different realities and reactions heaven. He was afraid that he would not be able to maintain his chastity, but as suicide is a sin with greater eternal consequences than fornication his longing for not committing sin led him to commit a murder.632 Some questions remain to these similar but different stories: Has there been more than one of this particular type of murder in Lyon? If there has been only one how can we explain the difference in sentencing? Could Locard from some other cases of murder have mixed in the silence concerning the motive, for example from the case of Louis-Auguste Papavoine, executed 1825 for the murders of two children?633 The Belgian Edouard Ducpétiaux in one of his studies of some aspects of capital punishment published in 1827 mentions a number of cases of people who had committed murder or tried to commit murder in order to be executed. Neither places nor dates were mentioned, although most cases probably were French and a few were German, but those he knew through publications by French psychiatrists. The most significant, however, with the cases referred to by Ducpétiaux are that they are clearly understood as primarily psychiatric cases, and neither theological nor other motives are mentioned.634 If this, as seems probable, reflects a general understanding of these acts in countries such as Belgium and France, of those that might find them interesting enough to describe or study them, and maybe also of those considering perpetrating them, it is of no surprise that they were not a subject for intense legal or theological debate. 632 Locard 1939 col 414: ”Je ne veux pas commettre de peché. Or je ressentais, depuis quelque temps, des incitations contraires à la pureté. J’ai craint de ne pouvoir demeurer chaste. Je ne pouvais songer à me suicider: c’est une faute plus grave que la fornication. J’ai donc décidé de commettre un crime capital: j’aurai ainsi le temps de me repentir avant d’être executé à mort: et j’arriverai immaculé au ciel.” 633 See e g Michu 1826 p 3 and Pinel 1836 p 230 sqq. 634 Ducpétiaux 1827 p 41 sqq. Ducpétiaux himself was, however, no stranger to theology even related to the penalty of death, Bergman 2007 p 77 sqq. 180
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