for M., and that he wished to kill M. alone.

The four homicides had been accomplished in the same manner, falling furiously upon his victims and striking with the gun-barrels with all his force. All four had their heads crushed, and strange to say, he counted aloud the strokes he gave them, his idea being to give each one sixty strokes. When asked for his reason in this, he said he did not know, but it told him to do so. It seems that after killing his first victim, he wanted the little son of his victim, whom he killed a few moments later, to embrace his mother and dragged him before

her body. He remembers the fact perfectly well, but can give no explanation for it. "It told him to do so."

The second day after he was sent for observation to the asylum at Bonneval. The evening before he tried to strangle himself with his handkerchief in the prison at Chateaudun. I sum up here the medical notes taken every day in his case. September 12th: A. has a melancholy air; he is depressed; he expresses himself slowly and not without difficulty, his ideas are troubled, and a certain effort is necessary to enable him to fix them upon any point, or to answer questions. As soon as one ceases to question him, he becomes mute; left to himself, he sighs deeply, he groans, or repeats ceaselessly these words: "I wish to die! Why, I must die, in order to escape from justice!" However, we succeeded in making him tell the circumstances of his outrage, but he does it in a diffuse and confused manner. In order to keep his attention, it is necessary to repeat continually the questions, or put him constantly back to the scene of his narration. If not, he stops and recommences to whimper and returns directly to his monotonous expressions, "I wish to die! I must die!"

Outside of his fourfold homicide, the idea of which absorbs him; it is very difficult to obtain from him answers at all satisfactory. In reality his mental faculties. are partly clouded. In the evening he complains of the noise they make around him. He pretends that someone peers at him through the cracks of the door. He evidently still has hallucinations, and especially illusions of sight and hearing. One perceives that he interprets in a delirious manner the real noises that he hears or the objects which he really sees. His physical health is good. He has no trembling of the fingers or of the tongue, he has eaten but little up to now, and he absolutely refused wine. He says some one wishes to hurt him.

September 13th. Same condition almost as yesterday. I asked him the name of his wife. At first he could not