VIII. Le château d'If
VIII. The Château d'If
The Tahiti diplomatic crisis between France and Britain nears resolution, while the Morocco war and the Blétry murder trial dominate this issue.
- The Times announces that the Tahiti affair has been settled honourably for both nations: French officer d'Aubigny is removed, his conduct apologised for, and compensation promised to expelled British consul George Pritchard.
- The Journal des Débats rebukes the republican National for recklessly declaring war not only on England but on all European governments, invoking the revolutionary spirit of 1793 and threatening to unleash peoples against kings.
- A French scientific expedition led by MM. Bravais, Martins, and Lepileur is attempting a third ascent of Mont Blanc to camp on the Grand Plateau at 600 metres from the summit and study glaciers and erratic boulders.
- Workmen digging a cellar near Vernon unearthed four Roman-era tombs containing skeletons of unusually tall men, small red-earthenware pots, and stoneware amphorae, with no coffins but oxidised iron screws suggesting wooden casings.
- A key witness in the Blétry murder trial, tenant Victoire Lacour, testified she heard a single cry followed by a dull thud on the evening of 3 June 1843, and that a blood-soaked shirt and a hidden pool of blood beneath a sofa were later discovered in the accused's home.
- A parricide in the Charente-Inférieure: Pierre Guyonnet was condemned to death for poisoning his 88-year-old father with arsenic, the jury having insisted on severe justice.
- At the Grand Prix de Gravure, critic finds all eight competitors' copies after the antique Faun statue unsatisfactory, singling out only M. Delaforge as showing genuine artistic instinct despite uneven execution.
- The Duc d'Aumale donated the complete works of Casimir Delavigne as a prize of honour to the Collège de Lorient, awarded to pupil Théophile Ruinet of Quimper amid general applause.