different realities and reactions favourable for the victim – they would both gain freedom from this life. He therefore considered killing his young brother, but finally decided that two priests were suitable victims.The physicians charged with examining him concluded that his mental illness was a case of ”monomanie homicide-suicide”. The court saw no ground for subjecting his case to a trial.628 On September 15th1851 Antoine-Emmanuel Jobard, aman in his twenties, murdered Anna Ricard, not known by him, in the Theatre des Célestins in Lyon. The motive of Jobard was that he felt that he would soon be exposed as a thief, and rather than carry that infamy he wanted to die. Suicide, however, due to his Catholic upbringing, was not an option because it would not give him time to repent and be saved, something being executed for murder would provide. He previously had considered other options, first planning to murder the president of France, LouisNapoléon Bonaparte, later NapoléonIII, but thought the risk of failure was too big. Then he considered murdering a priest coming from celebrating Mass at the altar and thereby probably in a state of grace. Finally, he decided to kill an unknown woman and thus he stabbed Ricard when she sat in the row before him in the theatre.629 He however failed to be executed and his life was spared as the jury found extenuating circumstances.630 He was sent to Guyana and is noted as escaped in 1867.631 In the articleLe crime sans cause Edmond Locard describes a murder by a man of an unknown woman in the stalls of a theatre in Lyon. It does sound like the murder of Anna Ricard by Antoine-Emmanuel Jobard, but according to Locard the murderer confessed first after being sentenced to death, because of fear of being seen as insane if the confession was known too early. His confession focused on the threats against his sexual purity endangering his salvation, expressed as his immaculate arrival to 628 Bottex 1834, Brierre de Boismont 1851 p 638 sqq. 629 Brierre de Boismont 1851 p 627 sqq. 630 Brierre de Boismont 1856 p 565. 631 Archives nationale d’ outre-mer (internet).http://anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr /bagnards_dossiers_individuels/?nom=Jobard&nomEpouse=&prenoms=&alias=&date= &from=&to=&numMatricule=&territoire=Guyane+française&typenote=¬e=&q= &id=35485 179
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