Malin and Grevin had both, the latter working for the former, taken part
in the construction of the Code called that of Brumaire, year IV., the
judicial work of the National Convention, so-called, and promulgated by
the Directory. Grevin knew its provisions thoroughly, and was able to
apply them in this affair with terrible celerity, under a theory, now
converted into a certainty, of the guilt of Michu and the Messieurs
de Simeuse and d’Hauteserre. No one in these days, unless it be some
antiquated magistrates, will remember this system of justice, which
Napoleon was even then overthrowing by the promulgation of his own
Codes, and by the institution of his magistracy under the form in which
it now rules France.
The Code of Brumaire, year IV., gave to the director of the jury of
the department the duty of discovering, indicting, and prosecuting the
persons guilty of the delinquency committed at Gondreville. Remark, by
the way, that the Convention had eliminated from its judicial vocabulary
the word “crime”; _delinquencies_ and _misdemeanors_ were alone
admitted; and these were punished with fines, imprisonment, and
penalties “afflictive or infamous.” Death was an afflictive punishment.
But the penalty of death was to be done away with after the restoration
of peace, and twenty-four years of hard labor were to take its place.
Thus the Convention estimated twenty-four years of hard labor as
the equivalent of death. What therefore can be said for a code which
inflicts the punishment of hard labor for life? The system then in
process of preparation by the Napoleonic Council of State suppressed the
function of the directors of juries, which united many enormous powers.
In relation to the discovery of delinquencies and their prosecution the
director of the jury was, in fact, agent of police, public prosecutor,
municipal judge, and the court itself. His proceedings and his
indictments were, however, submitted for signature to a commissioner of
the executive power and to the verdict of eight jurymen, before whom
he laid the facts of the case, and who examined the witnesses and the
accused and rendered the preliminary verdict, called the indictment. The
director was, however, in a position to exercise such influence over the
jurymen, who met in his private office, that they could not well avoid
agreeing with him. These jurymen were called the jury of indictment.
There were others who formed the juries of the criminal tribunals
whose duty it was to judge the accused; these were called, in
contradistinction to the jury of indictment, the judgment jury. The
criminal tribunal, to which Napoleon afterwards gave the name of
criminal court, was composed of one President or chief justice, four
judges, the public prosecutor, and a government commissioner.
Nevertheless, from 1799 to 1806 there were special courts (so-called)
which judged without juries certain misdemeanors in certain departments;
these were composed of judges taken from the civil courts and formed
into a special court. This conflict of special justice and criminal
justice gave rise to questions of competence which came before the
courts of appeal. If the department of the Aube had had a special court,
the verdict on the outrage committed on a senator of the Empire would no
doubt have been referred to it; but this tranquil department had
never needed unusual jurisdiction. Grevin therefore despatched the
sub-lieutenant to Troyes to bring the director of the jury of that town.
The emissary went at full gallop, and soon returned in a post-carriage
with the all-powerful magistrate.
The director of the Troyes jury was formerly secretary of one of the
committees of the Convention, a friend of Malin, to whom he owed his
present place. This magistrate, named Lechesneau, had helped Malin, as
Grevin had done, in his work on the Code during the Convention. Malin in
return recommended him to Cambaceres, who appointed him attorney-general
for Italy. Unfortunately for him, Lechesneau had a liaison with a
great lady in Turin, and Napoleon removed him to avoid a criminal trial
threatened by the husband. Lechesneau, bound in gratitude to Malin, felt
the importance of this attack upon his patron, and brought with him a
captain of gendarmerie and twelve men.
Before starting he laid his plans with the prefect, who was unable
at that late hour, it being after dark, to use the telegraph. They
therefore sent a mounted messenger to Paris to notify the minister of
police, the chief justice and the Emperor of this extraordinary crime.
In the salon of Gondreville, Lechesneau found Mesdames Marion and
Grevin, Violette, the senator’s valet, and the justice of peace with his
clerk. The chateau had already been examined; the justice, assisted by
Grevin, had carefully collected the first testimony. The first thing
that struck him was the obvious intention shown in the choice of the
day and hour for the attack. The hour prevented an immediate search for
proofs and traces. At this season it was nearly dark by half-past five,
the hour at which Violette gave the alarm, and darkness often means
impunity to evil-doers. The choice of a holiday, when most persons had
gone to the masquerade at Arcis, and the senator was comparatively alone
in the house, showed an obvious intention to get rid of witnesses.
“Let us do justice to the intelligence of the prefecture of police,”
said Lechesneau; “they have never ceased to warn us to be on our guard
against the nobles at Cinq-Cygne; they have always declared that sooner
or later those people would play us some dangerous trick.”
Sure of the active co-operation of the prefect of the Aube, who sent
messengers to all the surrounding prefectures asking them to search
for the five abductors and the senator, Lechesneau began his work by
verifying the first facts. This was soon done by the help of two such
legal heads as those of Grevin and the justice of peace. The latter,
named Pigoult, formerly head-clerk in the office where Malin and Grevin
had first studied law in Paris, was soon after appointed judge of the
municipal court at Arcis. In relation to Michu, Lechesneau knew of the
threats the man had made about the sale of Gondreville to Marion, and
the danger Malin had escaped in his own park from Michu’s gun. These
two facts, one being the consequence of the other, were no doubt
the precursors of the present successful attack, and they pointed so
obviously to the late bailiff as the instigator of the outrage that
Grevin, his wife, Violette, and Madame Marion declared that they had
recognized among the five masked men one who exactly resembled Michu.
The color of the hair and whiskers and the thick-set figure of the man
made the mask he wore useless. Besides, who but Michu could have opened
the iron gates of the park with a key? The present bailiff and his wife,
now returned from the masquerade, deposed to have locked both gates
before leaving the pavilion. The gates when examined showed no sign of
being forced.
“When we turned him off he must have taken some duplicate keys with
him,” remarked Grevin. “No doubt he has been meditating a desperate
step, for he has lately sold his whole property, and he received the
money for it in my office day before yesterday.”
“The others have followed his lead!” exclaimed Lechesneau, struck with
the circumstances. “He has been their evil genius.”
Moreover, who could know as well as the Messieurs de Simeuse the ins and
outs of the chateau. None of the assailants seemed to have blundered in
their search; they had gone through the house in a confident way which
showed that they knew what they wanted to find and where to find it.
The locks of none of the opened closets had been forced; therefore the
delinquents had keys. Strange to say, however, nothing had been taken;
the motive, therefore, was not robbery. More than all, when Violette
had followed the tracks of the horses as far as the _rond-point_, he
had found the countess, evidently on guard, at the pavilion. From such a
combination of facts and depositions arose a presumption as to the guilt
of the Messieurs de Simeuse, d’Hauteserre, and Michu, which would have
been strong to unprejudiced minds, and to the director of the jury had
the force of certainty. What were they likely to do to the future Comte
de Gondreville? Did they mean to force him to make over the estate for
which Michu declared in 1799 he had the money to pay?
But there was another aspect of the cast to the knowing criminal lawyer.
He asked himself what could be the object of the careful search made of
the chateau. If revenge were at the bottom of the matter, the assailants
would have killed the senator. Perhaps he had been killed and buried.
The abduction, however, seemed to point to imprisonment. But why keep
their victim imprisoned after searching the castle? It was folly to
suppose that the abduction of a dignitary of the Empire could long
remain secret. The publicity of the matter would prevent any benefit
from it.
To these suggestions Pigoult replied that justice was never able to make
out all the motives of scoundrels. In every criminal case there
were obscurities, he said, between the judge and the guilty person;
conscience had depths into which no human mind could enter unless by the
confession of the criminal.
Grevin and Lechesneau nodded their assent, without, however, relaxing
their determination to see to the bottom of the present mystery.
“The Emperor pardoned those young men,” said Pigoult to Grevin. “He
removed their names from the list of _emigres_, though they certainly
took part in that last conspiracy against him.”
Lechesneau make no delay in sending his whole force of gendarmerie to
the forest and to the valley of Cinq-Cygne; telling Giguet to take with
him the justice of peace, who, according to the terms of the Code, would
then become an auxiliary police-officer. He ordered them to make
all preliminary inquiries in the township of Cinq-Cygne, and to take
testimony if necessary; and to save time, he dictated and signed a
warrant for the arrest of Michu, against whom the charge was evident on
the positive testimony of Violette. After the departure of the gendarmes
Lechesneau returned to the important question of issuing warrants for
the arrest of the Simeuse and d’Hauteserre brothers. According to
the Code these warrants would have to contain the charges against the
delinquents.
Giguet and the justice of peace rode so rapidly to Cinq-Cygne that
they met Laurence’s servants returning from the festivities at Troyes.
Stopped, and taken before the mayor where they were interrogated, they
all stated, being ignorant of the importance of the answer, that their
mistress had given them permission to spend the whole day at Troyes.
To a question put by the justice of the peace, each replied that
Mademoiselle had offered them the amusement which they had not thought
of asking for. This testimony seemed so important to the justice of the
peace that he sent back a messenger to Gondreville to advise Lechesneau
to proceed himself to Cinq-Cygne and arrest the four gentlemen, while
he went to Michu’s farm, so that the five arrests might be made
simultaneously.
This new element was so convincing that Lechesneau started at once for
Cinq-Cygne. He knew well what pleasure would be felt in Troyes at such
proceedings against the old nobles, the enemies of the people, now
become the enemies of the Emperor. In such circumstances a magistrate
is very apt to take mere presumptive evidence for actual proof.
Nevertheless, on his way from Gondreville to Cinq-Cygne, in the
senator’s own carriage, it did occur to Lechesneau (who would certainly
have made a fine magistrate had it not been for his love-affair, and the
Emperor’s sudden morality to which he owed his disgrace) to think the
audacity of the young men and Michu a piece of folly which was not in
keeping with what he knew of the judgment and character of Mademoiselle
de Cinq-Cygne. He imagined in his own mind some other motives for the
deed than the restitution of Gondreville. In all things, even in the
magistracy, there is what may be called the conscience of a calling.
Lechesneau’s perplexities came from this conscience, which all men put
into the proper performance of the duties they like--scientific men into
science, artists into art, judges into the rendering of justice. Perhaps
for this reason judges are really greater safeguards for persons accused
of wrong-doing than are juries. A magistrate relies only on reason and
its laws; juries are floated to and fro by the waves of sentiment. The
director of the jury accordingly set several questions before his mind,
resolving to find in their solution satisfactory reasons for making the
arrests.
Though the news of the abduction was already agitating the town of
Troyes, it was still unknown at Arcis, where the inhabitants were
supping when the messenger arrived to summon the gendarmes. No one, of
course, knew it in the village of Cinq-Cygne, the valley and the chateau
of which were now, for the second time, encircled by gendarmes.
Laurence had only to tell Marthe, Catherine, and the Durieus not to
leave the chateau, to be strictly obeyed. After each trip to fetch the
gold, the horses were fastened in the covered way opposite to the breach
in the moat, and from there Robert and Michu, the strongest of the
party, carried the sacks through the breach to a cellar under the
staircase in the tower called Mademoiselle’s. Reaching the chateau with
the last load about half-past five o’clock, the four gentlemen and Michu
proceeded to bury the treasure in the floor of the cellar and then to
wall up the entrance. Michu took charge of the matter with Gothard to
help him; the lad was sent to the farm for some sacks of plaster left
over when the new buildings were put up, and Marthe went with him to
show him where they were. Michu, very hungry, made such haste that by
half-past seven o’clock the work was done; and he started for home at
a quick pace to stop Gothard, who had been sent for another sack of
plaster which he thought he might want. The farm was already watched
by the forester of Cinq-Cygne, the justice of peace, his clerk and four
gendarmes who, however, kept out of sight and allowed him to enter the
house without seeing them.
Michu saw Gothard with the sack on his shoulder and called to him from a
distance: “It is all finished, my lad; take that back and stay and dine
with us.”
Michu, his face perspiring, his clothes soiled with plaster and covered
with fragments of muddy stone from the breach, reached home joyfully and
entered the kitchen where Marthe and her mother were serving the soup in
expectation of his coming.
Just as Michu was turning the faucet of the water-pipe intending to wash
his hands, the justice of peace entered the house accompanied by his
clerk and the forester.
“What have you come for, Monsieur Pigoult?” asked Michu.
“In the name of the Emperor and the laws, I arrest you,” replied the
justice.
The three gendarmes entered the kitchen leading Gothard. Seeing the
silver lace on their hats Marthe and her mother looked at each other in
terror.
“Pooh! why?” asked Michu, who sat down at the table and called to his
wife, “Give me something to eat; I’m famished.”
“You know why as well as we do,” said the justice, making a sign to his
clerk to begin the _proces-verbal_ and exhibiting the warrant of arrest.
“Well, well, Gothard, you needn’t stare so,” said Michu. “Do you want
some dinner, yes or no? Let them write down their nonsense.”
“You admit, of course, the condition of your clothes?” said the justice
of peace; “and you can’t deny the words you said just now to Gothard?”
Michu, supplied with food by his wife, who was amazed at his coolness,
was eating with the avidity of a hungry man. He made no answer to
the justice, for his mouth was full and his heart innocent. Gothard’s
appetite was destroyed by fear.
“Look here,” said the forester, going up to Michu and whispering in his
ear: “What have you done with the senator? You had better make a clean
breast of it, for if we are to believe these people it is a matter of
life or death to you.”
“Good God!” cried Marthe, who overheard the last words and fell into a
chair as if annihilated.
“Violette must have played us some infamous trick,” cried Michu,
recollecting what Laurence had said in the forest.
“Ha! so you do know that Violette saw you?” said the justice of peace.
Michu bit his lips and resolved to say no more. Gothard imitated him.
Seeing the uselessness of all attempts to make them talk, and knowing
what the neighborhood chose to call Michu’s perversity, the justice
ordered the gendarmes to bind his hands and those of Gothard, and take
them both to the chateau, whither he now went himself to rejoin the
director of the jury.