witnesses who accused me. May He forgive me my sins!"
"How old is it that you will soon be?" the old man asked suddenly, for
his reason was beginning to totter, and his memory had failed him.
"I was twenty-five on All Hallows’ Day."
"True; it was a sad day, this year; you were in prison."
"Do you remember how, five years ago, on that same day I got the prize
in the regatta at Venice?"
"Tell me about that, my child."
And he listened, his neck stretched forward, his mouth half open, his
hands in his son’s. A sound of steps came in from the corridor, and a
dull knock was struck upon the door. It was the fatal hour. The poor
father had forgotten it.
The priests had already begun to sing the death hymn; the executioner
was ready, the procession had set out, when Solomon the fisherman
appeared suddenly on the threshold of the prison, his eyes aflame and
his brow radiant with the halo of the patriarchs. The old man drew
himself up to his full height, and raising in one hand the reddened
knife, said in a sublime voice, "The sacrifice is fulfilled. God did not
send His angel to stay the hand of Abraham."
The crowd carried him in triumph!
[The details of this case are recorded in the archives of the Criminal
Court at Naples. We have changed nothing in the age or position of the
persons who appear in this narrative. One of the most celebrated
advocates at the Neapolitan bar secured the acquittal of the old man.]
*DERUES*
One September afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score
of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a
covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of
Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and
wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the
teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half an hour earlier than
usual, and in consequence of the extra work thrown on the teaching staff
the brother whose duty it was to see all the scholars safe home was
compelled to omit that part of his daily task. Therefore not only thirty
or forty minutes were stolen from work, but there was also unexpected,
uncontrolled liberty, free from the surveillance of that black-cassocked
overseer who kept order in their ranks. Thirty minutes! at that age it
is a century, of laughter and prospective games! Each had promised
solemnly, under pain of severe punishment, to return straight to his
paternal nest without delay, but the air was so fresh and pure, the
country smiled all around! The school, or preferably the cage, which had
just opened, lay at the extreme edge of one of the suburbs, and it only
required a few steps to slip under a cluster of trees by a sparkling
brook beyond which rose undulating ground, breaking the monotony of a
vast and fertile plain. Was it possible to be obedient, to refrain from
the desire to spread one’s wings? The scent of the meadows mounted to
the heads of the steadiest among them, and intoxicated even the most
timid. It was resolved to betray the confidence of the reverend fathers,
even at the risk of disgrace and punishment next morning, supposing the
escapade were discovered.
A flock of sparrows suddenly released from a cage could not have flown
more wildly into the little wood. They were all about the same age, the
eldest might be nine. They flung off coats and waistcoats, and the grass
became strewn with baskets, copy-books, dictionaries, and catechisms.
While the crowd of fair-haired heads, of fresh and smiling faces,
noisily consulted as to which game should be chosen, a boy who had taken
no part in the general gaiety, and who had been carried away by the rush
without being able to escape sooner, glided slyly away among the trees,
and, thinking himself unseen, was beating a hasty retreat, when one of
his comrades cried out—
"Antoine is running away!"
Two of the best runners immediately started in pursuit, and the
fugitive, notwithstanding his start, was speedily overtaken, seized by
his collar, and brought back as a deserter.
"Where were you going?" the others demanded.
"Home to my cousins," replied the boy; "there is no harm in that."
"You canting sneak!" said another boy, putting his fist under the
captive’s chin; "you were going to the master to tell of us."
"Pierre," responded Antoine, "you know quite well I never tell lies."
"Indeed!—only this morning you pretended I had taken a book you had
lost, and you did it because I kicked you yesterday, and you didn’t dare
to kick me back again."
Antoine lifted his eyes to heaven, and folding his arms on his breast—
"Dear Buttel," he said, "you are mistaken; I have always been taught to
forgive injuries."
"Listen, listen! he might be saying his prayers!" cried the other boys;
and a volley of offensive epithets, enforced by cuffs, was hurled at the
culprit.
Pierre Buttel, whose influence was great, put a stop to this onslaught.
"Look here, Antoine, you are a bad lot, that we all know; you are a
sneak and a hypocrite. It’s time we put a stop to it. Take off your coat
and fight it out. If you like, we will fight every morning and evening
till the end of the month."
The proposition was loudly applauded, and Pierre, turning up his sleeves
as far as his elbows, prepared to suit actions to words.
The challenger assuredly did not realise the full meaning, of his words;
had he done so, this chivalrous defiance would simply have been an act
of cowardice on his part, for there could be no doubt as to the victor
in such a conflict. The one was a boy of alert and gallant bearing,
strong upon his legs, supple and muscular, a vigorous man in embryo;
while the other, not quite so old, small, thin, of a sickly leaden
complexion, seemed as if he might be blown away by a strong puff of
wind. His skinny arms and legs hung on to his body like the claws of a
spider, his fair hair inclined to red, his white skin appeared nearly
bloodless, and the consciousness of weakness made him timid, and gave a
shifty, uneasy look to his eyes. His whole expression was uncertain, and
looking only at his face it was difficult at first sight to decide to
which sex he belonged. This confusion of two natures, this indefinable
mixture of feminine weakness without grace, and of abortive boyhood,
seemed to stamp him as something exceptional, unclassable, and once
observed, it was difficult to take one’s eyes from him. Had he been
endowed with physical strength he would have been a terror to his
comrades, exercising by fear the ascendancy which Pierre owed to his
joyous temper and unwearied gaiety, for this mean exterior concealed
extraordinary powers of will and dissimulation. Guided by instinct, the
other children hung about Pierre and willingly accepted his leadership;
by instinct also they avoided Antoine, repelled by a feeling of chill,
as if from the neighbourhood of a reptile, and shunning him unless to
profit in some way by their superior strength. Never would he join their
games without compulsion; his thin, colourless lips seldom parted for a
laugh, and even at that tender age his smile had an unpleasantly
sinister expression.
"Will you fight?" again demanded Pierre.
Antoine glanced hastily round; there was no chance of escape, a double
ring enclosed him. To accept or refuse seemed about equally risky; he
ran a good chance of a thrashing whichever way he decided. Although his
heart beat loudly, no trace of emotion appeared on his pallid cheek; an
unforeseen danger would have made him shriek, but he had had time to
collect himself, time to shelter behind hypocrisy. As soon as he could
lie and cheat he recovered courage, and the instinct of cunning, once
roused, prevailed over everything else. Instead of answering this second
challenge, he knelt down and said to Pierre—
"You are much stronger than I am."
This submission disarmed his antagonist. "Get up," he replied; "I won’t
touch you, if you can’t defend yourself.
"Pierre," continued Antoine, still on his knees, "I assure you, by God
and the Holy Virgin, I was not going to tell. I was going home to my
cousins to learn my lessons for to-morrow; you know how slow I am. If
you think I have done you any harm, I ask your forgiveness."
Pierre held out his hand and made him get up.
"Will you be a good fellow, Antoine, and play with us?"
"Yes, I will."
"All right, then; let us forget all about it."
"What are we to play at?" asked Antoine, taking off his coat.
"Thieves and archers," cried one of the boys....
"Splendid!" said Pierre; and using his acknowledged authority, he
divided them into two sides—ten highwaymen, whom he was to command, and
ten archers of the guard, who were to pursue them; Antoine was among the
latter.
The highwaymen, armed with swords and guns obtained from the willows
which grew along the brook, moved off first, and gained the valleys
between the little hills beyond the wood. The fight was to be serious,
and any prisoner on either side was to be tried immediately. The robbers
divided into twos and threes, and hid themselves in the ravines.
A few minutes later the archers started in pursuit. There were
encounters, surprises, skirmishes; but whenever it came to close
quarters, Pierre’s men, skilfully distributed, united on hearing his
whistle, and the Army of justice had to retreat. But there came a time
when this magic signal was no longer heard, and the robbers became
uneasy, and remained crouching in their hiding-places. Pierre,
over-daring, had undertaken to defend alone the entrance of a dangerous
passage and to stop the whole hostile troop there. Whilst he kept them
engaged, half of his men, concealed on the left, were to come round the
foot of the hill and make a rush on hearing his whistle; the other half,
also stationed at some, little distance, were to execute the same
manoeuvre from above. The archers would be caught in a trap, and
attacked both in front and rear, would be obliged to surrender at
discretion. Chance, which not unfrequently decides the fate of a battle,
defeated this excellent stratagem. Watching intently; Pierre failed to
perceive that while his whole attention was given to the ground in
front, the archers had taken an entirely different road from the one
they ought to have followed if his combination were to succeed. They
suddenly fell upon him from behind, and before he could blow his
whistle, they gagged him with a handkerchief and tied his hands. Six
remained to keep the field of battle and disperse the hostile band, now
deprived of its chief; the remaining four conveyed Pierre to the little
wood, while the robbers, hearing no signal, did not venture to stir.
According to agreement, Pierre Buttel was tried by the archers, who
promptly transformed themselves into a court of justice, and as he had
been taken red-handed, and did not condescend to defend himself, the
trial was not a long affair. He was unanimously sentenced to be hung,
and the execution was then and there carried out, at the request of the
criminal himself, who wanted the game to be properly played to the end,
and who actually selected a suitable tree for his own execution.
"But, Pierre," said one of the judges, "how can you be held up there?"
"How stupid you are!" returned the captive. "I shall only pretend to be
hung, of course. See here!" and he fastened together several pieces
strong string which had tied some of the other boys’ books, piled the
latter together, and standing on tiptoe on this very insecure basis,
fastened one end of the cord to a horizontal bough, and put his neck
into a running knot at the other end, endeavouring to imitate the
contortions of an actual sufferer. Shouts of laughter greeted him, and
the victim laughed loudest of all. Three archers went to call the rest
to behold this amusing spectacle; one, tired out, remained with the
prisoner.
"Ah, Hangman," said Pierre, putting out his tongue at him, "are the
books firm? I thought I felt them give way."
"No," replied Antoine; it was he who remained. "Don’t be afraid,
Pierre."
"It is a good thing; for if they fell I don’t think the cord is long
enough."
"Don’t you really think so?"
A horrible thought showed itself like a flash on the child’s face. He
resembled a young hyena scenting blood for the first time. He glanced at
the pile of books Pierre was standing on, and compared it with the
length of the cord between the branch and his neck. It was already
nearly dark, the shadows were deepening in the wood, gleams of pale
light penetrated between the trees, the leaves had become black and
rustled in the wind. Antoine stood silent and motionless, listening if
any sound could be heard near them.
It would be a curious study for the moralist to observe how the first
thought of crime develops itself in the recesses of the human heart, and
how this poisoned germ grows and stifles all other sentiments; an
impressive lesson might be gathered from this struggle of two opposing
principles, however weak it may be, in perverted natures. In cases where
judgment can discern, where there is power to choose between good and
evil, the guilty person has only himself to blame, and the most heinous
crime is only the action of its perpetrator. It is a human action, the
result of passions which might have been controlled, and one’s mind is
not uncertain, nor one’s conscience doubtful, as to the guilt. But how
can one conceive this taste for murder in a young child, how imagine it,
without being tempted to exchange the idea of eternal sovereign justice
for that of blind-fatality? How can one judge without hesitation between
the moral sense which has given way and the instinct which displays
itself? how not exclaim that the designs of a Creator who retains the
one and impels the other are sometimes mysterious and inexplicable, and
that one must submit without understanding?
"Do you hear them coming?" asked Pierre.
"I hear nothing," replied Antoine, and a nervous shiver ran through all
his members.
"So much the worse. I am tired of being dead; I shall come to life and
run after them. Hold the books, and I will undo the noose."
"If you move, the books will separate; wait, I will hold them."
And he knelt down, and collecting all his strength, gave the pile a
violent push.
Pierre endeavoured to raise his hands to his throat. "What are you
doing?" he cried in a suffocating voice.
"I am paying you out;" replied Antoine, folding his arms.
Pierre’s feet were only a few inches from the ground, and the weight of
his body at first bent the bough for a moment; but it rose again, and
the unfortunate boy exhausted himself in useless efforts. At every
movement the knot grew tighter, his legs struggled, his arms sought
vainly something to lay hold of; then his movements slackened, his limbs
stiffened, and his hands sank down. Of so much life and vigour nothing
remained but the movement of an inert mass turning round and round upon
itself.
Not till then did Antoine cry for help, and when the other boys hastened
up they found him crying and tearing his hair. So violent indeed were
his sobs and his despair that he could hardly be understood as he tried
to explain how the books had given way under Pierre, and how he had
vainly endeavoured to support him in his arms.
This boy, left an orphan at three years old, had been brought up at
first by a relation who turned him out for theft; afterwards by two
sisters, his cousins, who were already beginning to take alarm at his
abnormal perversity. This pale and fragile being, an incorrigible thief,
a consummate hypocrite, and a cold-blooded assassin, was predestined to
an immortality of crime, and was to find a place among the most
execrable monsters for whom humanity has ever had to blush; his name was
Antoine-Francois Derues.
Twenty years had gone by since this horrible and mysterious event, which
no one sought to unravel at the time it occurred. One June evening,
1771, four persons were sitting in one of the rooms of a modestly
furnished, dwelling on the third floor of a house in the rue
Saint-Victor. The party consisted of three women and an ecclesiastic,
who boarded, for meals only, with the woman who tenanted the dwelling;
the other two were near neighbours. They were all friends, and often met
thus in the evening to play cards. They were sitting round the
card-table, but although it was nearly ten o’clock the cards had not yet
been touched. They spoke in low tones, and a half-interrupted confidence
had, this evening, put a check on the usual gaiety.
Someone knocked gently at the door, although no sound of steps on the
creaking wooden staircase had been heard, and a wheedling voice asked
for admittance. The occupier of the room, Madame Legrand, rose, and
admitted a man of about six-and-twenty, at whose appearance the four
friends exchanged glances, at once observed by the new-comer, who
affected, however, not to see them. He bowed successively to the three
women, and several times with the utmost respect to the abbe, making
signs of apology for the interruption caused by his appearance; then,
coughing several times, he turned to Madame Legrand, and said in a
feeble voice, which seemed to betoken much suffering—
"My kind mistress, will you and these other ladies excuse my presenting
myself at such an hour and in such a costume? I am ill, and I was
obliged to get up."
His costume was certainly singular enough: he was wrapped in a large
dressing-gown of flowered chintz; his head was adorned by a nightcap
drawn up at the top and surmounted by a muslin frill. His appearance did
not contradict his complaint of illness; he was barely four feet six in
height, his limbs were bony, his face sharp, thin, and pale. Thus
attired, coughing incessantly, dragging his feet as if he had no
strength to lift them, holding a lighted candle in one hand and an egg
in the other, he suggested a caricature-some imaginary invalid just
escaped from M. Purgon. Nevertheless, no one ventured to smile,
notwithstanding his valetudinarian appearance and his air of affected
humility. The perpetual blinking of the yellow eyelids which fell over
the round and hollow eyes, shining with a sombre fire which he could
never entirely suppress, reminded one of a bird of prey unable to face
the light, and the lines of his face, the hooked nose, and the thin,
constantly quivering, drawn-in lips suggested a mixture of boldness and
baseness, of cunning and sincerity. But there is no book which can
instruct one to read the human countenance correctly; and some special
circumstance must have roused the suspicions of these four persons so
much as to cause them to make these observations, and they were not as
usual deceived by the humbug of this skilled actor, a past master in the
art of deception.
He continued after a moment’s silence, as if he did not wish to
interrupt their mute observation—
"Will you oblige me by a neighbourly kindness?"
"What is it, Derues?" asked Madame Legrand. A violent cough, which
appeared to rend his chest, prevented him from answering immediately.
When it ceased, he looked at the abbe, and said, with a melancholy
smile—
"What I ought to ask in my present state of health is your blessing, my
father, and your intercession for the pardon of my sins. But everyone
clings to the life which God has given him. We do not easily abandon
hope; moreover, I have always considered it wrong to neglect such means
of preserving our lives as are in our power, since life is for us only a
time of trial, and the longer and harder the trial the greater our
recompense in a better world. Whatever befalls us, our answer should be
that of the Virgin Mary to the angel who announced the mystery of the
Incarnation: ’Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according
to Thy word.’"
"You are right," said the abbe, with a severe and inquisitorial look,
under which Derues remained quite untroubled; "it is an attribute of God
to reward and to punish, and the Almighty is not deceived by him who
deceives men. The Psalmist has said, ’Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and
upright are Thy judgments.’"
"He has said also, ’The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether,’" Derues promptly replied. This exchange of quotations from
Scripture might have lasted for hours without his being at a loss, had
the abbe thought fit to continue in this strain; but such a style of
conversation, garnished with grave and solemn words, seemed almost
sacrilegious in the mouth of a man of such ridiculous appearance—a
profanation at once sad and grotesque. Derues seemed to comprehend the
impression it produced, and tuning again to Madame Legrand, he said—
"We have got a long way from what I came to ask you, my kind friend. I
was so ill that I went early to bed, but I cannot sleep, and I have no
fire. Would you have the kindness to have this egg mulled for me?"
"Cannot your servant do that for you?" asked Madame Legrand.
"I gave her leave to go out this evening, and though it is late she has
not yet returned. If I had a fire, I would not give you so much trouble,
but I do not care to light one at this hour. You know I am always afraid
of accidents, and they so easily happen!"
"Very well, then," replied Madame Legrand; "go back to your room, and my
servant will bring it to you."
"Thank you," said Derues, bowing,—"many thanks."
As he turned to depart, Madame Legrand spoke again.
"This day week, Derues, you have to pay me half the twelve hundred
livres due for the purchase of my business."
"So soon as that?"
"Certainly, and I want the money. Have you forgotten the date, then?"
"Oh dear, I have never looked at the agreement since it was drawn up. I
did not think the time was so near, it is the fault of my bad memory;
but I will contrive to pay you, although trade is very bad, and in three
days I shall have to pay more than fifteen thousand livres to different
people."
He bowed again and departed, apparently exhausted by the effort of
sustaining so long a conversation.
As soon as they were alone, the abbe exclaimed—
"That man is assuredly an utter rascal! May God forgive him his
hypocrisy! How is it possible we could allow him to deceive us for so
long?"
"But, my father," interposed one of the visitors, "are you really sure
of what you have just said?"
"I am not now speaking of the seventy-nine Louis d’or which have been
stolen from me, although I never mentioned to anyone but you, and he was
then present, that I possessed such a sum, and although that very day he
made a false excuse for coming to my rooms when I was out. Theft is
indeed infamous, but slander is not less so, and he has slandered you
disgracefully. Yes, he has spread a report that you, Madame Legrand,
you, his former mistress and benefactress, have put temptation in his
way, and desired to commit carnal sin with him. This is now whispered
the neighbourhood all round us, it will soon be said aloud, and we have
been so completely his dupes, we have helped him so much to acquire a
reputation for uprightness, that it would now be impossible to destroy
our own work; if I were to accuse him of theft, and you charged him with
lying, probably neither of us would be believed. Beware, these odious
tales have not been spread without a reason. Now that your eyes are
open, beware of him."
"Yes," replied Madame Legrand, "my brother-in-law warned me three years
ago. One day Derues said to my sister-in-law,—I remember the words
perfectly,—’I should like to be a druggist, because one would always be
able to punish an enemy; and if one has a quarrel with anyone it would
be easy to get rid of him by means of a poisoned draught.’ I neglected
these warnings. I surmounted the feeling of repugnance I first felt at
the sight of him; I have responded to his advances, and I greatly fear I
may have cause to repent it. But you know him as well as I do, who would
not have thought his piety sincere?—who would not still think so? And
notwithstanding all you have said, I still hesitate to feel serious
alarm; I am unwilling to believe in such utter depravity."
The conversation continued in this strain for some time, and then, as it
was getting late, the party separated.
Next morning early, a large and noisy crowd was assembled in the rue
Saint-Victor before Derues’ shop of drugs and groceries. There was a
confusion of cross questions, of inquiries which obtained no answer, of
answers not addressed to the inquiry, a medley of sound, a pell-mell of
unconnected words, of affirmations, contradictions, and interrupted
narrations. Here, a group listened to an orator who held forth in his
shirt sleeves, a little farther there were disputes, quarrels,
exclamations of "Poor man!" "Such a good fellow!" "My poor gossip
Derues!" "Good heavens! what will he do now?" "Alas! he is quite done
for; it is to be hoped his creditors will give him time!" Above all this
uproar was heard a voice, sharp and piercing like a cat’s, lamenting,
and relating with sobs the terrible misfortune of last night. At about
three in the morning the inhabitants of the rue St. Victor had been
startled out of their sleep by the cry of "Fire, fire!" A conflagration
had burst forth in Derues’ cellar, and though its progress had been
arrested and the house saved from destruction, all the goods stored
therein had perished. It apparently meant a considerable loss in barrels
of oil, casks of brandy, boxes of soap, etc., which Derues estimated at
not less than nine thousand livres.
By what unlucky chance the fire had been caused he had no idea. He
recounted his visit to Madame Legrand, and pale, trembling, hardly able
to sustain himself, he cried—
"I shall die of grief! A poor man as ill as I am! I am lost! I am
ruined!"
A harsh voice interrupted his lamentations, and drew the attention of
the crowd to a woman carrying printed broadsides, and who forced a
passage through the crowd up to the shop door. She unfolded one of her
sheets, and cried as loudly and distinctly as her husky voice permitted—
"Sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Paris against John Robert
Cassel, accused and convicted of Fraudulent Bankruptcy!"
Derues looked up and saw a street-hawker who used to come to his shop
for a drink, and with whom he had had a violent quarrel about a month
previously, she having detected him in a piece of knavery, and abused
him roundly in her own style, which was not lacking in energy. He had
not seen her since. The crowd generally, and all the gossips of the
quarter, who held Derues in great veneration, thought that the woman’s
cry was intended as an indirect insult, and threatened to punish her for
this irreverence. But, placing one hand on her hip, and with the other
warning off the most pressing by a significant gesture—
"Are you still befooled by his tricks, fools that you are? Yes, no doubt
there was a fire in the cellar last night, no doubt his creditors will
be geese enough to let him off paying his debts! But what you don’t know
is, that he didn’t really lose by it at all!"
"He lost all his goods!" the crowd cried on all sides. "More than nine
thousand livres! Oil and brandy, do you think those won’t burn? The old
witch, she drinks enough to know! If one put a candle near her she would
take fire, fast enough!"
"Perhaps," replied the woman, with renewed gesticulations, "perhaps; but
I don’t advise any of you to try. Anyhow, this fellow here is a rogue;
he has been emptying his cellar for the last three nights; there were
only old empty casks in it and empty packing-cases! Oh yes! I have
swallowed his daily lies like everybody else, but I know the truth by
now. He got his liquor taken away by Michael Lambourne’s son, the
cobbler in the rue de la Parcheminerie. How do I know? Why, because the
young man came and told me!"
"I turned that woman out of my shop a month ago, for stealing," said
Derues.
Notwithstanding this retaliatory accusation, the woman’s bold assertion
might have changed the attitude of the crowd and chilled the enthusiasm,
but at that moment a stout man pressed forward, and seizing the hawker
by the arm, said—
"Go, and hold your tongue, backbiting woman!"
To this man, the honour of Derues was an article of faith; he had not
yet ceased to wonder at the probity of this sainted person, and to doubt
it in the least was as good as suspecting his own.
"My dear friend," he said, "we all know what to think of you. I know you
well. Send to me tomorrow, and you shall have what goods you want, on
credit, for as long as is necessary. Now, evil tongue, what do you say
to that?"
"I say that you are as great a fool as the rest. Adieu, friend Derues;
go on as you have begun, and I shall be selling your ’sentence’ some
day"; and dispersing the crowd with a few twirls of her right arm, she
passed on, crying—
"Sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Paris against John Robert
Cassel, accused and convicted of Fraudulent Bankruptcy!"
This accusation emanated from too insignificant a quarter to have any
effect on Derues’ reputation. However resentful he may have been at the
time, he got over it in consequence of the reiterated marks of interest
shown by his neighbours and all the quarter on account of his supposed
ruin, and the hawker’s attack passed out of his mind, or probably she
might have paid for her boldness with her life.
But this drunken woman had none the less uttered a prophetic word; it
was the grain of sand on which, later, he was to be shipwrecked.
"All passions," says La Bruyere,—"all passions are deceitful; they
disguise themselves as much as possible from the public eye; they hide
from themselves. There is no vice which has not a counterfeit
resemblance to some virtue, and which does not profit by it."
The whole life of Derues bears testimony to the truth of this
observation. An avaricious poisoner, he attracted his victims by the
pretence of fervent and devoted piety, and drew them into the snare
where he silently destroyed them. His terrible celebrity only began in
1777, caused by the double murder of Madame de Lamotte and her son, and
his name, unlike those of some other great criminals, does not at first
recall a long series of crimes, but when one examines this low, crooked,
and obscure life, one finds a fresh stain at every step, and perhaps no
one has ever surpassed him in dissimulation, in profound hypocrisy, in
indefatigable depravity. Derues was executed at thirty-two, and his
whole life was steeped in vice; though happily so short, it is full of
horror, and is only a tissue of criminal thoughts and deeds, a very
essence of evil. He had no hesitation, no remorse, no repose, no
relaxation; he seemed compelled to lie, to steal, to poison!
Occasionally suspicion is aroused, the public has its doubts, and vague
rumours hover round him; but he burrows under new impostures, and
punishment passes by. When he falls into the hands of human justice his
reputation protects him, and for a few days more the legal sword is
turned aside. Hypocrisy is so completely a part of his nature, that even
when there is no longer any hope, when he is irrevocably sentenced, and
he knows that he can no longer deceive anyone, neither mankind nor Him
whose name he profanes by this last sacrilege, he yet exclaims, "O
Christ! I shall suffer even as Thou." It is only by the light of his
funeral pyre that the dark places of his life can be examined, that this
bloody plot is unravelled, and that other victims, forgotten and lost in
the shadows, arise like spectres at the foot of the scaffold, and escort
the assassin to his doom.
Let us trace rapidly the history of Derues’ early years, effaced and
forgotten in the notoriety of his death. These few pages are not written
for the glorification of crime, and if in our own days, as a result of
the corruption of our manners, and of a deplorable confusion of all
notions of right and wrong, it has been sought to make him an object; of
public interest, we, on our part, only wish to bring him into notice,
and place him momentarily on a pedestal, in order to cast him still
lower, that his fall may be yet greater. What has been permitted by God
may be related by man. Decaying and satiated communities need not be
treated as children; they require neither diplomatic handling nor
precaution, and it may be good that they should see and touch the
putrescent sores which canker them. Why fear to mention that which
everyone knows? Why dread to sound the abyss which can be measured by
everyone? Why fear to bring into the light of day unmasked wickedness,
even though it confronts the public gaze unblushingly? Extreme turpitude
and extreme excellence are both in the schemes of Providence; and the
poet has summed up eternal morality for all ages and nations in this
sublime exclamation:
"Abstulit hunc tandem Rufini poem tumultum."
Besides, and we cannot insist too earnestly that our intention must not
be mistaken, if we had wished to inspire any other sentiment than that
of horror, we should have chosen a more imposing personage from the
annals of crime. There have been deeds which required audacity, a sort
of grandeur, a false heroism; there have been criminals who held in
check all the regular and legitimate forces of society, and whom one
regarded with a mixture of terror and pity. There is nothing of that in
Derues, not even a trace of courage; nothing but a shameless cupidity,
exercising itself at first in the theft of a few pence filched from the
poor; nothing but the illicit gains and rascalities of a cheating
shopkeeper and vile money-lender, a depraved cowardice which dared not
strike openly, but slew in the dark. It is the story of an unclean
reptile which drags itself underground, leaving everywhere the trail of
its poisonous saliva.
Such was the man whose life we have undertaken to narrate, a man who
represents a complete type of wickedness, and who corresponds to the
most hideous sketch ever devised by poet or romance-writer: Facts
without importance of their own, which would be childish if recorded of
anyone else, obtain a sombre reflection from other facts which precede
them, and thenceforth cannot be passed over in silence. The historian is
obliged to collect and note them, as showing the logical development of
this degraded being: he unites them in sequence, and counts the
successive steps of the ladder mounted by the criminal.
We have seen the early exploit of this assassin by instinct; we find
him, twenty years later, an incendiary and a fraudulent bankrupt. What
had happened in the interval? With how much treachery and crime had he
filled this space of twenty years? Let us return to his infancy.
His unconquerable taste for theft caused him to be expelled by the
relations who had taken charge of him. An anecdote is told which shows
his impudence and incurable perversity. One day he was caught taking
some money, and was soundly whipped by his cousins. When this was over,
the child, instead of showing any sorrow or asking forgiveness, ran away
with a sneer, and seeing they were out of breath, exclaimed—
"You are tired, are you? Well, I am not!"
Despairing of any control over this evil disposition, the relations
refused to keep him, and sent him to Chartres, where two other cousins
agreed to have him, out of charity. They were simpleminded women, of
great and sincere piety, who imagined that good example and religious
teaching might have a happy influence on their young relation. The
result was contrary to their expectation: the sole fruit of their
teaching was that Derues learnt to be a cheat and a hypocrite, and to
assume the mask of respectability.
Here also repeated thefts insured him sound corrections. Knowing his
cousins’ extreme economy, not to say avarice, he mocked them when they
broke a lath over his shoulders: "There now, I am so glad; that will
cost you two farthings!"
His benefactresses’ patience becoming exhausted, he left their house,
and was apprenticed to a tinman at Chartres. His master died, and an
ironmonger of the same town took him as shop-boy, and from this he
passed on to a druggist and grocer. Until now, although fifteen years
old, he had shown no preference for one trade more than another, but it
was now necessary he should choose some profession, and his share in the
family property amounted to the modest sum of three thousand five
hundred livres. His residence with this last master revealed a decided
taste, but it was only another evil instinct developing itself: the
poisoner had scented poison, being always surrounded with drugs which
were health-giving or hurtful, according to the use made of them. Derues
would probably have settled at Chartres, but repeated thefts obliged him
to leave the town. The profession of druggist and grocer being one which
presented most chances of fortune, and being, moreover, adapted to his
tastes, his family apprenticed him to a grocer in the rue Comtesse
d’Artois, paying a specified premium for him.
Derues arrived in Paris in 1760. It was a new horizon, where he was
unknown; no suspicion attached to him, and he felt much at his ease.
Lost in the noise and the crowd of this immense receptacle for every
vice, he had time to found on hypocrisy his reputation as an honest man.
When his apprenticeship expired, his master proposed to place him with
his sister-in-law, who kept a similar establishment in the rue St.
Victor, and who had been a widow for several years. He recommended
Derues as a young man whose zeal and intelligence might be useful in her
business, being ignorant of various embezzlements committed by his late
apprentice, who was always clever enough to cast suspicion on others.
But the negotiation nearly fell through, because, one day, Derues so far
forgot his usual prudence and dissimulation as to allow himself to make
the observation recorded above to his mistress. She, horrified, ordered
him to be silent, and threatened to ask her husband to dismiss him. It
required a double amount of hypocrisy to remove this unfavourable
impression; but he spared no pains to obtain the confidence of the
sister-in-law, who was much influenced in his favour. Every day he
inquired what could be done for her, every evening he took a basket-load
of the goods she required from the rue Comtesse d’Artois; and it excited
the pity of all beholders to see this weakly young man, panting and
sweating under his heavy burden, refusing any reward, and labouring
merely for the pleasure of obliging, and from natural kindness of heart!
The poor widow, whose spoils he was already coveting, was completely
duped. She rejected the advice of her brother-in-law, and only listened
to the concert of praises sung by neighbours much edified by Derues’
conduct, and touched by the interest he appeared to show her. Often he
found occasion to speak of her, always with the liveliest expressions of
boundless devotion. These remarks were repeated to the good woman, and
seemed all the more sincere to her as they appeared to have been made
quite casually, and she never suspected they were carefully calculated
and thought out long before.
Derues carried dishonesty as far as possible, but he knew how to stop
when suspicion was likely to be aroused, and though always planning
either to deceive or to hurt, he was never taken by surprise. Like the
spider which spreads the threads of her web all round her, he concealed
himself in a net of falsehood which one had to traverse before arriving
at his real nature. The evil destiny of this poor woman, mother of four
children, caused her to engage him as her shopman in the year 1767,
thereby signing the warrant for her own ruin.
Derues began life under his new mistress with a master-stroke. His
exemplary piety was the talk of the whole quarter, and his first care
had been to request Madame Legrand to recommend him a confessor. She
sent him to the director of her late husband, Pere Cartault, of the
Carmelite order, who, astonished at the devotion of his penitent, never
failed, if he passed the shop, to enter and congratulate Madame Legrand
on the excellent acquisition she had made in securing this young man,
who would certainly bring her a blessing along with him. Derues affected
the greatest modesty, and blushed at these praises, and often, when he
saw the good father approaching, appeared not to see him, and found
something to do elsewhere; whereby the field was left clear for his too
credulous panegyrists.
But Pere Cartault appeared too indulgent, and Derues feared that his
sins were too easily pardoned; and he dared not find peace in an
absolution which was never refused. Therefore, before the year was out,
he chose a second confessor, Pere Denys, a Franciscan, consulting both
alternately, and confiding his conscientious scruples to them. Every
penance appeared too easy, and he added to those enjoined by his
directors continual mortifications of his own devising, so that even
Tartufe himself would have owned his superiority.
He wore about him two shrouds, to which were fastened relics of Madame
de Chantal, also a medal of St. Francois de Saps, and occasionally
scourged himself. His mistress related that he had begged her to take a
sitting at the church of St. Nicholas, in order that he might more
easily attend service when he had a day out, and had brought her a small
sum which he had saved, to pay half the expense.
Moreover, he had slept upon straw during the whole of Lent, and took
care that Madame Legrand heard of this through the servant, pretending
at first to hide it as if it were something wrong. He tried to prevent
the maid from going into his room, and when she found out the straw he
forbade her to mention it—which naturally made her more anxious to
relate her discovery. Such a piece of piety, combined with such
meritorious humility, such dread of publicity, could only increase the
excellent opinion which everyone already had of him.
Every day was marked by some fresh hypocrisy. One of his sisters, a
novice in the convent of the Ladies of the Visitation of the Virgin, was
to take the veil at Easter. Derues obtained permission to be present at
the ceremony, and was to start on foot on Good Friday. When he departed,
the shop happened to be full of people, and the gossips of the
neighbourhood inquired where he was going. Madame Legrand desired him to
have a glass of liqueur (wine he never touched) and something to eat
before starting.
"Oh, madame!" he exclaimed, "do you think I could eat on a day like
this, the day on which Christ was crucified! I will take a piece of
bread with me, but I shall only eat it at the inn where I intend to
sleep: I mean to fast the whole way."
But this kind of thing was not sufficient. He wanted an opportunity to
establish a reputation for honesty on a firm basis. Chance provided one,
and he seized it immediately, although at the expense of a member of his
own family.
One of his brothers, who kept a public-house at Chartres, came to see
him. Derues, under pretence of showing him the sights of Paris, which he
did not know, asked his mistress to allow him to take in the brother for
a few days, which she granted. The last evening of his stay, Derues went
up to his room, broke open the box which contained his clothes, turned
over everything it contained, examined the clothes, and discovering two
new cotton nightcaps, raised a cry which brought up the household. His
brother just then returned, and Derues called him an infamous thief,
declaring that he had stolen the money for these new articles out of the
shop the evening before. His brother defended himself, protesting his
innocence, and, indignant at such incomprehensible treachery,
endeavoured to turn the tables by relating some of Antoine’s early
misdeeds. The latter, however, stopped him, by declaring on his honour
that he had seen his brother the evening before go to the till, slip his
hand in, and take out some money. The brother was confounded and
silenced by so audacious a lie; he hesitated, stammered, and was turned
out of the house. Derues worthily crowned this piece of iniquity by
obliging his mistress to accept the restitution of the stolen money. It
cost him three livres, twelve sous, but the interest it brought him was
the power of stealing unsuspected. That evening he spent in prayer for
the pardon of his brother’s supposed guilt.
All these schemes had succeeded, and brought him nearer to the desired
goal, for not a soul in the quarter ventured to doubt the word of this
saintly individual. His fawning manners and insinuating language varied
according to the people addressed. He adapted himself to all,
contradicting no one, and, while austere himself, he flattered the
tastes of others. In the various houses where he visited his
conversation was serious, grave, and sententious; and, as we have seen,
he could quote Scripture with the readiness of a theologian. In the
shop, when he had to deal with the lower classes, he showed himself
acquainted with their modes of expression, and spoke the Billingsgate of
the market-women, which he had acquired in the rue Comtesse d’Artois,
treating them familiarly, and they generally addressed him as "gossip
Derues." By his own account he easily judged the characters of the
various people with whom he came in contact.
However, Pere Cartault’s prophecy was not fulfilled: the blessing of
Heaven did not descend on the Legrand establishment. There seemed to be
a succession of misfortunes which all Derues’ zeal and care as shopman
could neither prevent nor repair. He by no means contented himself with
parading an idle and fruitless hypocrisy, and his most abominable
deceptions were not those displayed in the light of day. He watched by
night: his singular organisation, outside the ordinary laws of nature,
appeared able to dispense with sleep. Gliding about on tiptoe, opening
doors noiselessly, with all the skill of an accomplished thief, he
pillaged shop and cellar, and sold his plunder in remote parts of the
town under assumed names. It is difficult to understand how his strength
supported the fatigue of this double existence; he had barely arrived at
puberty, and art had been obliged to assist the retarded development of
nature. But he lived only for evil, and the Spirit of Evil supplied the
physical vigour which was wanting. An insane love of money (the only
passion he knew) brought him by degrees back to his starting-point of
crime; he concealed it in hiding-places wrought in the thick walls, in
holes dug out by his nails. As soon as he got any, he brought it exactly
as a wild beast brings a piece of bleeding flesh to his lair; and often,
by the glimmer of a dark lantern, kneeling in adoration before this
shameful idol, his eyes sparkling with ferocious joy, with a smile which
suggested a hyena’s delight over its prey, he would contemplate his
money, counting and kissing it.
These continual thefts brought trouble into the Legrand affairs,
cancelled all profits, and slowly brought on ruin. The widow had no
suspicion of Derues’ disgraceful dealings, and he carefully referred the
damage to other causes, quite worthy of himself. Sometimes it was a
bottle of oil, or of brandy, or some other commodity, which was found
spilt, broken, or damaged, which accidents he attributed to the enormous
quantity of rats which infested the cellar and the house. At length,
unable to meet her engagements, Madame Legrand made the business over to
him in February, 1770. He was then twenty-five years and six months old,
and was accepted as a merchant grocer in August the same year. By an
agreement drawn up between them, Derues undertook to pay twelve hundred
livres for the goodwill, and to lodge her rent free during the remainder
of her lease, which had still nine years to run. Being thus obliged to
give up business to escape bankruptcy, Madame Legrand surrendered to her
creditors any goods remaining in her warehouse; and Derues easily made
arrangements to take them over very cheaply. The first step thus made,
he was now able to enrich himself safely and to defraud with impunity
under the cover of his stolen reputation.
One of his uncles, a flour merchant at Chartres, came habitually twice a
year to Paris to settle accounts with his correspondents. A sum of
twelve hundred francs, locked up in a drawer, was stolen from him, and,
accompanied by his nephew, he went to inform the police. On
investigation being made, it was found that the chest of drawers had
been broken at the top. As at the time of the theft of the seventy-nine
Louis from the abbe, Derues was the only person known to have entered
his uncle’s room. The innkeeper swore to this, but the uncle took pains
to justify his nephew, and showed his confidence shortly after by
becoming surety for him to the extent of five thousand livres. Derues
failed to pay when the time expired, and the holder of the note was
obliged to sue the surety for it.
He made use of any means, even the most impudent, which enabled him to
appropriate other people’s property. A provincial grocer on one occasion
sent him a thousand-weight of honey in barrels to be sold on commission.
Two or three months passed, and he asked for an account of the sale.
Derues replied that he had not yet been able to dispose of it
advantageously, and there ensued a fresh delay, followed by the same
question and the same reply. At length, when more than a year had
passed, the grocer came to Paris, examined his barrels, and found that
five hundred pounds were missing. He claimed damages from Derues, who
declared he had never received any more, and as the honey had been sent
in confidence, and there was no contract and no receipt to show, the
provincial tradesman could not obtain compensation.
As though having risen by the ruin of Madame Legrand and her four
children was not enough, Derues grudged even the morsel of bread he had
been obliged to leave her. A few days after the fire in the cellar,
which enabled him to go through a second bankruptcy, Madame Legrand, now
undeceived and not believing his lamentations, demanded the money due to
her, according to their agreement. Derues pretended to look for his copy
of the contract, and could not find it. "Give me yours, madame," said
he; "we will write the receipt upon it. Here is the money."
The widow opened her purse and took out her copy; Derues snatched it,
and tore it up. "Now," he exclaimed, "you are paid; I owe you nothing
now. If you like, I will declare it on oath in court, and no one will
disbelieve my word."
"Wretched man," said the unfortunate widow, "may God forgive your soul;
but your body will assuredly end on the gallows!"
It was in vain that she complained, and told of this abominable swindle;
Derues had been beforehand with her, and the slander he had disseminated
bore its fruits. It was said that his old mistress was endeavouring by
an odious falsehood to destroy the reputation of a man who had refused
to be her lover. Although reduced to poverty, she left the house where
she had a right to remain rent free, preferring the hardest and
dreariest life to the torture of remaining under the same roof with the
man who had caused her ruin.
We might relate a hundred other pieces of knavery, but it must not be
supposed that having begun by murder, Derues would draw back and remain
contented with theft. Two fraudulent bankruptcies would have sufficed
for most people; for him they were merely a harmless pastime. Here we
must place two dark and obscure stories, two crimes of which he is
accused, two victims whose death groans no one heard.
The hypocrite’s excellent reputation had crossed the Parisian bounds. A
young man from the country, intending to start as a grocer in the
capital, applied to Derues for the necessary information and begged for
advice. He arrived at the latter’s house with a sum of eight thousand
livres, which he placed in Derues’ hands, asking him for assistance in
finding a business. The sight of gold was enough to rouse the instinct
of crime in Derues, and the witches who hailed Macbeth with the promise
of royalty did not rouse the latter’s ambitious desires to a greater
height than the chance of wealth did the greed of the assassin; whose
hands, once closed over the eight thousand livres, were never again
relaxed. He received them as a deposit, and hid them along with his
previous plunder, vowing never to return them. Several days had elapsed,
when one afternoon Derues returned home with an air of such unusual
cheerfulness that the young man questioned him. "Have you heard some
good news for me?" he asked, "or have you had some luck yourself?"
"My young friend," answered Derues, "as for me, success depends on my
own efforts, and fortune smiles on me. But I have promised to be useful
to you, your parents have trusted me, and I must prove that their
confidence is well founded. I have heard to-day of a business for
disposal in one of the best parts of Paris. You can have it for twelve
thousand livres, and I wish I could lend you the amount you want. But
you must write to your father, persuade him, reason with him; do not
lose so good a chance. He must make a little sacrifice, and he will be
grateful to me later."
In accordance with their son’s request, the young man’s parents
despatched a sum of four thousand livres, requesting Derues to lose no
time in concluding the purchase.
Three weeks later, the father, very uneasy, arrived in Paris. He came to
inquire about his son, having heard nothing from him. Derues received
him with the utmost astonishment, appearing convinced that the young man
had returned home. One day, he said, the youth informed him that he had
heard from his father, who had given up all idea of establishing him in
Paris, having arranged an advantageous marriage for him near home; and
he had taken his twelve thousand livres, for which Derues produced a
receipt, and started on his return journey.
One evening, when nearly dark, Derues had gone out with his guest, who
complained of headache and internal pains. Where did they go? No one
knew; but Denies only returned at daybreak, alone, weary and exhausted,
and the young man was never again heard of.
One of his apprentices was the constant object of reproof. The boy was
accused of negligence, wasting his time, of spending three hours over a
task which might have been done in less than one. When Derues had
convinced the father, a Parisian bourgeois, that his son was a bad boy
and a good-for-nothing, he came to this man one day in a state of wild
excitement.
"Your son," he said, "ran away yesterday with six hundred livres, with
which I had to meet a bill to-day. He knew where I kept this money, and
has taken it."
He threatened to go before a magistrate and denounce the thief, and was
only appeased by being paid the sum he claimed to have lost. But he had
gone out with the lad the evening before, and returned alone in the
early hours of the morning.
However, the veil which concealed the truth was becoming more and more
transparent every day. Three bankruptcies had diminished the
consideration he enjoyed, and people began to listen to complaints and
accusations which till now had been considered mere inventions designed
to injure him. Another attempt at trickery made him feel it desirable to
leave the neighbourhood.
He had rented a house close to his own, the shop of which had been
tenanted for seven or eight years by a wine merchant. He required from
this man, if he wished to remain where he was, a sum of six hundred
livres as a payment for goodwill. Although the wine merchant considered
it an exorbitant charge, yet on reflection he decided to pay it rather
than go, having established a good business on these premises, as was
well known. Before long a still more arrant piece of dishonesty gave him
an opportunity for revenge. A young man of good family, who was boarding
with him in order to gain some business experience, having gone into
Derues’ shop to make some purchases, amused himself while waiting by
idly writing his name on a piece of blank paper lying on the counter;
which he left there without thinking more about it. Derues, knowing the
young man had means, as soon as he had gone, converted the signed paper
into a promissory note for two thousand livres, to his order, payable at
the majority of the signer. The bill, negotiated in trade, arrived when
due at the wine merchant’s, who, much surprised, called his young
boarder and showed him the paper adorned with his signature. The youth
was utterly confounded, having no knowledge of the bill whatever, but
nevertheless could not deny his signature. On examining the paper
carefully, the handwriting was recognised as Derues’. The wine merchant
sent for him, and when he arrived, made him enter a room, and having
locked the door, produced the promissory note. Derues acknowledged
having written it, and tried various falsehoods to excuse himself. No
one listened to him, and the merchant threatened to place the matter in
the hands of the police. Then Derues wept, implored, fell on his knees,
acknowledged his guilt, and begged for mercy. He agreed to restore the
six hundred livres exacted from the wine merchant, on condition that he
should see the note destroyed and that the matter should end there. He
was then about to be married, and dreaded a scandal.
Shortly after, he married Marie-Louise Nicolais; daughter of a
harness-maker at Melun.
One’s first impression in considering this marriage is one of profound
sorrow and utmost pity for the young girl whose destiny was linked with
that of this monster. One thinks of the horrible future; of youth and
innocence blighted by the tainting breath of the homicide; of candour
united to hypocrisy; of virtue to wickedness; of legitimate desires
linked to disgraceful passions; of purity mixed with corruption. The
thought of these contrasts is revolting, and one pities such a dreadful
fate. But we must not decide hastily. Madame Derues has not been
convicted of any active part in her husband’s later crimes, but her
history, combined with his, shows no trace of suffering, nor of any
revolt against a terrible complicity. In her case the evidence is
doubtful, and public opinion must decide later.
In 1773, Derues relinquished retail business, and left the Saint Victor
neighbourhood, having taken an apartment in the rue des Deux Boules,
near the rue Bertin-Poiree, in the parish of St. Germain l’Auxerrois,
where he had been married. He first acted on commission for the
Benedictine-Camalduian fathers of the forest of Senart, who had heard of
him as a man wholly given to piety; then, giving himself up to usury, he
undertook what is known as "business affairs," a profession which, in
such hands, could not fail to be lucrative, being aided by his exemplary
morals and honest appearance. It was the more easy for him to impose on
others, as he could not be accused of any of the deadly vices which so
often end in ruin—gaming, wine, and women. Until now he had displayed
only one passion, that of avarice, but now another developed itself,
that of ambition. He bought houses and land, and when the money was due,
allowed himself to be sued for it; he bought even lawsuits, which he
muddled with all the skill of a rascally attorney. Experienced in
bankruptcy, he undertook the management of failures, contriving to make
dishonesty appear in the light of unfortunate virtue. When this demon
was not occupied with poison, his hands were busy with every social
iniquity; he could only live and breathe in an atmosphere of corruption.
His wife, who had already presented him with a daughter, gave birth to a
son in February 1774. Derues, in order to better support the airs of
grandeur and the territorial title which he had assumed, invited persons
of distinction to act as sponsors. The child was baptized Tuesday,
February 15th. We give the text of the baptismal register, as a
curiosity:—
"Antoine-Maximilian-Joseph, son of Antoine-Francois Derues, gentleman,
seigneur of Gendeville, Herchies, Viquemont, and other places, formerly
merchant grocer; and of Madame Marie-Louise Nicolais, his wife.
Godfathers, T. H. and T. P., lords of, etc. etc. Godmothers, Madame M.
Fr. C. D. V., etc. etc.
"(Signed)
A. F. DERUES, Senior."
But all this dignity did not exclude the sheriff’s officers, whom, as
befitted so great a man, he treated with the utmost insolence,
overwhelming them with abuse when they came to enforce an execution.
Such scandals had several times aroused the curiosity of his neighbours,
and did not redound to his credit. His landlord, wearied of all this
clamour, and most especially weary of never getting any rent without a
fight for it, gave him notice to quit. Derues removed to the rue
Beaubourg, where he continued to act as commission agent under the name
of Cyrano Derues de Bury.
And now we will concern ourselves no more with the unravelling of this
tissue of imposition; we will wander no longer in this labyrinth of
fraud, of low and vile intrigue, of dark crime of which the clue
disappears in the night, and of which the trace is lost in a doubtful
mixture of blood and mire; we will listen no longer to the cry of the
widow and her four children reduced to beggary, to the groans of obscure
victims, to the cries of terror and the death-groan which echoed one
night through the vaults of a country house near Beauvais. Behold other
victims whose cries are yet louder, behold yet other crimes and a
punishment which equals them in terror! Let these nameless ghosts, these
silent spectres, lose themselves in the clear daylight which now
appears, and make room for other phantoms which rend their shrouds and
issue from the tomb demanding vengeance.
Derues was now soon to have a chance of obtaining immortality. Hitherto
his blows had been struck by chance, henceforth he uses all the
resources of his infernal imagination; he concentrates all his strength
on one point—conceives and executes his crowning piece of wickedness. He
employs for two years all his science as cheat, forger, and poisoner in
extending the net which was to entangle a whole family; and, taken in
his own snare, he struggles in vain; in vain does he seek to gnaw
through the meshes which confine him. The foot placed on the last rung
of this ladder of crime, stands also on the first step by which he
mounts the scaffold.
About a mile from Villeneuve-le-Roi-les-Sens, there stood in 1775 a
handsome house, overlooking the windings of the Yonne on one side, and
on the other a garden and park belonging to the estate of Buisson-Souef.
It was a large property, admirably situated, and containing productive
fields, wood, and water; but not everywhere kept in good order, and
showing something of the embarrassed fortune of its owner. During some
years the only repairs had been those necessary in the house itself and
its immediate vicinity. Here and there pieces of dilapidated wall
threatened to fall altogether, and enormous stems of ivy had invaded and
stifled vigorous trees; in the remoter portions of the park briers
barred the road and made walking almost impossible. This disorder was
not destitute of charm, and at an epoch when landscape gardening
consisted chiefly in straight alleys, and in giving to nature a cold and
monotonous symmetry, one’s eye rested with pleasure on these neglected
clumps, on these waters which had taken a different course to that which
art had assigned to them, on these unexpected and picturesque scenes.
A wide terrace, overlooking the winding river, extended along the front
of the house. Three men were walking on it-two priests, and the owner of
Buisson-Souef, Monsieur de Saint-Faust de Lamotte. One priest was the
cure of Villeneuve-le-Roi-lez-Sens, the other was a Camaldulian monk,
who had come to see the cure about a clerical matter, and who was
spending some days at the presbytery. The conversation did not appear to
be lively. Every now and then Monsieur de Lamotte stood still, and,
shading his eyes with his hand from the brilliant sunlight which flooded
the plain, and was strongly reflected from the water, endeavoured to see
if some new object had not appeared on the horizon, then slowly resumed
his walk with a movement of uneasy impatience. The tower clock struck
with a noisy resonance.
"Six o’clock already!" he exclaimed. "They will assuredly not arrive
to-day."
"Why despair?" said the cure. "Your servant has gone to meet them; we
might see their boat any moment."
"But, my father," returned Monsieur de Lamotte, "the long days are
already past. In another hour the mist will rise, and then they would
not venture on the river."
"Well, if that happens, we shall have to be patient; they will stay all
night at some little distance, and you will see them to-morrow morning."
"My brother is right," said the other priest. "Come, monsieur; do not be
anxious."
"You both speak with the indifference of persons to whom family troubles
are unknown."
"What!" said the cure, "do you really think that because our sacred
profession condemns us both to celibacy, we are therefore unable to
comprehend an affection such as yours, on which I myself pronounced the
hallowing benediction of the Church—if you remember—nearly fifteen years
ago?"
"Is it perhaps intentionally, my father, that you recall the date of my
marriage? I readily admit that the love of one’s neighbour may enlighten
you as to another love to which you have yourself been a stranger. I
daresay it seems odd to you that a man of my age should be anxious about
so little, as though he were a love-sick youth; but for some time past I
have had presentiments of evil, and I am really becoming superstitious!"
He again stood still, gazing up the river, and, seeing nothing, resumed
his place between the two priests, who had continued their walk.
"Yes," he continued, "I have presentiments which refuse to be shaken
off. I am not so old that age can have weakened my powers and reduced me
to childishness, I cannot even say what I am afraid of, but separation
is painful and causes an involuntary terror. Strange, is it not?
Formerly, I used to leave my wife for months together, when she was
young and my son only, an infant; I loved her passionately, yet I could
go with pleasure. Why, I wonder, is it so different now? Why should a
journey to Paris on business, and a few hours’ delay, make, me so
terribly uneasy? Do you remember, my father," he resumed, after a pause,
turning to the cure, "do you remember how lovely Marie looked on our
wedding-day? Do you remember her dazzling complexion and the innocent
candour of her expression?—the sure token of the most truthful and
purest of minds! That is why I love her so much now; we do not now sigh
for one another, but the second love is stronger than the first, for it
is founded on recollection, and is tranquil and confident in friendship
. . . . It is strange that they have not returned; something must have
happened! If they do not return this evening, and I do not now think it
possible, I shall go to Paris myself to-morrow."
"I think;" said the other priest, "that at twenty you must indeed have
been excitable, a veritable tinder-box, to have retained so much energy!
Come, monsieur, try to calm yourself and have patience: you yourself
admit it can only be a few hours’ delay."
"But my son accompanied his mother, and he is our only one, and so
delicate! He alone remains of our three children, and you do not realise
how the affection of parents who feel age approaching is concentrated on
an only child! If I lost Edouard I should die!"
"I suppose, then, as you let him go, his presence at Paris was
necessary?"
"No; his mother went to obtain a loan which is needed for the
improvements required on the estate."
"Why, then, did you let him go?"
"I would willingly have kept him here, but his mother wished to take
him. A separation is as trying to her as to me, and we all but
quarrelled over it. I gave way."
"There was one way of satisfying all three—you might have gone also."
"Yes, but Monsieur le cure will tell you that a fortnight ago I was
chained to my arm-chair, swearing under my breath like a pagan, and
cursing the follies of my youth!—Forgive me, my father; I mean that I
had the gout, and I forgot that I am not the only sufferer, and that it
racks the old age of the philosopher quite as much as that of the
courtier."
The fresh wind which often rises just at sunset was already rustling in
the leaves; long shadows darkened the course of the Yonne and stretched
across the plain; the water, slightly troubled, reflected a confused
outline of its banks and the clouded blue of the sky. The three
gentlemen stopped at the end of the terrace and gazed into the already
fading distance. A black spot, which they had just observed in the
middle of the river, caught a gleam of light in passing a low meadow
between two hills, and for a moment took shape as a barge, then was lost
again, and could not be distinguished from the water. Another moment,
and it reappeared more distinctly; it was indeed a barge, and now the
horse could be seen towing it against the current. Again it was lost at
a bend of the river shaded by willows, and they had to resign themselves
to incertitude for several minutes. Then a white handkerchief was waved
on the prow of the boat, and Monsieur de Lamotte uttered a joyful
exclamation.
"It is indeed they!" he cried. "Do you see them, Monsieur le cure? I see
my boy; he is waving the handkerchief, and his mother is with him. But I
think there is a third person—yes, there is a man, is there not? Look
well."
"Indeed," said the cure, "if my bad sight does not deceive me, I should
say there was someone seated near the rudder; but it looks like a
child."
"Probably someone from the neighbourhood, who has profited by the chance
of a lift home."
The boat was advancing rapidly; they could now hear the cracking of the
whip with which the servant urged on the tow-horse. And now it stopped,
at an easy landing-place, barely fifty paces from the terrace. Madame de
Lamotte landed with her son and the stranger, and her husband descended
from the terrace to meet her. Long before he arrived at the garden gate,
his son’s arms were around his neck.
"Are you quite well, Edouard ?"
"Oh yes, perfectly."
"And your mother?"
"Quite well too. She is behind, in as great a hurry to meet you as I am.
But she can’t run as I do, and you must go half-way."
"Whom have you brought with you?"
"A gentleman from Paris."
"From Paris?"
"Yes, a Monsieur Derues. But mamma will tell you all about that. Here
she is."
The cure and the monk arrived just as Monsieur de Lamotte folded his
wife in his arms. Although she had passed her fortieth year, she was
still beautiful enough to justify her husband’s eulogism. A moderate
plumpness had preserved the freshness and softness of her skin; her
smile was charming, and her large blue eyes expressed both gentleness
and goodness. Seen beside this smiling and serene countenance, the
appearance of the stranger was downright repulsive, and Monsieur de
Lamotte could hardly repress a start of disagreeable surprise at the
pitiful and sordid aspect of this diminutive person, who stood apart,
looking overwhelmed by conscious inferiority. He was still more
astonished when he saw his son take him by the hand with friendly
kindness, and heard him say—
"Will you come with me, my friend? We will follow my father and mother."
Madame de Lamotte, having greeted the cure, looked at the monk, who was
a stranger to her. A word or two explained matters, and she took her
husband’s arm, declining to answer any questions until she reached the
louse, and laughing at his curiosity.
Pierre-Etienne de Saint-Faust de Lamotte, one of the king’s equerries,
seigneur of Grange-Flandre, Valperfond, etc., had married
Marie-Francoise Perier in 1760. Their fortune resembled many others of
that period: it was more nominal than actual, more showy than solid. Not
that the husband and wife had any cause for self-reproach, or that their
estates had suffered from dissipation; unstained by the corrupt manners
of the period, their union had been a model of sincere affection, of
domestic virtue and mutual confidence. Marie-Francoise was quite
beautiful enough to have made a sensation in society, but she renounced
it of her own accord, in order to devote herself to the duties of a wife
and mother. The only serious grief she and her husband had experienced
was the loss of two young children. Edouard, though delicate from his
birth, had nevertheless passed the trying years of infancy and early
adolescence; he was then nearly fourteen. With a sweet and rather
effeminate expression, blue eyes and a pleasant smile, he was a striking
likeness of his mother. His father’s affection exaggerated the dangers
which threatened the boy, and in his eyes the slightest indisposition
became a serious malady; his mother shared these fears, and in
consequence of this anxiety Edouard’s education had been much neglected.
He had been brought up at Buisson-Souef, and allowed to run wild from
morning till night, like a young fawn, exercising the vigour and
activity of its limbs. He had still the simplicity and general ignorance
of a child of nine or ten.
The necessity of appearing at court and suitably defraying the expenses
of his office had made great inroads on Monsieur de Lamotte’s fortune.
He had of late lived at Buisson-Souef in the most complete retirement;
but notwithstanding this too long deferred attention to his affairs, his
property was ruining him, for the place required a large expenditure,
and absorbed a large amount of his income without making any tangible
return. He had always hesitated to dispose of the estate on account of
its associations; it was there he had met, courted, and married his
beloved wife; there that the happy days of their youth had been spent;
there that they both wished to grow old together.
Such was the family to which accident had now introduced Derues. The
unfavourable impression made on Monsieur de Lamotte had not passed
unperceived by him; but, being quite accustomed to the instinctive
repugnance which his first appearance generally inspired, Derues had
made a successful study of how to combat and efface this antagonistic
feeling, and replace it by confidence, using different means according
to the persons he had to deal with. He understood at once that vulgar
methods would be useless with Monsieur de Lamotte, whose appearance and
manners indicated both the man of the world and the man of intelligence,
and also he had to consider the two priests, who were both observing him
attentively. Fearing a false step, he assumed the most simple and
insignificant deportment he could, knowing that sooner or later a third
person would rehabilitate him in the opinion of those present. Nor did
he wait long.
Arrived at the drawing-room, Monsieur de Lamotte requested the company
to be seated. Derues acknowledged the courtesy by a bow, and there was a
moment of silence, while Edouard and his mother looked at each other and
smiled. The silence was broken by Madame de Lamotte.
"Dear Pierre," she said, "you are surprised to see us accompanied by a
stranger, but when you hear what he has done for us you will thank me
for having induced him to return here with us."
"Allow me," interrupted Derues, "allow me to tell you what happened. The
gratitude which madame imagines she owes me causes her to exaggerate a
small service which anybody would have been delighted to render."
"No, monsieur; let me tell it."
"Let mamma tell the story," said Edouard.
"What is it, then? What happened?" said Monsieur de Lamotte.
"I am quite ashamed," answered Derues; "but I obey your wishes, madame."
"Yes," replied Madame de Lamotte, "keep your seat, I wish it. Imagine,
Pierre, just six days ago, an accident happened to Edouard and me which
might have had serious consequences."
"And you never wrote to me, Marie?"
"I should only have made you anxious, and to no purpose. I had some
business in one of the most crowded parts of Paris; I took a chair, and
Edouard walked beside me. In the rue Beaubourg we were suddenly
surrounded by a mob of low people, who were quarrelling. Carriages
stopped the way, and the horses of one of these took fright in the
confusion and uproar, and bolted, in spite of the coachman’s endeavours
to keep them in hand. It was a horrible tumult, and I tried to get out
of the chair, but at that moment the chairmen were both knocked down,
and I fell. It is a miracle I was not crushed. I was dragged insensible
from under the horses’ feet and carried into the house before which all
this took place. There, sheltered in a shop and safe from the crowd
which encumbered the doorway, I recovered my senses, thanks to the
assistance of Monsieur Derues, who lives there. But that is not all:
when I recovered I could not walk, I had been so shaken by the fright,
the fall, and the danger I had incurred, and I had to accept his offer
of finding me another chair when the crowd should disperse, and
meanwhile to take shelter in his rooms with his wife, who showed me the
kindest attention."
"Monsieur—" said Monsieur de Lamotte, rising. But his wife stopped him.
"Wait a moment; I have not finished yet. Monsieur Derues came back in an
hour, and I was then feeling better; but before, I left I was stupid
enough to say that I had been robbed in the confusion; my diamond
earrings, which had belonged to my mother, were gone. You cannot imagine
the trouble Monsieur Derues took to discover the thief, and all the
appeals he made to the police—I was really ashamed!"
Although Monsieur de Lamotte did not yet understand what motive, other
than gratitude, had induced his wife to bring this stranger home with
her, he again rose from his seat, and going to Derues, held out his
hand.
"I understand now the attachment my son shows for you. You are wrong in
trying to lessen your good deed in order to escape from our gratitude,
Monsieur Derues."
"Monsieur Derues?" inquired the monk.
"Do you know the name, my father?" asked Madame de Lamotte eagerly.
"Edouard had already told me," said the monk, approaching Derues.
"You live in the, rue Beaubourg, and you are Monsieur Derues, formerly a
retail grocer?"
"The same, my brother."
"Should you require a reference, I can give it. Chance, madame, has made
you acquainted with a man whose, reputation for piety and honour is well
established; he will permit me to add my praises to yours."
"Indeed, I do not know how I deserve so much honour."
"I am, Brother Marchois, of the Camaldulian order. You see that I know
you well."
The monk then proceeded to explain that his community had confided their
affairs to Derues’ honesty, he undertaking to dispose of the articles
manufactured by the monks in their retreat. He then recounted a number
of good actions and of marks of piety, which were heard with pleasure
and admiration by those present. Derues received this cloud of incense
with an appearance of sincere modesty and humility, which would have
deceived the most skilful physiognomist.
When the eulogistic warmth of the good brother began to slacken it was
already nearly dark, and the two priests had barely time to regain the
presbytery without incurring the risk of breaking their necks in the
rough road which led to it. They departed at once, and a room was got
ready for Derues.
"To-morrow," said Madame de Lamotte as they separated, "you can discuss
with my husband the business on which you came: to-morrow, or another
day, for I beg that you will make yourself at home here, and the longer
you will stay the better it will please us."
The night was a sleepless one for Derues, whose brain was occupied by a
confusion of criminal plans. The chance which had caused his
acquaintance with Madame de Lamotte, and even more the accident of
Brother Marchois appearing in the nick of time, to enlarge upon the
praises which gave him so excellent a character, seemed like favourable
omens not to be neglected. He began to imagine fresh villanies, to
outline an unheard-of crime, which as yet he could not definitely trace
out; but anyhow there would be plunder to seize and blood to spill, and
the spirit of murder excited and kept him awake, just as remorse might
have troubled the repose of another.
Meanwhile Madame de Lamotte, having retired with her husband, was saying
to the latter—
"Well, now! what do you think of my protege, or rather, of the protector
which Heaven sent me?"
"I think that physiognomy is often very deceptive, for I should have
been quite willing to hang him on the strength of his."
"It is true that his appearance is not attractive, and it led me into a
foolish mistake which I quickly regretted. When I recovered
consciousness, and saw him attending on me, much worse and more
carelessly dressed than he is to-day."
"You were frightened?"
"No, not exactly; but I thought I must be indebted to a man of the
lowest class, to some poor fellow who was really starving, and my first
effort at gratitude was to offer him a piece of gold."
"Did he refuse it?"
"No; he accepted it for the poor of the parish. Then he told me his
name, Cyrano Derues de Bury, and told me that the shop and the goods it
contained were his own property, and that he occupied an apartment in
the house. I floundered in excuses, but he replied that he blessed the
mistake, inasmuch as it would enable him to relieve some unfortunate
people. I was so touched with his goodness that I offered him a second
piece of gold."
"You were quite right, my dear; but what induced you to bring him to
Buisson? I should have gone to see and thank him the first time I went
to Paris, and meanwhile a letter would have been sufficient. Did he
carry his complaisance and interest so far as to offer you his escort?"
"Ah! I see you cannot get over your first impression—honestly, is it not
so?"
"Indeed," exclaimed Monsieur de Lamotte, laughing heartily, "it is truly
unlucky for a decent man to have such a face as that! He ought to give
Providence no rest until he obtains the gift of another countenance."
"Always these prejudices! It is not the poor man’s fault that he was
born like that."
"Well, you said something about business we were to discuss together
—what is it?"
"I believe he can help us to obtain the money we are in want of."
"And who told him that we wanted any?"
"I did."
"You! Come, it certainly seems that this gentleman is to be a family
friend. And pray what induced you to confide in him to this extent?"
"You would have known by now, if you did not interrupt. Let me tell you
all in order. The day after my accident I went out with Edouard about
midday, and I went to again express my gratitude for his kindness. I was
received by Madame Derues, who told me her husband was out, and that he
had gone to my hotel to inquire after me and my son, and also to see if
anything had been heard of my stolen earrings. She appeared a simple and
very ordinary sort of person, and she begged me to sit down and wait for
her husband. I thought it would be uncivil not to do so, and Monsieur
Derues appeared in about two hours. The first thing he did, after having
saluted me and inquired most particularly after my health, was to ask
for his children, two charming little things, fresh and rosy, whom he
covered with kisses. We talked about indifferent matters, then he
offered me his services, placed himself at my disposal, and begged me to
spare neither his time nor his trouble. I then told him what had brought
me to Paris, and also the disappointments I had encountered, for of all
the people I had seen not one had given me a favourable answer. He said
that he might possibly be of some use to me, and the very next day told
’me that he had seen a capitalist, but could do nothing without more
precise information. Then I thought it might be better to bring him
here, so that he might talk matters over with you. When I first asked
him, he refused altogether, and only yielded to my earnest entreaties
and Edouard’s. This is the history, dear, of the circumstances under
which I made Monsieur Derues’ acquaintance. I hope you do not think I
have acted foolishly?"
"Very well," said Monsieur de Lamotte, "I will talk to him to-morrow,
and in any case I promise you I will be civil to him. I will not forget
that he has been useful to you." With which promise the conversation
came to a close.
Skilled in assuming any kind of mask and in playing every sort of part,
Derues did not find it difficult to overcome Monsieur de Lamotte’s
prejudices, and in order to obtain the goodwill of the father he made a
skilful use of the friendship which the, son had formed with him. One
can hardly think that he already meditated the crime which he carried
out later; one prefers to believe that these atrocious plots were not
invented so long beforehand. But he was already a prey to the idea, and
nothing henceforth could turn him from it. By what route he should
arrive at the distant goal which his greed foresaw, he knew not as yet,
but he had said to himself, "One day this property shall be mine." It
was the death-warrant of those who owned it.
We have no details, no information as to Derues’ first visit to
Buisson-Souef, but when he departed he had obtained the complete
confidence of the family, and a regular correspondence was carried on
between him and the Lamottes. It was thus that he was able to exercise
his talent of forgery, and succeeded in imitating the writing of this
unfortunate lady so as to be able even to deceive her husband. Several
months passed, and none of the hopes which Derues had inspired were
realised; a loan was always on the point of being arranged, and
regularly failed because of some unforeseen circumstance. These
pretended negotiations were managed by Derues with so much skill and
cunning that instead of being suspected, he was pitied for having so
much useless trouble. Meanwhile, Monsieur de Lamotte’s money
difficulties increased, and the sale of Buisson-Souef became inevitable.
Derues offered himself as a purchaser, and actually acquired the
property by private contract, dated December, 1775. It was agreed
between the parties that the purchase-money of one hundred and thirty
thousand livres should not be paid until 1776, in order to allow Derues
to collect the various sums at his disposal. It was an important
purchase, which, he said, he only made on account of his interest in
Monsieur de Lamotte, and his wish to put an end to the latter’s
difficulties.
But when the period agreed on arrived, towards the middle of 1776,
Derues found it impossible to pay. It is certain that he never meant to
do so; and a special peculiarity of this dismal story is the avarice of
the man, the passion for money which overruled all his actions, and
occasionally caused him to neglect necessary prudence. Enriched by three
bankruptcies, by continual thefts, by usury, the gold he acquired
promptly seemed to disappear. He stuck at nothing to obtain it, and once
in his grasp, he never let it go again. Frequently he risked the loss of
his character for honest dealing rather than relinquish a fraction of
his wealth. According to many credible people, it was generally believed
by his contemporaries that this monster possessed treasures which he had
buried in the ground, the hiding-place of which no one knew, not even
his wife. Perhaps it is only a vague and unfounded rumour, which should
be rejected; or is it; perhaps, a truth which failed to reveal itself?
It would be strange if after the lapse of half a century the
hiding-place were to open and give up the fruit of his rapine. Who knows
whether some of this treasure, accidentally discovered, may not have
founded fortunes whose origin is unknown, even to their possessors?
Although it was of the utmost importance not to arouse Monsieur de
Lamotte’s suspicions just at the moment when he ought to be paying him
so large a sum, Derues was actually at this time being sued by his
creditors. But in those days ordinary lawsuits had no publicity; they
struggled and died between the magistrates and advocates without causing
any sound. In order to escape the arrest and detention with which he was
threatened, he took refuge at Buisson-Souef with his family, and
remained there from Whitsuntide till the end of November. After being
treated all this time as a friend, Derues departed for Paris, in order,
he said, to receive an inheritance which would enable him to pay the
required purchase-money.
This pretended inheritance was that of one of his wife’s relations,
Monsieur Despeignes-Duplessis, who had been murdered in his country
house, near Beauvais. It has been strongly suspected that Derues was
guilty of this crime. There are, however, no positive proofs, and we
prefer only to class it as a simple possibility.
Derues had made formal promises to Monsieur de Lamotte, and it was no
longer possible for him to elude them. Either the payment must now be
made, or the contract annulled. A new correspondence began between the
creditors and the debtor; friendly letters were exchanged, full of
protestations on one side and confidence on the other. But all Derues’
skill could only obtain a delay of a few months. At length Monsieur de
Lamotte, unable to leave Buisson-Souef himself, on account of important
business which required his presence, gave his wife a power of attorney,
consented to another separation, and sent her to Paris, accompanied by
Edouard, and as if to hasten their misfortunes, sent notice of their
coming to the expectant murderer.
We have passed quickly over the interval between the first meeting of
Monsieur de Lamotte and Derues, and the moment when the victims fell
into the trap: we might easily have invented long conversations, and
episodes which would have brought Derues’ profound hypocrisy into
greater relief; but the reader now knows all that we care to show him.
We have purposely lingered in our narration in the endeavour to explain
the perversities of this mysterious organisation; we have over-loaded it
with all the facts which seem to throw any light upon this sombre
character. But now, after these long preparations, the drama opens, the
scenes become rapid and lifelike; events, long impeded, accumulate and
pass quickly before us, the action is connected and hastens to an end.
We shall see Derues like an unwearied Proteus, changing names, costumes,
language, multiplying himself in many forms, scattering deceptions and
lies from one end of France to the other; and finally, after so many
efforts, such prodigies of calculation and activity, end by wrecking
himself against a corpse.
The letter written at Buisson-Souef arrived at Paris the morning of the
14th of December. In the course of the day an unknown man presented
himself at the hotel where Madame de Lamotte and her son had stayed
before, and inquired what rooms were vacant. There were four, and he
engaged them for a certain Dumoulin, who had arrived that morning from
Bordeaux, and who had passed through Paris in order to meet, at some
little distance, relations who would return with him. A part of the rent
was paid in advance, and it was expressly stipulated that until his
return the rooms should not be let to anyone, as the aforesaid Dumoulin
might return with his family and require them at any moment. The same
person went to other hotels in the neighbourhood and engaged vacant
rooms, sometimes for a stranger he expected, sometimes for friends whom
he could not accommodate himself.
At about three o’clock, the Place de Greve was full of people, thousands
of heads crowded the windows of the surrounding houses. A parricide was
to pay the penalty of his crime—a crime committed under atrocious
circumstances, with an unheard-of refinement of barbarity. The
punishment corresponded to the crime: the wretched man was broken on the
wheel. The most complete and terrible silence prevailed in the multitude
eager for ghastly emotions. Three times already had been heard the heavy
thud of the instrument which broke the victim’s limbs, and a loud cry
escaped the sufferer which made all who heard it shudder with horror,
One man only, who, in spite of all his efforts, could not get through
the crowd and cross the square, remained unmoved, and looking
contemptuously towards the criminal, muttered, "Idiot! he was unable to
deceive anyone!"
A few moments later the flames began to rise from the funeral pile, the
crowd began to move, and he than was able to make his way through and
reach one of the streets leading out of the square.
The sky was overcast, and the grey daylight hardly penetrated the narrow
lane, hideous and gloomy as the name it bore, and which; only a few
years ago, still wound like a long serpent through the mire of this
quarter. Just then it was deserted, owing to the attraction of the
execution close by. The man who had just left the square proceeded
slowly, attentively reading all the inscriptions on the doors. He
stopped at Number 75, where on the threshold of a shop sat a stout woman
busily knitting, over whom one read in big yellow letters, "Widow
Masson." He saluted the woman, and asked—
"Is there not a cellar to let in this house?"
"There is, master," answered the widow.
"Can I speak to the owner?"
"And that is myself, by your leave."
"Will you show me the cellar? I am a provincial wine merchant, my
business often brings me to Paris, and I want a cellar where I could
deposit wine which I sell on commission."
They went down together. After examining the place, and ascertaining
that it was not too damp for the expensive wine which he wished to leave
there, the man agreed about the rent, paid the first term in advance,
and was entered on the widow Masson’s books under the name of Ducoudray.
It is hardly necessary to remark that it should have been Derues.
When he returned home in the evening, his wife told him that a large box
had arrived.
"It is all right," he said, "the carpenter from whom I ordered it is a
man of his word." Then he supped, and caressed his children. The next
day being Sunday, he received the communion, to the great edification of
the devout people of the neighbourhood.
On Monday the 16th Madame de Lamotte and Edouard, descending from the
Montereau stagecoach, were met by Derues and his wife.
"Did my husband write to you, Monsieur Derues?" inquired Madame de
Lamotte.
"Yes, madame, two days ago; and I have arranged our dwelling for your
reception."
"What! but did not Monsieur de Lamotte ask you to engage the rooms I
have had before at the Hotel de France?"
"He did not say so, and if that was your idea I trust you will change
it. Do not deprive me of the pleasure of offering you the hospitality
which for so long I have accepted from you. Your room is quite ready,
also one for this dear boy," and so saying he took Edouard’s hand; "and
I am sure if you ask his opinion, he will say you had better be content
to stay with me."
"Undoubtedly," said the boy; "and I do not see why there need be any
hesitation between friends."
Whether by accident, or secret presentiment, or because she foresaw a
possibility of business discussions between them, Madame de Lamotte
objected to this arrangement. Derues having a business appointment which
he was bound to keep, desired his wife to accompany the Lamottes to the
Hotel de France, and in case of their not being able to find rooms
there, mentioned three others as the only ones in the quarter where they
could be comfortably accommodated. Two hours later Madame de Lamotte and
her son returned to his house in the rue Beaubourg.
The house which Derues occupied stood opposite the rue des Menoriers,
and was pulled down quite lately to make way for the rue Rambuteau. In
1776 it was one of the finest houses of the rue Beaubourg, and it
required a certain income to be able to live there, the rents being
tolerably high. A large arched doorway gave admittance to a passage,
lighted at the other end by a small court, on the far side of which was
the shop into which Madame de Lamotte had been taken on the occasion of
the accident. The house staircase was to the right of the passage; and
the Derues’ dwelling on the entresol. The first room, lighted by a
window looking into the court, was used as a dining room, and led into a
simply furnished sitting-room, such as was generally found among the
bourgeois and tradespeople of this period. To the right of the
sitting-room was a large closet, which could serve as a small study or
could hold a bed; to the left was a door opening into the Derues’
bedroom, which had been prepared for Madame de Lamotte. Madame Derues
would occupy one of the two beds which stood in the alcove. Derues had a
bed made up in the sitting-room, and Edouard was accommodated in the
little study.
Nothing particular happened during the first few days which followed the
Lamottes’ arrival. They had not come to Paris only on account of the
Buisson-Souef affairs. Edouard was nearly sixteen, and after much
hesitation his parents had decided on placing him in some school where
his hitherto neglected education might receive more attention. Derues
undertook to find a capable tutor, in whose house the boy would be
brought up in the religious feeling which the cure of Buisson and his
own exhortations had already tended to develop. These proceedings, added
to Madame de Lamotte’s endeavours to collect various sums due to her
husband, took some time. Perhaps, when on the point of executing a
terrible crime, Derues tried to postpone the fatal moment, although,
considering his character, this seems unlikely, for one cannot do him
the honour of crediting him with a single moment of remorse, doubt, or
pity. Far from it, it appears from all the information which can be
gathered, that Derues, faithful to his own traditions, was simply
experimenting on his unfortunate guests, for no sooner were they in his
house than both began to complain of constant nausea, which they had
never suffered from before. While he thus ascertained the strength of
their constitution, he was able, knowing the cause of the malady, to
give them relief, so that Madame de Lamotte, although she grew daily
weaker, had so much confidence in him as to think it unnecessary to call
in a doctor. Fearing to alarm her husband, she never mentioned her
sufferings, and her letters only spoke of the care and kind attention
which she received.
On the 15th of January, 1777, Edouard was placed in a school in the rue
de l’Homme Arme. His mother never saw him again. She went out once more
to place her husband’s power of attorney with a lawyer in the rue de
Paon. On her return she felt so weak and broken-down that she was
obliged to go to bed and remain there for several days. On January 29th
the unfortunate lady had risen, and was sitting near the window which
overlooked the deserted rue des Menetriers, where clouds of snow were
drifting before the wind. Who can guess the sad thoughts which may have
possessed her?—all around dark, cold, and silent, tending to produce
painful depression and involuntary dread. To escape the gloomy ideas
which besieged her, her mind went back to the smiling times of her youth
and marriage. She recalled the time when, alone at Buisson during her
husband’s enforced absences, she wandered with her child in the cool and
shaded walks of the park, and sat out in the evening, inhaling the scent
of the flowers, and listening to the murmur of the water, or the sound
of the whispering breeze in the leaves. Then, coming back from these
sweet recollections to reality, she shed tears, and called on her
husband and son. So deep was her reverie that she did not hear the room
door open, did not perceive that darkness had come on. The light of a
candle, dispersing the shadows, made her start; she turned her head, and
saw Derues coming towards her. He smiled, and she made an effort to keep
back the tears which were shining in her eyes, and to appear calm.
"I am afraid I disturb you," he said. "I came to ask a favour, madame."
"What is it, Monsieur Derues?" she inquired.
"Will you allow me to have a large chest brought into this room? I ought
to pack some valuable things in it which are in my charge, and are now
in this cupboard. I am afraid it will be in your way."
"Is it not your own house, and is it not rather I who am in the way and
a cause of trouble? Pray have it brought in, and try to forget that I am
here. You are most kind to me, but I wish I could spare you all this
trouble and that I were fit to go back to Buisson. I had a letter from
my husband yesterday——"
"We will talk about that presently, if you wish it," said Derues. "I
will go and fetch the servant to help me to carry in this chest. I have
put it off hitherto, but it really must be sent in three days."
He went away, and returned in a few minutes. The chest was carried in,
and placed before the cupboard at the foot of the bed. Alas! the poor
lady little thought it was her own coffin which stood before her!
The maid withdrew, and Derues assisted Madame de Lamotte to a seat near
the fire, which he revived with more fuel. He sat down opposite to her,
and by the feeble light of the candle placed on a small table between
them could contemplate at leisure the ravages wrought by poison on her
wasted features.
"I saw your son to-day," he said: "he complains that you neglect him,
and have not seen him for twelve days. He does not know you have been
ill, nor did I tell him. The dear boy! he loves you so tenderly."
"And I also long to see him. My friend, I cannot tell you what terrible
presentiments beset me; it seems as if I were threatened with some great
misfortune; and just now, when you came in, I could think only of death.
What is the cause of this languor and weakness? It is surely no
temporary ailment. Tell me the truth: am I not dreadfully altered? and
do you not think my husband will be shocked when he sees me like this?"
"You are unnecessarily anxious," replied Derues; "it is rather a failing
of yours. Did I not see you last year tormenting yourself about
Edouard’s health, when he was not even thinking of being ill? I am not
so soon alarmed. My own old profession, and that of chemistry, which I
studied in my youth, have given me some acquaintance with medicine. I
have frequently been consulted, and have prescribed for patients whose
condition was supposed to be desperate, and I can assure you I have
never seen a better and stronger constitution than yours. Try to calm
yourself, and do not call up chimeras; because a mind at ease is the
greatest enemy of illness. This depression will pass, and then you will
regain your strength."
"May God grant it! for I feel weaker every day."
"We have still some business to transact together. The notary at
Beauvais writes that the difficulties which prevented his paying over
the inheritance of my wife’s relation, Monsieur Duplessis, have mostly
disappeared. I have a hundred thousand livres at my disposal,—that is to
say, at yours,—and in a month at latest I shall be able to pay off my
debt. You ask me to be sincere," he continued, with a tinge of
reproachful irony; "be sincere in your turn, madame, and acknowledge
that you and your husband have both felt uneasy, and that the delays I
have been obliged to ask for have not seemed very encouraging to you?"
"It is true," she replied; "but we never questioned your good faith."
"And you were right. One is not always able to carry out one’s
intentions; events can always upset our calculations; but what really is
in our power is the desire to do right—to be honest; and I can say that
I never intentionally wronged anyone. And now. I am happy in being able
to fulfil my promises to you. I trust when I am the owner of
Buisson-Souef you will not feel obliged to leave it."
"Thank you; I should like to come occasionally, for all my happy
recollections are connected with it. Is it necessary for me to accompany
you to Beauvais?"
"Why should you not? The change would do you good."
She looked up at him and smiled sadly. "I am not in a fit state to
undertake it."
"Not if you imagine that you are unable, certainly. Come, have you any
confidence in me?"
"The most complete confidence, as you know."
"Very well, then: trust to my care. This very evening I will prepare a
draught for you to take to-morrow morning, and I will even now fix the
duration of this terrible malady which frightens you so much. In two
days I shall fetch Edouard from his school to celebrate the beginning of
your convalescence, and we will start, at latest, on February 1st. You
are astonished at what I say, but you shall see if I am not a good
doctor, and much cleverer than many who pass for such merely because the
have obtained a diploma."
"Then, doctor, I will place myself in your hands."
"Remember what I say. You will leave this on February 1st."
"To begin this cure, can you ensure my sleeping to-night?"
"Certainly. I will go now, and send my wife to you. She will bring a
draught, which you must promise to take."
"I will exactly follow your prescriptions. Goodnight, my friend."
"Good-night, madame; and take courage"; and bowing low, he left the
room.
The rest of the evening was spent in preparing the fatal medicine. The
next morning, an hour or two after Madame de Lamotte had swallowed it,
the maid who had given it to her came and told Derues the invalid was
sleeping very heavily and snoring, and asked if she ought to be awoke.
He went into the room, and, opening the curtains, approached the bed. He
listened for some time, and recognised that the supposed snoring was
really the death-rattle. He sent the servant off into the country with a
letter to one of his friends, telling her not to return until the Monday
following, February 3rd. He also sent away his wife, on some unknown
pretext, and remained alone with his victim.
So terrible a situation ought to have troubled the mind of the most
hardened criminal. A man familiar with murder and accustomed to shed
blood might have felt his heart sink, and, in the absence of pity, might
have experienced disgust at the sight of this prolonged and useless
torture; but Derues, calm and easy, as if unconscious of evil, sat
coolly beside the bed, as any doctor might have done. From time to time
he felt the slackening pulse, and looked at the glassy and sightless
eyes which turned in their orbits, and he saw without terror the
approach of night, which rendered this awful ’tete-a-tete’ even more
horrible. The most profound silence reigned in the house, the street was
deserted, and the only sound heard was caused by an icy rain mixed with
snow driven against the glass, and occasionally the howl of the wind,
which penetrated the chimney and scattered the ashes. A single candle
placed behind the curtains lighted this dismal scene, and the irregular
flicker of its flame cast weird reflections and dancing shadows an the
walls of the alcove. There came a lull in the wind, the rain ceased, and
during this instant of calm someone knocked, at first gently, and then
sharply, at the outer door. Derues dropped the dying woman’s hand and
bent forward to listen. The knock was repeated, and he grew pale. He
threw the sheet, as if it were a shroud, over his victim’s head drew the
curtains of the alcove, and went to the door. "Who is there?" he
inquired.
"Open, Monsieur Derues," said a voice which he recognised as that of a
woman of Chartres whose affairs he managed, and who had entrusted him
with sundry deeds in order that he might receive the money due to her.
This woman had begun to entertain doubts as to Derues’ honesty, and as
she was leaving Paris the next day, had resolved to get the papers out
of his hands.
"Open the door," she repeated. "Don’t you know my voice?"
"I am sorry I cannot let you in. My servant is out: she has taken the
key and locked the door outside."
"You must let me in," the woman continued; "it is absolutely necessary I
should speak to you."
"Come to-morrow."
"I leave Paris to-morrow, and I must have those papers to-night."
He again refused, but she spoke firmly and decidedly. "I must come in.
The porter said you were all out, but, from the rue des Menetriers I
could see the light in your room. My brother is with me, and I left him
below. I shall call him if you don’t open the door."
"Come in, then," said Derues; "your papers are in the sitting-room. Wait
here, and I will fetch them." The woman looked at him and took his hand.
"Heavens! how pale you are! What is the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter: will you wait here? "But she would not release
his arm, and followed him into the sitting-room, where Derues began to
seek hurriedly among the various papers which covered a table. "Here
they are," he said; "now you can go."
"Really," said the woman, examining her deeds carefully, "never yet did
I see you in such a hurry to give up things which don’t belong to you.
But do hold that candle steadily; your hand is shaking so that I cannot
see to read."
At that moment the silence which prevailed all round was broken by a cry
of anguish, a long groan proceeding from the chamber to the right of the
sitting-room.
"What is that?" cried the woman. "Surely it is a dying person!"
The sense of the danger which threatened made Derues pull himself
together. "Do not be alarmed," he said. "My wife has been seized with a
violent fever; she is quite delirious now, and that is why I told the
porter to let no one come up."
But the groans in the next room continued, and the unwelcome visitor,
overcome by terror which she could neither surmount nor explain, took a
hasty leave, and descended the staircase with all possible rapidity. As
soon as he could close the door, Derues returned to the bedroom.
Nature frequently collects all her expiring strength at the last moment
of existence. The unhappy lady struggled beneath her coverings; the
agony she suffered had given her a convulsive energy, and inarticulate
sounds proceeded from her mouth. Derues approached and held her on the
bed. She sank back on the pillow, shuddering convulsively, her hands
plucking and twisting the sheets, her teeth chattering and biting the
loose hair which fell over her face and shoulders. "Water! water!" she
cried; and then, "Edouard,—my husband!—Edouard!—is it you?" Then rising
with a last effort, she seized her murderer by the arm, repeating,
"Edouard!—oh!" and then fell heavily, dragging Derues down with her. His
face was against hers; he raised his head, but the dying hand, clenched
in agony, had closed upon him like a vise. The icy fingers seemed made
of iron and could not be opened, as though the victim had seized on her
assassin as a prey, and clung to the proof of his crime.
Derues at last freed himself, and putting his hand on her heart, "It is
over," he remarked; "she has been a long time about it. What o’clock is
it? Nine! She has struggled against death for twelve hours!"
While the limbs still retained a little warmth, he drew the feet
together, crossed the hands on the breast, and placed the body in the
chest. When he had locked it up, he remade the bed, undressed himself,
and slept comfortably in the other one.
The next day, February 1st, the day he had fixed for the "going out" of
Madame de Lamotte, he caused the chest to be placed on a hand-cart and
carried at about ten o’clock in the morning to the workshop of a
carpenter of his acquaintance called Mouchy, who dwelt near the Louvre.
The two commissionaires employed had been selected in distant quarters,
and did not know each other. They were well paid, and each presented
with a bottle of wine. These men could never be traced. Derues requested
the carpenter’s wife to allow the chest to remain in the large workshop,
saying he had forgotten something at his own house, and would return to
fetch it in three hours. But, instead of a few hours, he left it for two
whole days—why, one does not know, but it may be supposed that he wanted
the time to dig a trench in a sort of vault under the staircase leading
to the cellar in the rue de la Mortellerie. Whatever the cause, the
delay might have been fatal, and did occasion an unforeseen encounter
which nearly betrayed him. But of all the actors in this scene he alone
knew the real danger he incurred, and his coolness never deserted him
for a moment.
The third day, as he walked alongside the handcart on which the chest
was being conveyed, he was accosted at Saint Germain l’Auxerrois by a
creditor who had obtained a writ of execution against him, and at the
imperative sign made by this man the porter stopped. The creditor
attacked Derues violently, reproaching him for his bad faith in language
which was both energetic and uncomplimentary; to which the latter
replied in as conciliatory a manner as he could assume. But it was
impossible to silence the enemy, and an increasing crowd of idlers began
to assemble round them.
"When will you pay me?" demanded the creditor. "I have an execution
against you. What is there in that box? Valuables which you cart away
secretly, in order to laugh at my just claims, as you did two years
ago?"
Derues shuddered all over; he exhausted himself in protestations; but
the other, almost beside himself, continued to shout.
"Oh!" he said, turning to the crowd, "all these tricks and grimaces and
signs of the cross are no good. I must have my money, and as I know what
his promises are worth, I will pay myself! Come, you knave, make haste.
Tell me what there is in that box; open it, or I will fetch the police."
The crowd was divided between the creditor and debtor, and possibly a
free fight would have begun, but the general attention was distracted by
the arrival of another spectator. A voice heard above all the tumult
caused a score of heads to turn, it was the voice of a woman crying:
"The abominable history of Leroi de Valine, condemned to death at the
age of sixteen for having poisoned his entire family!"
Continually crying her wares, the drunken, staggering woman approached
the crowd, and striking out right and left with fists and elbows, forced
her way to Derues.
"Ah! ah!" said she, after looking him well over, "is it you, my gossip
Derues! Have you again a little affair on hand like the one when you set
fire to your shop in the rue Saint-Victor?"
Derues recognised the hawker who had abused him on the threshold of his
shop some years previously, and whom he had never seen since. "Yes,
yes," she continued, "you had better look at me with your little round
cat’s eyes. Are you going to say you don’t know me?"
Derues appealed to his creditor. "You see," he said, "to what insults
you are exposing me. I do not know this woman who abuses me."
"What!—you don’t know me! You who accused me of being a thief! But
luckily the Maniffets have been known in Paris as honest people for
generations, while as for you——"