While the inquiry was in course of progress, various details connected
with it found their way out of doors. The natural sense of justice among
the people which had survived the corruptions of the time, was aroused to
assert itself on behalf of the maid-of-all-work. The public voice spoke as
loudly as it dared, in those days, in Marie's favour, and in condemnation
of the conspiracy against her.
People persisted, from the first, in inquiring how it was that arsenic
had got into the house of Monsieur Duparc; and rumour answered, in more
than one direction, that a member of the family had purchased the poison
a short time since, and that there were persons in the town who could
prove it. To the astonishment of every one, no steps were taken by the
legal authorities to clear up this report, and to establish the truth or
the falsehood of it, before the trial. Another circumstance, of which
also no explanation was attempted, filled the public mind with natural
suspicion. This was the disappearance of the eldest son of Monsieur and
Madame Duparc. On the day of his grandfather's sudden death, he had been
sent, as may be remembered, to bring his father back from the country;
and, from that time forth, he had never reappeared at the house, and
nobody could say what had become of him. Was it not natural to connect
together the rumours of purchased poison and the mysterious disappearance
of this young man? Was it not utterly inconsistent with any proceedings
conducted in the name of justice to let these suspicious circumstances
exist, without making the slightest attempt to investigate and to explain
them?
But, apart from all other considerations, the charge against Marie, was on
the face of it preposterously incredible. A friendless young girl arrives
at a strange town, possessing excellent testimonials to her character,
and gets a situation in a family every member of which is utterly unknown
to her until she enters the house. Established in her new place, she
instantly conceives the project of poisoning the whole family, and carries
it out in five days from the time when she first took her situation, by
killing one member of the household, and producing suspicious symptoms
of illness in the cases of all the rest. She commits this crime having
nothing to gain by it; and she is so inconceivably reckless of detection
that she scatters poison about the bed on which she lies down, leaves
poison sticking to crumbs in her pockets, puts those pockets on when
her mistress tells her to do so, and hands them over without a moment's
hesitation to the first person who asks permission to search them. What
mortal evidence could substantiate such a wild charge as this? How does
the evidence actually presented substantiate it? No shadow of proof that
she had purchased arsenic is offered, to begin with. The evidence against
her is evidence which attempts to associate her with the actual possession
of poison. What is it worth? In the first place, the witnesses contradict
each other. In the second place, in no one case in which powdered
substances were produced in evidence against her, had those powdered
substances been so preserved as to prevent their being tampered with. Two
packets of the powder pass about from hand to hand for seven days; two
have been given to witnesses who can't produce them, or account for what
has become of them; and one, which the witnesses who made it up swear to
as a single packet, suddenly expands into three when it is called for in
evidence!
Careless as they were of assuming even the external decencies of justice,
the legal authorities, and their friends the Duparcs, felt that there
would be some risk in trying their victim for her life on such evidence as
this, in a large town like Caen. It was impossible to shift their ground
and charge her with poisoning accidentally; for they either could not, or
would not, account on ordinary grounds for the presence of arsenic in the
house. And, even if this difficulty were overcome, and if it were alleged
that arsenic purchased for killing vermin, had been carelessly placed in
one of the saltcellars on the dresser, Madame Duparc could not deny that
her own hands had salted the hasty-pudding on the Monday, and that her
servant had been too ill through exhaustion to cook the dinner on the
Tuesday. Even supposing there were no serious interests of the vilest kind
at stake, which made the girl's destruction a matter of necessity, it was
clearly impossible to modify the charge against her. One other alternative
remained--the alternative of adding a second accusation which might help
to strengthen the first, and to degrade Marie in the estimation of those
inhabitants of the town who were now disposed to sympathise with her.
The poor girl's character was so good, her previous country life had been
so harmless, that no hint or suggestion for a second charge against her
could be found in her past history. If her enemies were to succeed, it was
necessary to rely on pure invention. Having hesitated before no extremes
of baseness and falsehood, thus far, they were true to themselves in
regard to any vile venture which remained to be tried.
A day or two after the examination of the witnesses called to prove the
poisoning had been considered complete, the public of Caen were amazed
to hear that certain disclosures had taken place which would render it
necessary to try Marie, on a charge of theft as well as of poisoning.
She was now not only accused of the murder of Monsieur de Beaulieu,
but of robbing her former mistress, Madame Dumesnil (a relation, be it
remembered, of Monsieur Revel's), in the situation she occupied before
she came to Caen; of robbing Madame Duparc; and of robbing the shopwoman
from whom she had bought the piece of orange-coloured stuff, the purchase
of which is mentioned in an early part of this narrative.
There is no need to hinder the progress of the story by entering into
details in relation to this second atrocious charge. When the reader
is informed that the so-called evidence in support of the accusation of
theft was got up by Procurator Revel, by Commissary Bertot, and by Madame
Duparc, he will know beforehand what importance to attach to it, and what
opinion to entertain on the question of the prisoner's innocence or guilt.
The preliminary proceedings were now considered to be complete. During
their progress, Marie had been formally interrogated, in her prison,
by the legal authorities. Fearful as her situation was, the poor girl
seems to have maintained self-possession enough to declare her innocence
of poisoning, and her innocence of theft, firmly. Her answers, it is
needless to say, availed her nothing. No legal help was assigned to her;
no such institution as a jury was in existence in France. Procurator Revel
collected the evidence, Procurator Revel tried the case, Procurator Revel
delivered the sentence. Need the reader be told that Marie's irresponsible
judge and unscrupulous enemy had no difficulty whatever in finding her
guilty? She had been arrested on the seventh of August, seventeen hundred
and eighty-one. Her doom was pronounced on the seventeenth of April,
seventeen hundred and eighty-two. Throughout the whole of that interval
she remained in prison.
The sentence was delivered in the following terms. It was written,
printed, and placarded in Caen; and it is here translated from the
original French:
"The Procurator Royal of the Bailiwick and civil and criminal Bench and
Presidency of Caen, having taken cognizance of the documents concerning
the trial specially instituted against Marie-Françoise-Victoire-Salmon,
accused of poisoning; the said documents consisting of an official report
of the capture of the said Marie-Françoise-Victoire-Salmon on the seventh
of August last, together with other official reports, &c.,
"Requires that the prisoner shall be declared duly convicted,
"I. Of having, on the Monday morning of the sixth of August last, cooked
some hasty-pudding for Monsieur Paisant de Beaulieu, father-in-law
of Monsieur Huet-Duparc, in whose house the prisoner had lived in the
capacity of servant from the first day of the said month of August; and
of having put arsenic in the said hasty-pudding while cooking it, by which
arsenic the said Monsieur de Beaulieu died poisoned, about six o'clock on
the same evening.
"II. Of having on the next day, Tuesday, the seventh of August last, put
arsenic into the soup which was served, at noon, at the table of Monsieur
and Madame Duparc, her employers, in consequence of which all those
persons who sat at table and eat of the said soup were poisoned and made
dangerously ill, to the number of seven.
"III. Of having been discovered with arsenic in her possession, which
arsenic was found on the said Tuesday, in the afternoon, not only in the
pockets of the prisoner, but upon the mattress of the bed on which she
was resting; the said arsenic having been recognised as being of the same
nature and precisely similar to that which the guests discovered to have
been put into their soup, as also to that which was found the next day,
in the body of the aforesaid Monsieur de Beaulieu, and in the saucepan in
which the hasty-pudding had been cooked, of which the aforesaid Monsieur
de Beaulieu had eaten.
"IV. Of being _strongly suspected_ of having put some of the same arsenic
into a plate of cherries which she served to Madame de Beaulieu, on the
same Tuesday morning, and again on the afternoon of the same day at the
table of Monsieur and Madame Duparc.
"V. Of having, at the period of Michaelmas, seventeen hundred and eighty,
committed different robberies at the house of Monsieur Dumesnil, where
she lived in the capacity of servant, and notably of stealing a sheet, of
which she made herself a petticoat and an apron.
"VI. Of having, at the beginning of the month of August last, stolen, in
the house of Monsieur Huet-Duparc, the different articles enumerated at
the trial, and which were found locked up in her cupboard.
"VII. Of being _strongly suspected_ of stealing, at the beginning of the
said month of August, from the woman Lefévre, a piece of orange-coloured
stuff.
"For punishment and reparation of which offences, she, the said
Marie-Françoise-Victoire-Salmon, shall be condemned to make atonement, in
her shift, with a halter round her neck, holding in her hands a burning
wax candle of the weight of two pounds, before the principal gate and
entrance of the church of St. Peter, to which she shall be taken and
led by the executioner of criminal sentences, who will tie in front of
her and behind her back, a placard, on which shall be written in large
characters, these words:--_Poisoner and Domestic Thief_. And there, being
on her knees, she shall declare that she has wickedly committed the said
robberies and poisonings, for which she repents and asks pardon of God
and Justice. This done, she shall be led by the said executioner to the
square of the market of Saint Saviour's, to be there fastened to a stake
with a chain of iron, and to be burnt alive; her body to be reduced to
ashes, and the ashes to be cast to the winds; her goods to be acquired
and confiscated to the king, or to whomsoever else they may belong. Said
goods to be charged with a fine of ten livres to the king, in the event
of the confiscation not turning to the profit of his Majesty.
"Required, additionally, that the said prisoner shall be previously
submitted to the Ordinary and Extraordinary Torture, to obtain information
of her accomplices, and notably of those who either sold to her or gave
to her the arsenic found in her possession. Order hereby given for the
printing and placarding of this sentence, in such places as shall be
judged fit. Deliberated at the bar, this seventeenth April, seventeen
hundred and eighty-two.
"(Signed) REVEL."
On the next day, the eighteenth, this frightful sentence was formally
confirmed.
The matter had now become public, and no one could prevent the unfortunate
prisoner from claiming whatever rights the law still allowed her. She had
the privilege of appealing against her sentence before the parliament of
Rouen. And she appealed accordingly; being transferred, as directed by
the law in such cases, from the prison at Caen to the prison at Rouen, to
await the decision of the higher tribunal.
On the seventeenth of May the Rouen parliament delivered its judgment,
and confirmed the original sentence.
There was some difficulty, at first, in making the unhappy girl understand
that her last chance for life had failed her. When the fact that her
sentence was ordered to be carried out was at length impressed on her
mind, she sank down with her face on the prison floor--then started up on
her knees, passionately shrieking to Heaven to have pity on her, and to
grant her the justice and the protection which men denied. Her agitation
at the frightful prospect before her was so violent, her screams of
terror were so shrill and piercing, that all the persons connected with
the management of the prison hurried together to her cell. Among the
number were three priests, who were accustomed to visit the prisoners and
to administer spiritual consolation to them. These three men mercifully
set themselves to soothe the mental agony from which the poor creature
was suffering. When they had partially quieted her, they soon found her
willing and anxious to answer their questions. They inquired carefully
into the main particulars of her sad story; and all three came to the same
conclusion, that she was innocent. Seeing the impression she had produced
on them, she caught, in her despair, at the idea that they might be able
to preserve her life; and the dreadful duty devolved on them of depriving
her of this last hope. After the confirmation of the sentence, all that
they could do was to prove their compassion by preparing her for eternity.
On the 26th of May, the priests spoke their last words of comfort to her
soul. She was taken back again, to await the execution of her sentence in
the prison of Caen. The day was at last fixed for her death by burning,
and the morning came when the Torture-Chamber was opened to receive her.