Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1876 — Murried Interments in France. [ARTICLE]

Murried Interments in France.

In a recent letter from Paris to Applston's Journal Lucy H. Hooper writes: A curious little pamphlet, entitled ** Apparent Death and Unknown Victims has recently been issued. It is an able protest against the burial-laws of France, which compel/Interment on the third day after death, and some facta quoted by the author (Dr. Boillet}are certainly startling. He says: “During the sixteenth century interments followed death so closely that St. Charles Borromoo was. forced to issue a severe edict against this dangerous precipitation. It was at this epoch that Cardinal Espinosa, minister to Philip 11. of Spain, rose up beneath the bloody knife of the surgeon who was dissectfeig him, and immediately after expired in horrible agony. It was also at this epoch that the celebrated anatomist Vesalius was condemned by the Holy Inquisition to make a pilgrimage to Palestine on foot, to expiate by that dangerous journey, from which he never returned, the fatal error which he had comihittcd by cutting open the supposed corpse of a Spanish gentleman whe revived during the operation. At the game period there dwelt in France one Francois de Civille, a gentleman of Normandy, ‘thrice dead, thrice interred, and thrice, by the grace of God, resuscitated,’ us he describes himself. “ It has been calculated that, according to the volume of respirable air contained in a coffin, and which has been estimated at about one hundred and twenty litres, death ought to take place before onequarter of this provision is expended; it is, therefore, wellnigh certain that, if the pall is thick, the coffin air-tight, and the grave impenetrable to the atmosphere, life cannot be prolonged after inhumation more than from forty to sixty minutes—hut is not that alone a whole century of torture?

“ The question of precipitate interments was brought before the Senate in 1860. During that sitting Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, after speaking of three persons of his diocese who had come to life, so to speak, before his eyes, related in moving terms the pathetic history of a young priest, stricken with a lethargy while preaching, and left for dead by his physician. In that perilous situation, like many drowning persons, he preserved his lucidity of mind, but he could neither move nor utter a single word; he heard the tolling of the funeral knell, and the recital beside him of the prayers for the dead, and already the last preparations were begun when the power of motion returned to him. ‘ And,’ concluded the orator, ‘ that priest now stands before you!’ “ In 1842 took place the funeral, after a long illness, of a wealthy inhabitant of Nantes. His heirs did things grandly, and ordered sumptuous obsequies. The body was borne to the church, and the ceremony was proceeding, when the solemn funeral chants were interrupted by a loud noise proceeding from the coffin; the dead man had come to life. A few days later he had entirely recovered, bat the affair was not yet ended. The accounts were still to be settled, and the bill for the funeral expenses was seni to the recalcitrant defunct, who refused to pay for things he had never ordered; and sent the claimants to his heirs; they, not having come into possession of the funds appropriated for that purpose, also refused to pay. A law-suit ensued which gave rise to many jocose commentaries, and caused those present to weep from very excess of laughter.” Dr. Boillet also speaks of the immunity to crime afforded by these hurried Inhumations, and quotes two recent cases in support of his statements: “At the village of Bonrg was recently beheaded the woman Bouyou, convicted of having assassinated her sole surviving child. This infernal ‘ maker of angels,’ not content with fbrclng the young martyr to swallow pins, had literally larded its heart with them. It was not her first experiment, but it was her last. This abominable crime caused people to remember th» six other children that she had already lost. So many deaths, occurring in a sin--gle household, and in so short a time, gave rise at last to serious comments, and the law in its turn investigated the matter. The bodies of the dead children were disinterred, and tbe pins found in iarge numbers in the remains of the poor little creatures proved that this bloodthirsty tijjpress had killed them ali in the same manner; it was, as she said, her method of proceeding. Thus such a slaughter had at first amazed no one, and the grave had closed over six assassinated children successively without their deaths having attracted auv particular attention. “An inhabitant of Marseilles, named Urban, has just been condemned to death for having poisoned his own con with digitalis. The death of the young man. which the murderer calmly attributed to illness, might perhaps have passed for natural, but the doctor, being called in six hours after the sufferer had expired, was surprised at this tardy invitation to attend a patient that no longer existed, and set on toot an inquiry that soon revealed the horrible truth. Bv judicial investigations it was discovered that the assassin had poisoned his wife with the same substance three years before without a single protest having retarded for an hour the interment of the unhappy victim." =i -