Chapter XXXII: Dublin at last 565 (11)

‘Then a feeble light began to pierce the darkness, and I perceived
that I stood on the lowest step of a staircase, vast as the foot of
a mountain. Behind me were thousands of steps of lurid iron; before
me, nothing but a void--an abyss, and ether; the blue gloom of
midnight beneath my feet, as above my head. I became delirious, and
quitting that staircase, which methought it was impossible for me
to reascend, I sprang forth into the void with an execration. But,
immediately, when I had uttered the curse, the void began to be
filled with forms and colours, and I presently perceived that I was
in a vast gallery, along which I advanced, trembling. There was
still darkness round me; but the hollows of the vaults gleamed with
a red light, and showed me the strange and hideous forms of their
building.... I did not distinguish the nearest objects; but those
towards which I advanced assumed an appearance more and more
ominous, and my terror increased with every step I took. The
enormous pillars which supported the vault, and the tracery thereof
itself, were figures of men, of supernatural stature, delivered to
tortures without a name. Some hung by their feet, and, locked in
the coils of monstrous serpents, clenched their teeth in the marble
of the pavement; others, fastened by their waists, were dragged
upwards, these by their feet, those by their heads, towards
capitals, where other figures stooped towards them, eager to
torment them. Other pillars, again, represented a struggling mass
of figures devouring one another; each of which only offered a
trunk severed to the knees or to the shoulders, the fierce heads
whereof retained life enough to seize and devour that which was
near them. There were some who, half hanging down, agonised
themselves by attempting, with their upper limbs, to flay the lower
moiety of their bodies, which drooped from the columns, or were
attached to the pedestals; and others, who, in their fight with
each other, were dragged along by morsels of flesh--grasping which,
they clung to each other with a countenance of unspeakable hate and
agony. Along, or rather in place of, the frieze, there were on
either side a range of unclean beings, wearing the human form, but
of a loathsome ugliness, busied in tearing human corpses to
pieces--in feasting upon their limbs and entrails. From the vault,
instead of bosses and pendants, hung the crushed and wounded forms
of children; as if, to escape these eaters of man’s flesh, they
would throw themselves downwards, and be dashed to pieces on the
pavement.... The silence and motionlessness of the whole added to
its awfulness. I became so faint with terror, that I stopped, and
would fain have returned. But at that moment I heard, from the
depths of the gloom through which I had passed, confused noises,
like those of a multitude on its march. And the sounds soon became
more distinct, and the clamour fiercer, and the steps came hurrying
on tumultuously--at every new burst nearer, more violent, more
threatening. I thought that I was pursued by this disorderly crowd;
and I strove to advance, hurrying into the midst of those dismal
sculptures. Then it seemed as if those figures began to heave--and
to sweat blood--and their beady eyes to move in their sockets. At
once I beheld that they were all looking upon me, that they were
all leaning towards me,--some with frightful derision, others with
furious aversion. Every arm was raised against me, and they made as
though they would crush me with the quivering limbs they had torn
one from the other.’

* * * * *

It is, indeed, a pity that the poor fellow gave himself the trouble to go down into damp unwholesome graves, for the purpose of fetching up a few trumpery sheets of manuscript; and if the public has been rather tired with their contents, and is disposed to ask why Mrs. Sand’s religious or irreligious notions are to be brought forward to people who are quite satisfied with their own, we can only say that this lady is the representative of a vast class of her countrymen, whom the wits and philosophers of the eighteenth century have brought to this condition. The leaves of the Diderot and Rousseau tree have produced this goodly fruit: here it is, ripe, bursting, and ready to fall;--and how to fall? Heaven send that it may drop easily, for all can see that the time is come.

THE CASE OF PEYTEL

IN A LETTER TO EDWARD BRIEFLESS, ESQUIRE, OF PUMP COURT, TEMPLE

PARIS: _November_ 1839.

MY DEAR BRIEFLESS--Two months since, when the act of accusation first appeared, containing the sum of the charges against Sebastian Peytel, all Paris was in a fervour on the subject. The man’s trial speedily followed, and kept for three days the public interest wound up to a painful point. He was found guilty of double murder at the beginning of September; and, since that time, what with Maroto’s disaffection and Turkish news, we have had leisure to forget Monsieur Peytel, and to occupy ourselves with τι νἑον. Perhaps Monsieur de Balzac helped to smother what little sparks of interest might still have remained for the murderous notary. Balzac put forward a letter in his favour, so very long, so very dull, so very pompous, promising so much, and performing so little, that the Parisian public gave up Peytel and his case altogether; nor was it until to-day that some small feeling was raised concerning him, when the newspapers brought the account how Peytel’s head had been cut off at Bourg.

He had gone through the usual miserable ceremonies and delays which attend what is called, in this country, the march of justice. He had made his appeal to the Court of Cassation, which had taken time to consider the verdict of the Provincial Court, and had confirmed it. He had made his appeal for mercy; his poor sister coming up all the way from Bourg (a sad journey, poor thing!) to have an interview with the King, who had refused to see her. Last Monday morning, at nine o’clock, an hour before Peytel’s breakfast, the Greffier of Assize Court, in company with the Curé of Bourg, waited on him, and informed him that he had only three hours to live. At twelve o’clock, Peytel’s head was off his body; an executioner from Lyons had come over the night before, to assist the professional throat-cutter of Bourg.

I am not going to entertain you with any sentimental lamentations for this scoundrel’s fate, or to declare my belief in his innocence, as Monsieur de Balzac has done. As far as moral conviction can go, the man’s guilt is pretty clearly brought home to him. But any man who has read the ‘Causes Célèbres,’ knows that men have been convicted and executed upon evidence ten times more powerful than that which was brought against Peytel. His own account of his horrible case may be true; there is nothing adduced in the evidence which is strong enough to overthrow it. It is a serious privilege, God knows, that society takes upon itself, at any time, to deprive one of God’s creatures of existence. But when the slightest doubt remains, what a tremendous risk does it incur! In England, thank Heaven, the law is more wise and more merciful: an English jury would never have taken a man’s blood upon such testimony; an English judge and Crown advocate would never have acted as these Frenchmen have done: the latter inflaming the public mind by exaggerated appeals to their passions; the former seeking, in every way, to draw confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don’t mean to say that judges and lawyers have been more violent and inquisitorial against the unhappy Peytel than against any one else; it is the fashion of the country; a man is guilty until he proves himself to be innocent; and to batter down his defence, if he have any, there are the lawyers, with all their horrible ingenuity, and their captivating passionate eloquence. It is hard thus to set the skilful and tried champions of the law against men unused to this kind of combat; nay, give a man all the legal aid that he can purchase or procure, still, by this plan, you take him at a cruel unmanly disadvantage; he has to fight against the law, clogged with the dreadful weight of his presupposed guilt. Thank God that, in England, things are not managed so!

However, I am not about to entertain you with ignorant disquisitions about the law. Peytel’s case may, nevertheless, interest you, for the tale is a very stirring and mysterious one; and you may see how easy a thing it is for a man’s life to be talked away in France, if ever he should happen to fall under the suspicion of a crime. The French ‘acte d’accusation’ begins in the following manner:--

‘Of all the events which in these latter times have afflicted the
department of the Ain, there is none which has caused a more
profound and lively sensation than the tragical death of the lady,
Félicité Alcazar, wife of Sebastian Benedict Peytel, notary, at
Belley. At the end of October 1838, Madame Peytel quitted that
town, with her husband, and their servant Louis Rey, in order to
pass a few days at Mâcon; at midnight, the inhabitants of Belley
were suddenly awakened by the arrival of Monsieur Peytel, by his
cries, and by the signs which he exhibited of the most lively
agitation: he implored the succours of all the physicians in the
town; knocked violently at their doors; rung at the bells of their
houses with a sort of frenzy, and announced that his wife,
stretched out, and dying, in his carriage, had just been shot, on
the Lyons road, by his domestic, whose life Peytel himself had
taken.

‘At this recital a number of persons assembled, and what a
spectacle was presented to their eyes!

‘A young woman lay at the bottom of a carriage, deprived of life;
her whole body was wet, and seemed as if it had just been plunged
into the water. She appeared to be severely wounded in the face;
and her garments, which were raised up, in spite of the cold and
rainy weather, left the upper part of her knees almost entirely
exposed. At the sight of this half-naked and inanimate body, all
the spectators were affected. People said that the first duty to
pay to a dying woman, was, to preserve her from the cold, to cover
her. A physician examined the body; he declared that all remedies
were useless; that Madame Peytel was dead and cold.

‘The entreaties of Peytel were redoubled; he demanded fresh
succours, and, giving no heed to the fatal assurance which had just
been given him, required that all the physicians in the place
should be sent for. A scene so strange and so melancholy; the
incoherent account given by Peytel of the murder of his wife; his
extraordinary movements; and the avowal which he continued to make,
that he had despatched the murderer, Rey, with strokes of his
hammer, excited the attention of Lieutenant Wolf, commandant of
gendarmes: that officer gave orders for the immediate arrest of
Peytel; but the latter threw himself into the arms of a friend, who
interceded for him, and begged the police not immediately to seize
upon his person.

‘The corpse of Madame Peytel was transported to her apartment; the
bleeding body of the domestic was likewise brought from the road,
where it lay; and Peytel, asked to explain the circumstance, did
so.’

* * * * *

Now, as there is little reason to tell the reader, when an English counsel has to prosecute a prisoner, on the part of the Crown, for a capital offence, he produces the articles of his accusation in the most moderate terms, and especially warns the jury to give the accused person the benefit of every possible doubt that the evidence may give, or may leave. See how these things are managed in France, and how differently the French counsel for the Crown sets about his work.

He first prepares his act of accusation, the opening of which we have just read; it is published six days before the trial, so that an unimpassioned, unprejudiced jury has ample time to study it, and to form its opinions accordingly, and to go into court with a happy, just prepossession against the prisoner.

Read the first part of the Peytel act of accusation; it is as turgid and declamatory as a bad romance; and as inflated as a newspaper document by an unlimited penny-a-liner:--‘The department of the Ain is in a dreadful state of excitement; the inhabitants of Belley come trooping from their beds,--and what a sight do they behold:--a young woman at the bottom of a carriage, _toute ruisselante_, just out of a river; her garments, in spite of the cold and rain, raised, so as to leave the upper part of her knee entirely exposed, at which all the beholders were affected, and cried, that the _first duty_ was to cover her from the cold.’ This settles the case at once; the first duty of a man is to cover the legs of the sufferer; the second to call for help. The eloquent ‘Substitut du Procureur du Roi’ has prejudged the case, in the course of a few sentences. He is putting his readers, among whom his future jury is to be found, into a proper state of mind; he works on them with pathetic description, just as a romance-writer would: the rain pours in torrents: it is a dreary evening in November; the young creature’s situation is neatly described; the distrust which entered into the breast of the keen old officer of gendarmes strongly painted, the suspicions which might, or might not, have been entertained by the inhabitants, eloquently argued. How did the advocate know that the people had such? did all the bystanders say aloud, ‘I suspect that this is a case of murder by Monsieur Peytel, and that his story about the domestic is all deception’? or did they go off to the mayor, and register their suspicion? or was the advocate there to hear them? Not he; but he paints you the whole scene as though it had existed, and gives full accounts of suspicions as if they had been facts, positive, patent, staring, that everybody could see and swear to.

Having thus primed his audience, and prepared them for the testimony of the accused party, ‘Now,’ says he, with a fine show of justice, ‘let us hear Monsieur Peytel;’ and that worthy’s narrative is given as follows:--

‘He said that he had left Mâcon on the 31st October, at eleven
o’clock in the morning, in order to return to Belley, with his wife
and servant. The latter drove, or led, an open car; he himself was
driving his wife in a four-wheeled carriage, drawn by one horse:
they reached Bourg at five o’clock in the evening; left it at
seven, to sleep at Pont d’Ain, where they did not arrive before
midnight. During the journey, Peytel thought he remarked that Rey
had slackened his horse’s pace. When they alighted at the inn,
Peytel bade him deposit in his chamber 7500 francs, which he
carried with him; but the domestic refused to do so, saying that
the inn gates were secure, and there was no danger. Peytel was,
therefore, obliged to carry his money upstairs himself. The next
day, the 1st November, they set out on their journey again, at nine
o’clock in the morning; Louis did not come, according to custom, to
take his master’s orders. They arrived at Tenay about three,
stopped there a couple of hours to dine, and it was eight o’clock
when they reached the bourg of Rossillon, where they waited half an
hour to bait the horses.

‘As they left Rossillon, the weather became bad, and the rain began
to fall: Peytel told his domestic to get a covering for the
articles in the open chariot; but Rey refused to do so, adding, in
an ironical tone, that the weather was fine. For some days past,
Peytel had remarked that his servant was gloomy, and scarcely spoke
at all.

‘After they had gone about five hundred paces beyond the bridge of
Andert, that crosses the river Furans, and ascended to the least
steep part of the hill of Darde, Peytel cried out to his servant,
who was seated in the car, to come down from it, and finish the
ascent on foot.

‘At this moment a violent wind was blowing from the south, and the
rain was falling heavily: Peytel was seated back in the right
corner of the carriage, and his wife, who was close to him, was
asleep, with her head on his left shoulder. All of a sudden he
heard the report of a firearm (he had seen the light of it at some
paces’ distance), and Madame Peytel cried out, ‘My poor husband,
take your pistols;’ the horse was frightened, and began to trot.
Peytel immediately drew a pistol, and fired, from the interior of
the carriage, upon an individual whom he saw running by the side of
the road.

‘Not knowing, as yet, that his wife had been hit, he jumped out on
one side of the carriage, while Madame Peytel descended from the
other; and he fired a second pistol at his domestic, Louis Rey,
whom he had just recognised. Redoubling his pace, he came up with
Rey, and struck him, from behind, a blow with the hammer. Rey
turned at this, and raised up his arm to strike his master with the
pistol which he had just discharged at him; but Peytel, more quick
than he, gave the domestic a blow with the hammer, which felled him
to the ground (he fell his face forwards), and then Peytel,
bestriding the body, despatched him, although the brigand asked for
mercy.

‘He now began to think of his wife; and ran back, calling out her
name repeatedly, and seeking for her, in vain, on both sides of the
road. Arrived at the bridge of Andert, he recognised his wife,
stretched in a field, covered with water, which bordered the
Furans. This horrible discovery had so much the more astonished
him, because he had no idea until now, that his wife had been
wounded: he endeavoured to draw her from the water; and it was only
after considerable exertions that he was enabled to do so, and to
place her, with her face towards the ground, on the side of the
road. Supposing that, here, she would be sheltered from any further
danger, and believing, as yet, that she was only wounded, he
determined to ask for help at a lone house, situated on the road
towards Rossillon; and at this instant he perceived, without at all
being able to explain how, that his horse had followed him back to
the spot, having turned back of its own accord, from the road to
Belley.

‘The house at which he knocked was inhabited by two men, of the
name Thannet, father and son, who opened the door to him, and whom
he entreated to come to his aid, saying that his wife had just been
assassinated by his servant. The elder Thannet approached to, and
examined the body, and told Peytel that it was quite dead; he and
his son took up the corpse, and placed it in the bottom of the
carriage, which they all mounted themselves, and pursued their
route to Belley. In order to do so, they had to pass by Rey’s body,
on the road, which Peytel wished to crush under the wheels of his
carriage. It was to rob him of 7500 francs, said Peytel, that the
attack had been made.’

Our friend, the Procureur’s Substitut, has dropped, here, the eloquent and pathetic style altogether, and only gives the unlucky prisoner’s narrative in the baldest and most unimaginative style. How is a jury to listen to such a fellow? they ought to condemn him, if but for making such an uninteresting statement. Why not have helped poor Peytel with some of those rhetorical graces which have been so plentifully bestowed in the opening part of the act of accusation? He might have said:--

‘Monsieur Peytel is an eminent notary at Belley; he is a man
distinguished for his literary and scientific acquirements; he has
lived long in the best society of the capital; he had been but a
few months married to that young and unfortunate lady, whose loss
has plunged her bereaved husband into despair--almost into madness.
Some early differences had marked, it is true, the commencement of
their union; but these,--which, as can be proved by evidence, were
almost all the unhappy lady’s fault,--had happily ceased, to give
place to sentiments far more delightful and tender. Gentlemen,
Madame Peytel bore in her bosom a sweet pledge of future concord
between herself and her husband: in three brief months she was to
become a mother.

‘In the exercise of his honourable profession,--in which, to
succeed, a man must not only have high talents, but undoubted
probity,--and, gentlemen, Monsieur Peytel _did_ succeed--_did_
inspire respect and confidence, as you, his neighbours, well
know;--in the exercise, I say, of his high calling, Monsieur
Peytel, towards the end of October last, had occasion to make a
journey in the neighbourhood, and visit some of his many clients.

‘He travelled in his own carriage, his young wife beside him. Does
this look like want of affection, gentlemen? or is it not a mark of
love--of love and paternal care on his part towards the being with
whom his lot in life was linked,--the mother of his coming
child,--the young girl, who had everything to gain from the union
with a man of his attainments of intellect, his kind temper, his
great experience, and his high position? In this manner they
travelled, side by side, lovingly together. Monsieur Peytel was not
a lawyer merely; but a man of letters and varied learning; of the
noble and sublime science of geology he was, especially, an ardent
devotee.’

(Suppose, here, a short panegyric upon geology. Allude to the creation of this mighty world, and then, naturally, to the Creator. Fancy the conversations which Peytel, a religious man,[8] might have with his young wife upon the subject.)

‘Monsieur Peytel had lately taken into his service a man named
Louis Rey. Rey was a foundling, and had passed many years in a
regiment--a school, gentleman, where much besides bravery, alas! is
taught; nay, where the spirit which familiarises one with notions
of battle and death, I fear, may familiarise one with ideas, too,
of murder. Rey, a dashing reckless fellow, from the army, had
lately entered Peytel’s service; was treated by him with the most
singular kindness; accompanied him (having charge of another
vehicle) upon the journey before alluded to; and _knew that his
master carried with him a considerable sum of money_; for a man
like Rey an enormous sum, 7500 francs. At midnight on the 1st of
November, as Madame Peytel and her husband were returning home, an
attack was made upon their carriage. Remember, gentlemen, the hour
at which the attack was made; remember the sum of money that was in
the carriage; and remember that the Savoy frontier _is within a
league of the spot_ where the desperate deed was done.’

Now, my dear Briefless, ought not Monsieur Procureur, in common justice to Peytel, after he had so eloquently proclaimed, not the facts, but the suspicions, which weighed against that worthy, to have given a similar florid account of the prisoner’s case? Instead of this, you will remark, that it is the advocate’s endeavour to make Peytel’s statements as uninteresting in style as possible; and then he demolishes them in the following way:--

‘Scarcely was Peytel’s statement known, but the common sense of the
public rose against it. Peytel had commenced his story upon the
bridge of Andert, over the cold body of his wife. On the 2nd
November he had developed it in detail, in the presence of the
physicians, in the presence of the assembled neighbours--of the
persons who, on the day previous only, were his friends. Finally,
he had completed it in his interrogatories, his conversations, his
writings, and letters to the magistrates; and everywhere these
words, repeated so often, were only received with a painful
incredulity. The fact was, that, besides the singular character
which Peytel’s appearance, attitude, and talk had worn ever since
the event, there was in his narrative an inexplicable enigma; its
contradictions and impossibilities were such, that calm persons
were revolted at it, and that even friendship itself refused to
believe it.’

Thus Mr. Attorney speaks, not for himself alone, but for the whole French public; whose opinions, of course, he knows. Peytel’s statement is discredited _everywhere_; the statement which he had made over the cold body of his wife--the monster! It is not enough simply to prove that the man committed the murder, but to make the jury violently angry against him, and cause them to shudder in the jury-box, as he exposes the horrid details of the crime.

‘Justice,’ goes on Mr. Substitute (who answers for the feelings of
everybody), ‘_disturbed by the preoccupations of public opinion_,
commenced, without delay, the most active researches. The bodies of
the victims were submitted to the investigations of men of art; the
wounds and projectiles were examined; the place where the event
took place explored with care. The morality of the authors of this
frightful scene became the object of rigorous examination; the
_exigences_ of the prisoner, the forms affected by him, his
calculated silence, and his answers, coldly insulting, were feeble
obstacles; and justice at length arrived, by its prudence, and by
the discoveries it made, to the most cruel point of certainty.’

You see that a man’s demeanour is here made a crime against him; and that Mr. Substitute wishes to consider him guilty, because he has actually the audacity to hold his tongue. Now follows a touching description of the domestic, Louis Rey:--

‘Louis Rey, a child of the Hospital at Lyons, was confided, at a
very early age, to some honest country-people, with whom he stayed
until he entered the army. At their house, and during this long
period of time, his conduct, his intelligence, and the sweetness of
his manners, were such, that the family of his guardians became to
him as an adopted family; and that his departure caused them the
most sincere affliction. When Louis quitted the army, he returned
to his benefactors, and was received as a son. They found him just
as they had ever known him’ (I acknowledge that this pathos beats
my humble defence of Rey entirely), ‘except that he had learned to
read and write; and the certificates of his commanders proved him
to be a good and gallant soldier.

‘The necessity of creating some resources for himself obliged him
to quit his friends, and to enter the service of Monsieur de
Montrichard, a lieutenant of gendarmerie, from whom he received
fresh testimonials of regard. Louis, it is true, might have a
fondness for wine and a passion for women; but he had been a
soldier, and these faults were, according to the witnesses, amply
compensated for by his activity, his intelligence, and the
agreeable manner in which he performed his service. In the month of
July 1839, Rey quitted, voluntarily, the service of M. de
Montrichard; and Peytel, about this period, meeting him at Lyons,
did not hesitate to attach him to his service. Whatever may be the
prisoner’s present language, it is certain that, up to the day of
Louis’s death, he served Peytel with diligence and fidelity.

‘More than once his master and mistress spoke well of him.
_Everybody_ who has worked, or been at the house of Madame Peytel,
has spoken in praise of his character; and, indeed, it may be said,
that these testimonials were general.

‘On the very night of the 1st of November, and immediately after
the catastrophe, we remark how Peytel begins to make insinuations
against his servant; and how artfully, in order to render them more
sure, he disseminates them through the different parts of his
narrative. But, in the course of the proceeding, these charges have
met with a most complete denial. Thus we find the disobedient
servant who, at Pont d’Ain, refused to carry the money-chest to his
master’s room, under the pretext that the gates of the inn were
closed securely, occupied with tending the horses after their long
journey; meanwhile Peytel was standing by, and neither master nor
servant exchanged a word, and the witnesses who beheld them both
have borne testimony to the zeal and care of the domestic.

‘In like manner, we find that the servant, who was so remiss in the
morning as to neglect to go to his master for orders, was ready for
departure before seven o’clock, and had eagerly informed himself
whether Monsieur and Madame Peytel were awake; learning, from the
maid of the inn, that they had ordered nothing for their breakfast.
This man, who refused to carry with him a covering for the car,
was, on the contrary, ready to take off his own cloak, and with it
shelter articles of small value; this man, who had been for many
days so silent and gloomy, gave, on the contrary, many proofs of
his gaiety--almost of his indiscretion, speaking, at all the inns,
in terms of praise of his master and mistress. The waiter at the
inn at Dauphin says he was a tall young fellow, mild and
good-natured; “we talked for some time about horses, and such
things; he seemed to be perfectly natural, and not preoccupied at
all.” At Pont d’Ain, he talked of his being a foundling; of the
place where he had been brought up, and where he had served; and
finally, at Rossillon, an hour before his death, he conversed
familiarly with the master of the port, and spoke on indifferent
subjects.

‘All Peytel’s insinuations against his servant had no other end
than to show, in every point of Rey’s conduct, the behaviour of a
man who was premeditating attack. Of what, in fact, does he accuse
him? Of wishing to rob him of 7500 francs, and of having had
recourse to assassination in order to effect the robbery. But, for
a premeditated crime, consider what singular improvidence the
person showed who had determined on committing it; what folly and
what weakness there is in the execution of it.

‘How many insurmountable obstacles are there in the way of
committing and profiting by crime! On leaving Belley, Louis Rey,
according to Peytel’s statement, knowing that his master would
return with money, provided himself with a holster pistol, which
Madame Peytel had once before perceived among his effects. In
Peytel’s cabinet there were some balls; four of these were found in
Rey’s trunk, on the 6th of November. And, in order to commit the
crime, this domestic had brought away with him a pistol, and no
ammunition! for Peytel has informed us that Rey, an hour before his
departure from Mâcon, purchased six balls at a gunsmith’s. To gain
his point, the assassin must immolate his victims; for this, he has
only one pistol, knowing, perfectly well, that Peytel, in all his
travels, had two on his person; knowing that, at a late hour of the
night, his shot might fail of effect; and that, in this case, he
would be left to the mercy of his opponent.

‘The execution of the crime is, according to Peytel’s account,
still more singular. Louis does not get off the carriage until
Peytel tells him to descend. He does not think of taking his
master’s life until he is sure that the latter has his eyes open.
It is dark, and the pair are covered in one cloak; and Rey only
fires at them at six paces’ distance: he fires at hazard, without
disquieting himself as to the choice of his victim; and the
soldier, who was bold enough to undertake this double murder, has
not force nor courage to consummate it. He flies, carrying in his
hand a useless whip, with a heavy mantle on his shoulders, in spite
of the detonation of two pistols at his ears, and the rapid steps
of an angry master in pursuit, which ought to have set him upon
some better means of escape. And we find this man, full of youth
and vigour, lying with his face to the ground, in the midst of a
public road, falling without a struggle, or resistance, under the
blows of a hammer!

‘And suppose the murderer had succeeded in his criminal projects,
what fruit could he have drawn from them?--Leaving on the road the
two bleeding bodies; obliged to lead two carriages at a time, for
fear of discovery; not able to return himself, after all the pains
he had taken to speak, at every place at which they had stopped, of
the money which his master was carrying with him; too prudent to
appear alone at Belley; arrested at the frontier, by the excise
officers, who would present an impassable barrier to him till
morning,--what could he do, or hope to do? The examination of the
car has shown that Rey, at the moment of the crime, had neither
linen, nor clothes, nor effects of any kind. There was found in his
pockets, when the body was examined, no passport, nor certificate;
one of his pockets contained a ball, of large calibre, which he had
shown, in play, to a girl, at the inn at Mâcon, a little
horn-handled knife, a snuff-box, a little packet of gunpowder, and
a purse, containing only a halfpenny and some string. Here is all
the baggage, with which, after the execution of his homicidal plan,
Louis Rey intended to take refuge in a foreign country.[9] Beside
these absurd contradictions, there is another remarkable fact,
which must not be passed over; it is this:--the pistol found by Rey
is of an antique form, and the original owner of it has been found.
He is a curiosity-merchant at Lyons; and, though he cannot affirm
that Peytel was the person who bought this pistol of him, he
perfectly recognises Peytel as having been a frequent customer at
his shop!

‘No, we may fearlessly affirm that Louis Rey was not guilty of the
crime which Peytel lays to his charge. If, to those who knew him,
his mild and open disposition, his military career, modest and
without a stain, the touching regrets of his employers, are
sufficient proofs of his innocence--the calm and candid observer,
who considers how the crime was conceived, was executed, and what
consequences would have resulted from it, will likewise acquit him,
and free him of the odious imputation which Peytel endeavours to
cast upon his memory.

‘But justice has removed the veil with which an impious hand
endeavoured to cover itself. Already, on the night of the 1st of
November, suspicion was awakened by the extraordinary agitation of
Peytel; by those excessive attentions towards his wife, which came
so late; by that excessive and noisy grief, and by those calculated
bursts of sorrow, which are such as Nature does not exhibit. The
criminal, whom the public conscience had fixed upon; the man whose
frightful combinations have been laid bare, and whose falsehoods,
step by step, have been exposed, during the proceedings previous to
the trial; the murderer, at whose hands a heart-stricken family,
and society at large, demands an account of the blood of a
wife;--that murderer is Peytel!’

When, my dear Briefless, you are a judge (as I make no doubt you will be, when you have left off the club all night, cigar-smoking of mornings, and reading novels in bed), will you ever find it in your heart to order a fellow-sinner’s head off upon such evidence as this? Because a romantic Substitut du Procureur du Roi chooses to compose and recite a little drama, and draw tears from juries, let us hope that severe Rhadamanthine judges are not to be melted by such trumpery. One wants but the description of the characters to render the piece complete, as thus:--

PERSONNAGES. COSTUMES.

{ Habillement complet
SEBASTIEN } Meurtrier { de notaire perfide: figure
PEYTEL } { pâle, barbe noire, cheveux
{ noirs.

{ Soldat retiré, bon, }
{ brave, franc, jovial, aimant } Costume ordinaire; il
LOUIS REY{ le vin, les femmes, } porte sur ses épaules une
{ la gaîté, ses maîtres surtout;} couverture de cheval.
{ vrai Français, enfin. }

WOLFF Lieutenant de Gendarmerie.

FÉLICITÉ } Femme et victime de Peytel.
D'ALCAZAR }

Médecins, Villageois, Filles d’Auberge, Garçons d’Ecurie, etc. etc.

La scène se passe sur le pont d’Andert, entre Mâcon et Belley. Il est minuit. La pluie tombe: les tonnerres grondent. Le ciel est couvert de nuages, et sillonné d’éclairs.

All these personages are brought into play in the Procureur’s drama: the villagers come in with their chorus; the old lieutenant of gendarmes with his suspicions; Rey’s frankness and gaiety, the romantic circumstances of his birth, his gallantry and fidelity, are all introduced, in order to form a contrast with Peytel, and to call down the jury’s indignation against the latter. But are these proofs? or anything like proofs? And the suspicions, that are to serve instead of proofs, what are they?

‘My servant, Louis Rey, was very sombre and reserved,’ says Peytel;
‘he refused to call me in the morning, to carry my money-chest to
my room, to cover the open car when it rained.’ The Prosecutor
disproves these by stating that Rey talked with the inn maids and
servants, asked if his master was up, and stood in the inn-yard,
grooming the horses, with his master by his side, neither speaking
to the other. Might he not have talked to the maids, and yet been
sombre when speaking to his master? Might he not have neglected to
call his master, and yet have asked whether he was awake? Might he
not have said that the inn gates were safe, out of hearing of the
ostler witness? Mr. Substitute’s answers to Peytel’s statements are
no answers at all. Every word Peytel said might be true, and yet
Louis Rey might not have committed the murder; or every word might
have been false, and yet Louis Rey might have committed the murder.

‘Then,’ says Mr. Substitute, ‘how many obstacles are there to the
commission of the crime! And these are:--

‘1. Rey provided himself with _one_ holster pistol, to kill two
people, knowing well that one of them had always a brace of pistols
about him.

‘2. He does not think of firing until his master’s eyes are open:
fires at six paces, not caring at whom he fires, and then runs
away.

‘3. He could not have intended to kill his master, because he had
no passport in his pocket, and no clothes; and because he must have
been detained at the frontier until morning; and because he would
have had to drive two carriages, in order to avoid suspicion.

‘4. And, a most singular circumstance, the very pistol which was
found by his side had been bought at the shop of a man at Lyons,
who perfectly recognised Peytel as one of his customers, though he
could not say he had sold that particular weapon to Peytel.’

Does it follow, from this, that Louis Rey is not the murderer--much more, that Peytel is? Look at argument No. 1. Rey had no need to kill two people: he wanted the money, and not the blood. Suppose he had killed Peytel, would he not have mastered Madame Peytel easily?--a weak woman, in an excessively delicate situation, incapable of much energy at the best of times.

2. ‘He does not fire till he knows his master’s eyes are open.’ Why, on a stormy night, does a man driving a carriage go to sleep? Was Rey to wait until his master snored? ‘He fires at six paces, not caring whom he hits;’--and might not this happen too? The night is not so dark but that he can see his master, in _his usual place_, driving. He fires and hits--whom? Madame Peytel, who had left her place, _and was wrapped up with Peytel in his cloak_. She screams out, ‘Husband, take your pistols.’ Rey knows that his master has a brace, thinks that he has hit the wrong person, and, as Peytel fires on him, runs away. Peytel follows, hammer in hand; as he comes up with the fugitive, he deals him a blow on the back of the head, and Rey falls--his face to the ground. Is there anything unnatural in this story?--anything so monstrously unnatural, that is, that it might not be true?

3. These objections are absurd. Why need a man have change of linen? If he had taken none for the journey, why should he want any for the escape? Why need he drive two carriages?--He might have driven both into the river, and Mrs. Peytel in one. Why is he to go to the douane, and thrust himself into the very jaws of danger? Are there not a thousand ways for a man to pass a frontier? Do smugglers, when they have to pass from one country to another, choose exactly those spots where a police is placed?

And, finally, the gunsmith of Lyons, who knows Peytel quite well, cannot say that he sold the pistol to him; that is, he did not sell the pistol to him; for you have only one man’s word, in this case (Peytel’s), to the contrary; and the testimony, as far as it goes, is in his favour. I say, my lud, and gentlemen of the jury, that these objections of my learned friend, who is engaged for the Crown, are absurd, frivolous, monstrous; that to suspect away the life of a man upon such suppositions as these, is wicked, illegal, and inhuman; and, what is more, that Louis Rey, if he wanted to commit the crime--if he wanted to possess himself of a large sum of money--chose the best time and spot for so doing; and, no doubt, would have succeeded, if Fate had not, in a wonderful manner, caused Madame Peytel _to take her husband’s place_, and receive the ball intended for him in her own head.

But whether these suspicions are absurd or not, hit or miss, it is the advocate’s duty, as it appears, to urge them. He wants to make as unfavourable an impression as possible with regard to Peytel’s character; he, therefore, must, for contrast’s sake, give all sorts of praise to his victim, and awaken every sympathy in the poor fellow’s favour. Having done this, as far as lies in his power, having exaggerated every circumstance that can be unfavourable to Peytel, and given his own tale in the baldest manner possible--having declared that Peytel is the murderer of his wife and servant, the Crown now proceeds to back this assertion, by showing what interested motives he had, and by relating, after its own fashion, the circumstances of his marriage.

They may be told briefly here. Peytel was of a good family of Mâcon, and entitled, at his mother’s death, to a considerable property. He had been educated as a notary, and had lately purchased a business, in that line, at Belley, for which he had paid a large sum of money; part of the sum, 15,000 francs, for which he had given bills, was still due.

Near Belley, Peytel first met Félicité Alcazar, who was residing with her brother-in-law, Monsieur de Montrichard; and, knowing that the young lady’s fortune was considerable, he made an offer of marriage to the brother-in-law, who thought the match advantageous, and communicated on the subject with Félicité’s mother, Madame Alcazar, at Paris. After a time Peytel went to Paris, to press his suit, and was accepted. There seems to have been no affectation of love on his side; and some little repugnance on the part of the lady, who yielded, however, to the wishes of her parents, and was married. The parties began to quarrel on the very day of the marriage, and continued their disputes almost to the close of the unhappy connection. Félicité was half blind, passionate, sarcastic, clumsy in her person and manners, and ill educated; Peytel, a man of considerable intellect and pretensions, who had lived for some time at Paris, where he had mingled with good literary society. The lady was, in fact, as disagreeable a person as could well be, and the evidence describes some scenes which took place between her and her husband, showing how deeply she must have mortified and enraged him.

A charge very clearly made out against Peytel, is that of dishonesty: he procured, from the notary of whom he bought his place, an acquittance in full, whereas there were 15,000 francs owing, as we have seen. He also, in the contract of marriage, which was to have resembled, in all respects, that between Monsieur Broussais and another Demoiselle Alcazar, caused an alteration to be made in his favour, which gave him command over his wife’s funded property, without furnishing the guarantees by which the other son-in-law was bound. And, almost immediately after his marriage, Peytel sold out of the funds a sum of 50,000 francs, that belonged to his wife, and used it for his own purposes.

About two months after his marriage, _Peytel pressed his wife to make her will_. He had made his, he said, leaving everything to her, in case of his death: after some parley, the poor thing consented.[10] This is a cruel suspicion against him; and Mr. Substitute has no need to enlarge upon it. As for the previous fact, the dishonest statement about the 15,000 francs, there is nothing murderous in that--nothing which a man very eager to make a good marriage might not do. The same may be said of the suppression, in Peytel’s marriage contract, of the clause to be found in Broussais’s, placing restrictions upon the use of the wife’s money. Mademoiselle d’Alcazar’s friends read the contract before they signed it, and might have refused it, had they so pleased.

After some disputes, which took place between Peytel and his wife (there were continual quarrels, and continual letters passing between them from room to room), the latter was induced to write him a couple of exaggerated letters, swearing ‘by the ashes of her father’ that she would be an obedient wife to him, and entreating him to counsel and direct her. These letters were seen by members of the lady’s family, who, in the quarrels between the couple, always took the husband’s part. They were found in Peytel’s cabinet, after he had been arrested for the murder, and after he had had full access to all his papers, of which he destroyed or left as many as he pleased. The accusation makes it a matter of suspicion against Peytel, that he should have left these letters of his wife’s in a conspicuous situation.

* * * * *

‘All these circumstances,’ says the accusation, ‘throw a frightful light upon Peytel’s plans. The letters and will of Madame Peytel are in the hands of her husband. Three months pass away, and this poor woman is brought to her home, in the middle of the night, with two balls in her head, stretched at the bottom of her carriage, by the side of a peasant!

‘What other than Sebastian Peytel could have committed this murder?--whom could it profit?--who but himself had an odious chain to break, and an inheritance to receive? Why speak of the servant’s projected robbery? The pistols found by the side of Louis’s body, the balls bought by him at Mâcon, and those discovered at Belley among his effects, were only the result of a perfidious combination. The pistol, indeed, which was found on the hill of Darde, on the night of the 1st of November, could only have belonged to Peytel, and must have been thrown by him, near the body of his domestic, with the paper which had before enveloped it. Who had seen this pistol in the hands of Louis? Among all the gendarmes, workwomen, domestics, employed by Peytel and his brother-in-law, is there one single witness who had seen this weapon in Louis’s possession? It is true that Madame Peytel did, on one occasion, speak to M. de Montrichard of a pistol, which had nothing to do, however, with that found near Louis Rey.’

* * * * *

Is this justice, or good reason? Just reverse the argument, and apply it to Rey. ‘Who but Rey could have committed this murder?--who but Rey had a large sum of money to seize upon?--a pistol is found by his side, balls and powder in his pocket, other balls in his trunks at home. The pistol found near his body could not, indeed, have belonged to Peytel: did any man ever see it in his possession? The very gunsmith who sold it, and who knew Peytel, would he not have known that he had sold him this pistol? At his own house, Peytel has a collection of weapons of all kinds; everybody has seen them--a man who makes such collections is anxious to display them. Did any one ever see this weapon?--Not one. And Madame Peytel did, in her lifetime, remark a pistol in the valet’s possession. She was short-sighted, and could not particularise what kind of pistol it was; but she spoke of it to her husband and her brother-in-law.’ This is not satisfactory, if you please: but, at least, it is as satisfactory as the other set of suppositions. It is the very chain of argument which would have been brought against Louis Rey by this very same compiler of the act of accusation, had Rey survived, instead of Peytel, and had he, as most undoubtedly would have been the case, been tried for the murder.

This argument was shortly put by Peytel’s counsel:--_‘If Peytel had been killed by Rey in the struggle, would you not have found Rey guilty of the murder of his master and mistress?_’ It is such a dreadful dilemma, that I wonder how judges and lawyers could have dared to persecute Peytel in the manner in which they did.

After the act of accusation, which lays down all the suppositions against Peytel as facts, which will not admit the truth of one of the prisoner’s allegations in his own defence, comes the trial. The judge is quite as impartial as the preparer of the indictment, as will be seen by the following specimens of his interrogatories:--

_Judge._ The act of accusation finds in your statement
contradictions, improbabilities, impossibilities. Thus your
domestic, who had determined to assassinate you, in order to rob
you, and who _must have calculated upon the consequence of a
failure_, had neither passport nor money upon him. This is very
unlikely; because he could not have gone far with only a single
halfpenny, which was all he had.

_Prisoner._ My servant was known, and often passed the frontier
without a passport.

_Judge._ _Your domestic had to assassinate two persons_, and had no
weapon but a single pistol. He had no dagger; and the only thing
found on him was a knife.

_Prisoner._ In the car there were several turner’s implements,
which he might have used.

_Judge._ But he had not those arms upon him, because you pursued
him immediately. He had, according to you, only this old pistol.

_Prisoner._ I have nothing to say.

_Judge._ Your domestic, instead of flying into woods, which skirt
the road, ran straight forward on the road itself: _this, again, is
very unlikely_.

_Prisoner._ This is a conjecture I could answer by another
conjecture; I can only reason on the facts.

_Judge._ How far did you pursue him?

_Prisoner._ I don’t know exactly.

_Judge._ You said ‘two hundred paces.’

No answer from the prisoner.

_Judge._ Your domestic was young, active, robust, and tall. He was
ahead of you. You were in a carriage, from which you had to
descend: you had to take your pistols from a cushion, and _then_
your hammer;--how are we to believe that you could have caught him,
if he ran? It is _impossible_.

_Prisoner._ I can’t explain it: I think that Rey had some defect in
one leg. I, for my part, run tolerably fast.

_Judge._ At what distance from him did you fire your first shot?

_Prisoner._ I can’t tell.

_Judge._ Perhaps he was not running when you fired.

_Prisoner._ I saw him running.

_Judge._ In what position was your wife?

_Prisoner._ She was leaning on my left arm, and the man was on the
right side of the carriage.

_Judge._ The shot must have been fired _à bout portant_, because it
burned the eyebrows and lashes entirely. The assassin must have
passed his pistol across your breast.

_Prisoner._ The shot was not fired so close; I am convinced of it:
professional gentlemen will prove it.

_Judge._ _That is what you pretend, because you understand
perfectly the consequences of admitting the fact._ Your wife was
hit with two balls--one striking downwards, to the right, by the
nose, the other going horizontally through the cheek, to the left.

_Prisoner._ The contrary will be shown by the witnesses called for
the purpose.