different realities and reactions and committed numerous military crimes such as insubordination to engineer it. Three physicians concluded that he could not be held responsible due to insanity, but the court condemned him to death. Later, however, the sentence was changed into imprisonment for ten years.623 A somewhat similar case occurred in Brest in 1828, where a prisoner serving a life sentence, Victor Auguste Mignot, had hit and lightly hurt an officer with an iron rod. At his trial he stated that he had no desire to kill the officer but only to hurt him so that he could be sentenced to death. Life in prison was insupportable and he preferred the penalty of death to corporal punishment. He is said to have been pleased by his sentence and was steadfast in seeking to be executed until it did happen the next day.624 Maybe this man was considered too sane by the court to consider his mental health. The time for psychiatric evaluation also seems to have been short and it seems to have been easier to be executed by military courts and found not fully responsible by civilian courts. He was not the only French prisoner in situations like this that killed officers to be executed, there were others.625 According to a psychiatrist, Honoré Aubanel, many judges still needed to be convinced. They did not believe in homicidal monomania. It could even be seen as an invention with the purpose to snatch criminals from justice. Judges could also accuse the physicians for not seeing the law – only humanity. The courts themselves instead could demonstrate the deficiency of not consulting science.626 Charles Chrétien Henri Marc even quoted a judge saying that if monomania is a disease it is cured at the site of execution.627 A young man, former student at the seminary in Lyon, March 18th 1833 tried to shoot a priest after a Mass in a church but failed. He wanted to die due to his melancholy, but for him suicide was the only unforgivable crime. To kill somebody would lead to his execution but would also be 623 Georget 1828 p 1 sqq. 624 Gazette des Tribunaux 1828 14 september p 1146. 625 Laget-Valdeson 1863 p 13. 626 Aubanel 1846 p 163 sq, 167. 627 ”Si la monomanie est une maladie, il faut, lorsqu’elle porte à des crimes capitaux, la guerir en place de Grève.” Marc 1833 p 33. 178
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