Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

INSANITY
A young Frenchman who was tried in London lately, for an attack on a Roman Catholic clergyman in church with a drawn sword, was acquitted as being insane. The lady where the prisoner lodged for the last 13 months, proved the following extraordinary conduct in his mode of living: for some weeks he confined his diet to bread (without yeast) and water—then he would live for weeks on fowl, eating twenty one per week—then for a time on oranges—then on oil cakes—then on boiled flour and water—then on the juice of pounded grass—then on the juice of pounded roses—then on unboiled peas—then on boiled ones, eating each day three pecks of shelled ones, and one of them with the shells—sometimes changing his diet to mutton, of which he would eat six pounds per day. He had also a variety of iron armour made, weighing 214 pounds each, which he used to try on at the brazier's and say, that he would walk in them 50 leagues a day. He had also an iron crown, and a highly polished double edged sword about 8 feet in length. He avowed his intention of leading forty millions of men to extirpate the Barbary States. The iron suits of armour for himself and a horse were produced in court.