livres was divided among three cousins, of whom the mother of Mme.
Derues was one. Mme. Derues herself was entitled to a third of his
mother's share of the estate, that is, one-ninth of the whole. But in
1775 Derues acquired the rest of the mother's share on condition that
he paid her an annual income of 1,200 livres. Thus on the liquidation
of the Duplessis inheritance Mme. Derues would be entitled nominally to
some 66,500 livres, about L11,000 in English money. But five years had
passed since the death of Despeignes-Duplessis, and the estate was still
in the slow process of legal settlement. If Derues were to receive the
full third of the Duplessis inheritance--a very unlikely supposition
after four years of liquidation--66,000 livres would not suffice to pay
his ordinary debts quite apart from the purchase money of Buisson-Souef.
His financial condition was in the last degree critical. Not content
with the modest calling of a grocer, Derues had turned money-lender,
a money-lender to spendthrift and embarrassed noblemen. Derues dearly
loved a lord; he wanted to become one himself; it delighted him to
receive dukes and marquises at the Rue Beaubourg, even if they came
there with the avowed object of raising the wind. The smiling grocer, in
his everlasting bonnet and flowered dressing-gown a la J. J. Rousseau,
was ever ready to oblige the needy scion of a noble house. What he
borrowed at moderate interest from his creditors he lent at enhanced
interest to the quality. Duns and bailiffs jostled the dukes and
marquises whose presence at the Rue Beaubourg so impressed the wondering
neighbours of the facile grocer.
This aristocratic money-lending proved a hopeless trade; it only plunged
Derues deeper and deeper into the mire of financial disaster. The
noblemen either forgot to pay while they were alive, or on their death
were found to be insolvent. Derues was driven to ordering goods and
merchandise on credit, and selling them at a lower price for ready
money. Victims of this treatment began to press him seriously for their
money or their goods. Desperately he continued to fence them off with
the long expected windfall of the Duplessis inheritance.
Paris was getting too hot for him. Gay and irrepressible as he was, the
strain was severe. If he could only find some retreat in the country
where he might enjoy at once refuge from his creditors and the rank and
consequence of a country gentleman! Nothing--no fear, no disappointment,
no disaster--could check the little grocer's ardent and overmastering
desire to be a gentleman indeed, a landed proprietor, a lord or
something or other. At the beginning of 1775 he had purchased a place
near Rueil from a retired coffeehouse-keeper, paying 1,000 livres on
account, but the non-payment of the rest of the purchase-money had
resulted in the annulment of the contract. Undefeated, Derues only
determined to fly the higher. Having failed to pay 9,000 livres for a
modest estate near Rueil, he had no hesitation in pledging himself to
pay 130,000 livres for the lordly domain of Buisson-Souef. So great were
his pride and joy on the conclusion of the latter bargain that he amused
himself by rehearsing on paper his future style and title: "Antoine
Francois de Cyrano Derues de Bury, Seigneur de Buisson-Souef et Valle
Profonde." He is worthy of Thackeray's pen, this little grocer-snob,
with his grand and ruinous acquaintance with the noble and the great,
his spurious titles, his unwearied climbing of the social ladder.
The confiding, if willing, dupe of aristocratic impecuniosity, Derues
was a past master of the art of duping others. From the moment of the
purchase of Buisson-Souef all his art was employed in cajoling the
trusting and simple de Lamottes. Legally Buisson-Souef was his from the
signing of the agreement in December, 1775. His first payment was due
in April, 1776. Instead of making it, Derues went down to Buisson-Souef
with his little girl, and stayed there as the guests of the de Lamottes
for six months. His good humour and piety won all hearts. The village
priest especially derived great satisfaction from the society of so
devout a companion. He entertained his good friends, the merry little
man, by dressing up as a woman, a role his smooth face and effeminate
features well fitted him to play. If business were alluded to, the merry
gentleman railed at the delay and chicanery of lawyers; it was that
alone that postponed the liquidation of the Duplessis inheritance; as
soon as the lawyers could be got rid of, the purchase-money of his new
estate would be promptly paid up. But as time went on and no payment was
forthcoming the de Lamottes began to feel a little uneasy. As soon as
Derues had departed in November M. de Lamotte decided to send his
wife to Paris to make further inquiries and, if possible, bring their
purchaser up to the scratch. Mme. de Lamotte had developed into a stout,
indolent woman, of the Mrs. Bloss type, fond of staying in bed and
taking heavy meals. Her son, a fat, lethargic youth of fourteen,
accompanied his mother.
On hearing of Mme. de Lamotte's contemplated visit to Paris, Derues was
filled with alarm. If she were living free and independent in Paris she
might find out the truth about the real state of his affairs, and then
good-bye to Buisson-Souef and landed gentility! No, if Mme. de Lamotte
were to come to Paris, she must come as the guest of the Derues,
a pleasant return for the hospitality accorded to the grocer at
Buisson-Souef. The invitation was given and readily accepted; M. de
Lamotte still had enough confidence in and liking for the Derues to be
glad of the opportunity of placing his wife under their roof. And so it
was that on December 16, 1776, Mme. de Lamotte arrived at Paris and took
up her abode at the house of the Derues in the Rue Beaubourg Her son she
placed at a private school in a neighbouring street.
To Derues there was now one pressing and immediate problem to be
solved--how to keep Buisson-Souef as his own without paying for it? To
one less sanguine, less daring, less impudent and desperate in his need,
the problem would have appeared insoluble.
But that was by no means the view of the cheery and resourceful grocer.
He had a solution ready, well thought out and bearing to his mind
the stamp of probability. He would make a fictitious payment of the
purchase-money to Mme. de Lamotte. She would then disappear, taking her
son with her. Her indiscretion in having been the mistress of de Lamotte
before she became his wife, would lend colour to his story that she had
gone off with a former lover, taking with her the money which Derues
had paid her for Buisson-Souef. He would then produce the necessary
documents proving the payment of the purchase-money, and Buisson-Souef
would be his for good and all.
The prime necessity to the success of this plan was the disappearance,
willing or unwilling, of Mme. de Lamotte and her son. The former had
settled down quite comfortably beneath the hospitable roof of the
Derues, and under the soothing influence of her host showed little
vigour in pressing him for the money due to herself and her husband. She
had already spent a month in quietly enjoying Paris and the society of
her friends when, towards the end of January, 1770, her health and that
of her son began to fail. Mme. de Lamotte was seized with sickness and
internal trouble. Though Derues wrote to her husband that his wife was
well and their business was on the point of conclusion, by the 30th of
January Mme. de Lamotte had taken to her bed, nursed and physicked by
the ready Derues. On the 31st the servant at the Rue Beaubourg was
told that she could go to her home at Montrouge, whither Derues had
previously sent his two children. Mme. Derues, who was in an interesting
condition, was sent out for an hour by her husband to do some shopping.
Derues was alone with his patient.
In the evening a friend, one Bertin, came to dine with Derues. Bertin
was a short, hustling, credulous, breathless gentleman, always in a
hurry, with a great belief in the abilities of M. Derues. He found the
little man in excellent spirits. Bertin asked if he could see Mme. de
Lamotte. Mme. Derues said that that was impossible, but that her husband
had given her some medicine which was working splendidly. The young de
Lamotte called to see his mother. Derues took him into her room; in the
dim light the boy saw her sleeping, and crept out quietly for fear of
disturbing her. The Derues and their friends sat down to dinner. Derues
kept jumping up and running into the sick room, from which a horrible
smell began to pervade the house. But Derues was radiant at the success
of his medicine. "Was there ever such a nurse as I am?" he exclaimed.
Bertin remarked that he thought it was a woman's and not a man's place
to nurse a lady under such distressing circumstances. Derues protested
that it was an occupation he had always liked. Next day, February 1, the
servant was still at Montrouge; Mme. Derues was again sent out shopping;
again Derues was alone with his patient. But she was a patient no
longer; she had become a corpse. The highly successful medicine
administered to the poor lady by her jolly and assiduous nurse had
indeed worked wonders.
Derues had bought a large leather trunk. It is possible that to Derues
belongs the distinction of being the first murderer to put that harmless
and necessary article of travel to a criminal use. He was engaged in
his preparations for coffining Mme. de Lamotte, when a female creditor
knocked insistently at the door. She would take no denial. Clad in his
bonnet and gown, Derues was compelled to admit her. She saw the
large trunk, and suspected a bolt on the part of her creditor. Derues
reassured her; a lady, he said, who had been stopping with them was
returning to the country. The creditor departed. Later in the day Derues
came out of the house and summoned some porters. With their help the
heavy trunk was taken to the house of a sculptor, a friend of Derues,
who agreed to keep it in his studio until Derues could take it down to
his place in the country. Bertin came in to dinner again that evening,
and also the young de Lamotte. Derues was gayer than ever, laughing
and joking with his guests. He told the boy that his mother had quite
recovered and gone to Versailles to see about finding him some post at
the Court. "We'll go and see her there in a day or two," he said, "I'll
let you know when."
On the following day a smartly dressed, dapper, but very pale little
gentleman, giving the name of Ducoudray, hired a vacant cellar in a
house in the Rue de la Mortellerie. He had, he said, some Spanish wine
he wanted to store there, and three or four days later M. Ducoudray
deposited in this cellar a large grey trunk. A few days after he
employed a man to dig a large hole in the floor of the cellar, giving as
his reason for such a proceeding that "there was no way of keeping wine
like burying it." While the man worked at the job, his genial employer
beguiled his labours with merry quips and tales, which he illustrated
with delightful mimicry. The hole dug, the man was sent about his
business. "I will bury the wine myself," said his employer, and on one
or two occasions M. Ducoudray was seen by persons living in the house
going in and out of his cellar, a lighted candle in his hand. One day
the pale little gentleman was observed leaving the cellar, accompanied
by a porter carrying a large trunk, and after that the dwellers in the
Rue de la Mortellerie saw the pale little gentleman no more.
A few days later M. Derues sent down to his place at Buisson-Souef a
large trunk filled with china. It was received there by M. de Lamotte.
Little did the trusting gentleman guess that it was in this very trunk
that the body of his dear wife had been conveyed to its last resting
place in the cellar of M. Ducoudray in the Rue de la Mortellerie. Nor
had M. Mesvrel-Desvergers, importunate creditor of M. Derues, guessed
the contents of the large trunk that he had met his debtor one day
early in February conveying through the streets of Paris. Creditors
were always interrupting Derues at inconvenient moments. M.
Mesvrel-Desvergers had tapped Derues on the shoulder, reminded him
forcibly of his liability towards him, and spoken darkly of possible
imprisonment. Derues pointed to the trunk. It contained, he said, a
sample of wine; he was going to order some more of it, and he would then
be in a position to pay his debt. But the creditor, still doubting, had
M. Derues followed, and ascertained that he had deposited his sample of
wine at a house in the Rue de la Mortellerie.
On Wednesday, February 12, a M. Beaupre of Commercy arrived at
Versailles with his nephew, a fat boy, in reality some fourteen years of
age, but given out as older. They hired a room at the house of a cooper
named Pecquet. M. Beaupre was a very pale little gentleman, who seemed
in excellent spirits, in spite of the fact that his nephew was clearly
anything but well. Indeed, so sick and ailing did he appear to be that
Mme. Pecquet suggested that his uncle should call in a doctor. But
M. Beaupre said that that was quite unnecessary; he had no faith in
doctors; he would give the boy a good purge. His illness was due, he
said, to a venereal disorder and the drugs which he had been taking in
order to cure it; it was a priest the boy needed rather than a
doctor. On the Thursday and Friday the boy's condition showed little
improvement; the vomiting continued. But on Saturday M. Beaupre declared
himself as highly delighted with the success of his medicine. The same
night the boy was dead. The priest, urgently sent for by his devout
uncle, arrived to find a corpse. On the following day "Louis Anotine
Beaupre, aged twenty-two and a half," was buried at Versailles, his
pious uncle leaving with the priest six livres to pay for masses for the
repose of his erring nephew's soul.
The same evening M. Derues who, according to his own account, had left
Paris with the young de Lamotte in order to take the boy to his mother
in Versailles, returned home to the Rue Beaubourg. As usual, Bertin
dropped in to dinner. He found his host full of merriment, singing in
the lightness of his heart. Indeed, he had reason to be pleased, for
at last, he told his wife and his friend, Buisson-Souef was his. He had
seen Mme. de Lamotte at Versailles and paid her the full purchase-money
in good, sounding gold. And, best joke of all, Mme. de Lamotte had no
sooner settled the business than she had gone off with a former lover,
her son and her money, and would in all probability never be heard of
again. The gay gentleman laughingly reminded his hearers that such an
escapade on the part of Mme. de Lamotte was hardly to be wondered at,
when they recollected that her son had been born out of wedlock.
To all appearances Mme. de Lamotte had undoubtedly concluded the sale of
Buisson-Souef to Derues and received the price of it before disappearing
with her lover. Derues had in his possession a deed of sale signed
by Mme. de Lamotte and acknowledging the payment to her by Derues of
100,000 livres, which he had borrowed for that purpose from an advocate
of the name of Duclos. As a fact the loan from Duclos to Derues was
fictitious. A legal document proving the loan had been drawn up, but the
cash which the notary had demanded to see before executing the document
had been borrowed for a few hours. Duclos, a provincial advocate,
had acted in good faith, in having been represented to him that such
fictitious transactions were frequently used in Paris for the purpose
of getting over some temporary financial difficulty. On the 15th of
February the deed of the sale of Buisson-Souef had been brought by a
woman to the office of a scrivener employed by Derues; it was already
signed, but the woman asked that certain blanks should be filled in and
that the document should be dated. She was told that the date should
be that of the day on which the parties had signed it. She gave it as
February 12. A few days later Derues called at the office and was told
of the lady's visit. "Ah!" he said, "it was Mme. de Lamotte herself, the
lady who sold me the estate."
In the meantime Derues, through his bustling and ubiquitous friend
Bertin, took good care that the story of Mme. de Lamotte's sale of
Buisson-Souef and subsequent elopement should be spread sedulously
abroad. By Bertin it was told to M. Jolly, the proctor in whose hands
the de Lamottes had placed the sale of Buisson-Souef. It was M. Jolly
who had in the first instance recommended to them his client Derues as a
possible purchaser. The proctor, who knew Mme. de Lamotte to be a woman
devoted to her husband and her home, was astonished to hear of her
infidelity, more especially as the story told by Derues represented her
as saying in very coarse terms how little she cared for her husband's
honour. He was surprised, too, that she should not have consulted
him about the conclusion of the business with Derues, and that Derues
himself should have been able to find so considerable a sum of money as
100,000 livres. But, said M. Jolly, if he were satisfied that Mme. de
Lamotte had taken away the money with her, then he would deliver up to
Derues the power of attorney which M. de Lamotte had left with him in
1775, giving his wife authority to carry out the sale of Buisson-Souef.
Mme. de Lamotte, being a married woman, the sale of the property to
Derues would be legally invalid if the husband's power of attorney were
not in the hands of the purchaser.
II
THE GAME OF BLUFF
To Derues, on the eve of victory, the statement of Jolly in regard to
the power of attorney was a serious reverse. He had never thought of
such an instrument, or he would have persuaded Mme. de Lamotte to have
gotten permission of it before her disappearance. Now he must try to get
it from Jolly himself. On the 26th of February he once again raised from
a friendly notary a few thousand livres on the Duplessis inheritance,
and deposited the deed of sale of Buisson-Souef as further security.
His pocket full of gold, he went straight to the office of Jolly. To the
surprise of the proctor Derues announced that he had come to pay him 200
livres which he owed him, and apologised for the delay. Taking the
gold coins from his pockets he filled his three-cornered hat with
considerably more than the sum due, and held it out invitingly to
M. Jolly. Then he proceeded to tell him of his dealings with Mme. de
Lamotte. She had offered, he said, to get the power of attorney for him,
but he, trusting in her good faith, had said that there was no occasion
for hurry; and then, faithless, ungrateful woman that she was, she had
gone off with his money and left him in the lurch. "But," he added, "I
trust you absolutely, M. Jolly, you have all my business in your hands,
and I shall be a good client in the future. You have the power of
attorney--you will give it to me?" and he rattled the coins in his
hat. "I must have it," he went on, "I must have it at any price at any
price," and again the coins danced in his hat, while his eyes looked
knowingly at the proctor. M. Jolly saw his meaning, and his surprise
turned to indignation. He told Derues bluntly that he did not believe
his story, that until he was convinced of its truth he would not part
with the power of attorney, and showed the confounded grocer the door.
Derues hastened home filled with wrath, and took counsel with his friend
Bertin. Bertin knew something of legal process; they would try whether
the law could not be invoked to compel Jolly to surrender the power of
attorney. Bertin went off to the Civil Lieutenant and applied for an
order to oblige M. Jolly to give up the document in question. An order
was made that Jolly must either surrender it into the hands of Derues or
appear before a referee and show cause why he should not comply with
the order. Jolly refused still to give it up or allow a copy of it to be
made, and agreed to appear before the referee to justify his action. In
the meantime Derues, greatly daring, had started for Buisson-Souef to
try what "bluff" could do in this serious crisis in his adventure.
At Buisson-Souef poor M. de Lamotte waited, puzzled and distressed,
for news from his wife. On Saturday, 17th, the day after the return of
Derues from Versailles, he heard from Mme. Derues that his wife had left
Paris and gone with her son to Versailles. A second letter told him that
she had completed the sale of Buisson-Souef to Derues, and was still at
Versailles trying to obtain some post for the boy. On February 19 Mme.
Derues wrote again expressing surprise that M. de Lamotte had not had
any letter from his wife and asking if he had received some oysters
which the Derues had sent him. The distracted husband was in no mood for
oysters. "Do not send me oysters," he writes, "I am too ill with worry.
I thank you for all your kindness to my son. I love him better than
myself, and God grant he will be good and grateful." The only reply he
received from the Derues was an assurance that he would see his wife
again in a few days.
The days passed, but Mme. de Lamotte made no sign. About four o'clock on
the afternoon of February 28, Derues, accompanied by the parish
priest of Villeneuvele-Roi, presented himself before M. de Lamotte at
Buisson-Souef. For the moment M. de Lamotte was rejoiced to see
the little man; at last he would get news of his wife. But he was
disappointed. Derues could tell him only what he had been told already,
that his wife had sold their estate and gone away with the money.
M. de Lamotte was hardly convinced. How, he asked Derues, had he found
the 100,000 livres to buy Buisson-Souef, he who had not a halfpenny a
short time ago? Derues replied that he had borrowed it from a friend;
that there was no use in talking about it; the place was his now, his
alone, and M. de Lamotte had no longer a right to be there; he was very
sorry, poor dear gentleman, that his wife had gone off and left him
without a shilling, but personally he would always be a friend to him
and would allow him 3,000 livres a year for the rest of his life. In the
meantime, he said, he had already sold forty casks of the last year's
vintage, and would be obliged if M. de Lamotte would see to their being
sent off at once.
By this time the anger and indignation of M. de Lamotte blazed forth. He
told Derues that his story was a pack of lies, that he was still master
at Buisson-Souef, and not a bottle of wine should leave it. "You are
torturing me," he exclaimed, "I know something has happened to my wife
and child. I am coming to Paris myself, and if it is as I fear,
you shall answer for it with your head!" Derues, undismayed by this
outburst, re-asserted his ownership and departed in defiant mood,
leaving on the premises a butcher of the neighbourhood to look after his
property.
But things were going ill with Derues. M. de Lamotte meant to show
fight; he would have powerful friends to back him; class against class,
the little grocer would be no match for him. It was immediate possession
of Buisson-Souef that Derues wanted, not lawsuits; they were expensive
and the results uncertain. He spoke freely to his friends of the
difficulties of the situation.
What could he do? The general opinion seemed to be that some fresh
news of Mme. de Lamotte--her reappearance, perhaps--would be the
only effective settlement of the dispute. He had made Mme. de Lamotte
disappear, why should he not make her reappear? He was not the man to
stick at trifles. His powers of female impersonation, with which he
had amused his good friends at Buisson-Souef, could now be turned to
practical account. On March 5 he left Paris again.
On the evening of March 7 a gentleman, M. Desportes of Paris, hired a
room at the Hotel Blanc in Lyons. On the following day he went out early
in the morning, leaving word that, should a lady whom he was expecting,
call to see him, she was to be shown up to his room. The same morning a
gentleman, resembling M. Desportes of Paris, bought two lady's dresses
at a shop in Lyons.
The same afternoon a lady dressed in black silk, with a hood well drawn
over her eyes, called at the office of M. Pourra, a notary.