It was in this year that Limoges witnessed a terrible event and the
singular drama of the Tascheron trial, in which the young Vicomte
de Grandville displayed the talents which afterwards made him
_procureur-general_.
An old man living in a lonely house in the suburb of Saint-Etienne was
murdered. A large fruit-garden lay between the road and the house, which
was also separated from the adjoining fields by a pleasure-garden, at
the farther end of which were several old and disused greenhouses. In
front of the house a rapid slope to the river bank gave a view of the
Vienne. The courtyard, which also sloped downward, ended at a little
wall, from which small columns rose at equal distances united by a
railing, more, however, for ornament than protection, for the bars of
the railing were of painted wood.
The old man, named Pingret, noted for his avarice, lived with a single
woman-servant, a country-girl who did all the work of the house. He
himself took care of his espaliers, trimmed his trees, gathered his
fruit, and sent it to Limoges for sale, together with early vegetables,
in the raising of which he excelled.
The niece of this old man, and his sole heiress, married to a gentleman
of small means living in Limoges, a Madame des Vanneaulx, had again and
again urged her uncle to hire a man to protect the house, pointing out
to him that he would thus obtain the profits of certain uncultivated
ground where he now grew nothing but clover. But the old man steadily
refused. More than once a discussion on the subject had cut into the
whist-playing of Limoges. A few shrewd heads declared that the old miser
buried his gold in that clover-field.
“If I were Madame des Vanneaulx,” said a wit, “I shouldn’t torment my
uncle about it; if somebody murders him, why, let him be murdered! I
should inherit the money.”
Madame des Vanneaulx, however, wanted to keep her uncle, after the
manner of the managers of the Italian Opera, who entreat their popular
tenor to wrap up his throat, and give him their cloak if he happens to
have forgotten his own. She had sent old Pingret a fine English mastiff,
which Jeanne Malassis, the servant-woman brought back the next day
saying:--
“Your uncle doesn’t want another mouth to feed.”
The result proved how well-founded were the niece’s fears. Pingret was
murdered on a dark night, in the middle of his clover-field, where
he may have been adding a few coins to a buried pot of gold. The
servant-woman, awakened by the struggle, had the courage to go to the
assistance of the old miser, and the murderer was under the necessity of
killing her to suppress her testimony. This necessity, which frequently
causes murderers to increase the number of their victims, is an evil
produced by the fear of the death penalty.
This double murder was attended by curious circumstances which told as
much for the prosecution as for the defence. After the neighbors had
missed seeing the little old Pingret and his maid for a whole morning
and had gazed at his house through the wooden railings as they passed
it, and seen that, contrary to custom, the doors and windows were
still closed, an excitement began in the Faubourg Saint-Etienne which
presently reached the rue de la Cloche, where Madame des Vanneaulx
resided.
The niece was always in expectation of some such catastrophe, and she at
once notified the officers of the law, who went to the house and broke
in the gate. They soon discovered in a clover patch four holes, and
near two of these holes lay the fragments of earthenware pots, which had
doubtless been full of gold the night before. In the other two holes,
scarcely covered up, were the bodies of old Pingret and Jeanne Malassis,
who had been buried with their clothes on. The poor girl had run to her
master’s assistance in her night-gown, with bare feet.
While the _procureur-du-roi_, the commissary of police, and the
examining magistrate were gathering all particulars for the basis of
their action, the luckless des Vanneaulx picked up the broken pots and
calculated from their capacity the sum lost. The magistrates admitted
the correctness of their calculations and entered the sum stolen on
their records as, in all probability, a thousand gold coins to each pot.
But were these coins forty-eight or forty, twenty-four or twenty francs
in value? All expectant heirs in Limoges sympathized with the des
Vanneaulx. The Limousin imagination was greatly stirred by the spectacle
of the broken pots. As for old Pingret, who often sold vegetables
himself in the market, lived on bread and onions, never spent more than
three hundred francs a year, obliged and disobliged no one, and had
never done one atom of good in the suburb of Saint-Etienne where he
lived, his death did not excite the slightest regret. Poor Jeanne
Malassis’ heroism, which the old miser, had she saved him, would
certainly not have rewarded, was thought rash; the number of souls who
admired it was small in comparison with those who said: “For my part, I
should have stayed in my bed.”
The police found neither pen nor ink wherewith to write their report in
the bare, dilapidated, cold, and dismal house. Observing persons and the
heir might then have noticed a curious inconsistency which may be seen
in certain misers. The dread the little old man had of the slightest
outlay showed itself in the non-repaired roof which opened its sides
to the light and the rain and snow; in the cracks of the walls; in the
rotten doors ready to fall at the slightest shock; in the windows, where
the broken glass was replaced by paper not even oiled. All the windows
were without curtains, the fireplaces without mirrors or andirons; the
hearth was garnished with one log of wood and a few little sticks almost
caked with the soot which had fallen down the chimney. There were two
rickety chairs, two thin couches, a few cracked pots and mended plates,
a one-armed armchair, a dilapidated bed, the curtains of which time had
embroidered with a bold hand, a worm-eaten secretary where the miser
kept his seeds, a pile of linen thickened by many darns, and a heap
of ragged garments, which existed only by the will of their master; he
being dead they dropped into shreds, powder, chemical dissolution, in
fact I know not into what form of utter ruin, as soon as the heir or the
officers of the law laid rough hands upon them; they disappeared as if
afraid of being publicly sold.
The population at Limoges was much concerned for these worthy des
Vanneaulx, who had two children; and yet, no sooner did the law lay
hands upon the reputed doer of the crime than the guilty personage
absorbed attention, became a hero, and the des Vanneaulx were relegated
into a corner of the picture.
Toward the end of March Madame Graslin began to feel some of those pains
which precede a first confinement and cannot be concealed. The inquiry
as to the murder was then going on, but the murderer had not as yet been
arrested.
Veronique now received her friends in her bedroom, where they played
whist. For several days past Madame Graslin had not left the house, and
she seemed to be tormented by several of those caprices attributed to
women in her condition. Her mother came to see her almost every day, and
the two women remained for hours in consultation.
It was nine o’clock, and the card tables were still without players, for
every one was talking of the murder. Monsieur de Grandville entered the
room.
“We have arrested the murderer of old Pingret,” he said, joyfully.
“Who is it?” was asked on all sides.
“A porcelain workman; a man whose character has always been excellent,
and who was in a fair way to make his fortune. He worked in your
husband’s old factory,” added Monsieur de Grandville, turning to Madame
Graslin.
“What is his name?” asked Veronique, in a weak voice.
“Jean-Francois Tascheron.”
“Unhappy man!” she answered. “Yes, I have often seen him; my poor father
recommended him to my care as some one to be looked after.”
“He left the factory before Sauviat’s death,” said her mother, “and went
to that of Messrs. Philippart, who offered him higher wages-- But my
daughter is scarcely well enough for this exciting conversation,” she
added, calling attention to Madame Graslin, whose face was as white as
her sheets.
After that evening Mere Sauviat gave up her own home, and came, in spite
of her sixty-six years, to stay with her daughter and nurse her through
her confinement. She never left the room; Madame Graslin’s friends
found the old woman always at the bed’s head busy with her eternal
knitting,--brooding over Veronique as she did when the girl had the
small-pox, answering questions for her and often refusing to admit
visitors. The maternal and filial love of mother and daughter was so
well known in Limoges that these actions of Madame Sauviat caused no
comment.
A few days later, when the viscount, thinking to amuse the invalid,
began to relate details which the whole town were eagerly demanding
about Jean-Francois Tascheron, Madame Sauviat again stopped him hastily,
declaring that he would give her daughter bad dreams. Veronique,
however, looking fixedly at Monsieur de Grandville, asked him to finish
what he was saying. Thus her friends, and she herself, were the first
to know the results of the preliminary inquiry, which would soon be
made public. The following is a brief epitome of the facts on which the
indictment found against the prisoner was based.
Jean-Francois Tascheron was the son of a small farmer burdened with a
family, who lived in the village of Montegnac.
Twenty years before this crime, which was famous throughout the
Limousin, the canton of Montegnac was known for its evil ways. The
saying was proverbial in Limoges that out of one hundred criminals in
the department fifty belonged to the arrondissement of Montegnac. Since
1816, however, two years after a priest named Bonnet was sent there as
rector, it had lost its bad reputation, and the inhabitants no longer
sent their heavy contingent to the assizes. This change was widely
attributed to the influence acquired by the rector, Monsieur Bonnet,
over a community which had lately been a hotbed for evil-minded persons
whose actions dishonored the whole region. The crime of Jean-Francois
Tascheron brought back upon Montegnac its former ill-savor.
By a curious trick of chance, the Tascherons were almost the only family
in this village community who had retained through its evil period the
old rigid morals and religious habits which are noticed by the observers
of to-day to be rapidly disappearing throughout the country districts.
This family had therefore formed a point of reliance to the rector, who
naturally bore it on his heart. The Tascherons, remarkable for their
uprightness, their union, their love of work, had never given other than
good examples to Jean-Francois. Induced by the praiseworthy ambition of
earning his living by a trade, the lad had left his native village, to
the regret of his parents and friends, who greatly loved him, and had
come to Limoges. During his two years’ apprenticeship in a porcelain
factory, his conduct was worthy of all praise; no apparent ill-conduct
had led up to the horrible crime which was now to end his life. On the
contrary, Jean-Francois Tascheron had given the time which other workmen
were in the habit of spending in wine-shops and debauchery to study and
self-improvement.
The most searching and minute inquiry on the part of the provincial
authorities (who have plenty of time on their hands) failed to throw any
light on the secrets of the young man’s life. When the mistress of the
humble lodging-house in which he lived was questioned she said she
had never had a lodger whose moral conduct was as blameless. He was
naturally amiable and gentle, and sometimes gay. About a year before
the commission of the crime, his habits changed: he slept away from home
several times a month and often for consecutive nights; but where she
did not know, though she thought, from the state of his shoes when he
returned, that he must have been into the country. She noticed that
although he appeared to have left the town, he never wore his heavy
boots, but always a pair of light shoes. He shaved before starting, and
put on clean linen. Hearing this, the police turned their attention to
houses of ill-fame and questionable resorts; but Jean-Francois Tascheron
was found to be wholly unknown among them. The authorities then made a
search through the working-girl and _grisette_ class; but none of these
women had had relations with the accused.
A crime without a motive is unheard of, especially in a young man whose
desire for education and whose laudable ambition gave him higher ideas
and a superior judgment to that of other workmen. The police and the
examining justice, finding themselves balked in the above directions,
attributed the murder to a passion for gambling; but after the most
searching inquiries it was proved that Tascheron never played cards.
At first Jean-Francois entrenched himself in a system of flat denials,
which, of course, in presence of a jury, would fall before proof; they
seemed to show the collusion of some person either well versed in law or
gifted with an intelligent mind. The following are the chief proofs the
prosecution were prepared to present, and they are, as is frequently the
case in trials for murder, both important and trifling; to wit:--
The absence of Tascheron during the night of the crime, and his refusal
to say where he was, for the accused did not offer to set up an alibi;
a fragment of his blouse, torn off by the servant-woman in the struggle,
found close by on a tree to which the wind had carried it; his presence
that evening near Pingret’s house, which was noticed by passers and
by persons living in the neighborhood, though it might not have been
remembered unless for the crime; a false key made by Tascheron which
fitted the door opening to the fields; this key was found carefully
buried two feet below one of the miser’s holes, where Monsieur des
Vanneaulx, digging deep to make sure there was not another layer of
treasure-pots, chanced to find it; the police, after many researches,
found the different persons who had furnished Tascheron with the iron,
loaned him the vice, and given him the file, with which the key was
presumably made.
The key was the first real clue. It put the police on the track of
Tascheron, whom they arrested on the frontiers of the department, in a
wood where he was awaiting the passage of a diligence. An hour later he
would have started for America.
Besides all this, and in spite of the care with which certain footmarks
in the ploughed field and on the mud of the road had been effaced and
covered up, the searchers had found in several places the imprint of
shoes, which they carefully measured and described, and which were
afterwards found to correspond with the soles of Tascheron’s shoes
taken from his lodgings. This fatal proof confirmed the statement of
the landlady. The authorities now attributed the crime to some foreign
influence, and not to the man’s personal intention; they believed he had
accomplices, basing this idea on the impossibility of one man carrying
away the buried money; for however strong he might be, no man could
carry twenty-five thousand francs in gold to any distance. If each pot
contained, as it was supposed to have done, about that sum, this would
have required four trips to and from the clover-patch. Now, a singular
circumstance went far to prove the hour at which the crime was
committed. In the terror Jeanne Malassis must have felt on hearing her
master’s cries, she knocked over, as she rose, the table at her bedside,
on which lay her watch, the only present the miser had given her in five
years. The mainspring was broken by the shock, and the hands had stopped
at two in the morning. By the middle of March (the date of the murder)
daylight dawns between five and six o’clock. To whatever distance the
gold had been carried, Tascheron could not possibly, under any apparent
hypothesis, have transported it alone.
The care with which some of the footsteps were effaced, while others,
to which Tascheron’s shoes fitted, remained, certainly pointed to some
mysterious assistant. Forced into hypotheses, the authorities once more
attributed the crime to a desperate passion; not finding any trace of
the object of such a passion in the lower classes, they began to look
higher. Perhaps some bourgeoise, sure of the discretion of a man who
had the face and bearing of a hero, had been drawn into a romance the
outcome of which was crime.
This supposition was to some extent justified by the facts of the
murder. The old man had been killed by blows with a spade; evidently,
therefore, the murder was sudden, unpremeditated, fortuitous. The lovers
might have planned the robbery, but not the murder. The lover and the
miser, Tascheron and Pingret, each under the influence of his master
passion, must have met by the buried hoards, both drawn thither by the
gleaming of gold on the utter darkness of that fatal night.
In order to obtain, if possible, some light on this latter supposition,
the authorities arrested and kept in solitary confinement a sister of
Jean-Francois, to whom he was much attached, hoping to obtain through
her some clue to the mystery of her brother’s private life. Denise
Tascheron took refuge in total denial of any knowledge whatever, which
gave rise to a suspicion that she did know something of the causes of
the crime, although in fact she knew nothing.
The accused himself showed points of character that were rare amongst
the peasantry. He baffled the cleverest police-spies employed against
him, without knowing their real character. To the leading minds of the
magistracy his guilt seemed caused by the influence of passion, and not
by necessity or greed, as in the case of ordinary murderers, who usually
pass through stages of crime and punishment before they commit the
supreme deed. Active and careful search was made in following up this
idea; but the uniform discretion of the prisoner gave no clue whatever
to his prosecutors. The plausible theory of his attachment to a woman of
the upper classes having once been admitted, Jean-Francois was subjected
to the most insidious examination upon it; but his caution triumphed
over all the moral tortures the examining judge applied to him. When,
making a final effort, that official told him that the person for whom
he had committed the crime was discovered and arrested, his face did not
change, and he replied ironically:--
“I should very much like to see him.”
When the public were informed of these circumstances, many persons
adopted the suspicions of the magistrates, which seemed to be confirmed
by Tascheron’s savage obstinacy in giving no account of himself.
Increased interest was felt in a young man who was now a problem. It is
easy to see how these elements kept public curiosity on the _qui vive_,
and with what eager interest the trial would be followed. But in spite
of every effort on the part of the police, the prosecution stopped short
on the threshold of hypothesis; it did not venture to go farther into
the mystery where all was obscurity and danger. In certain judicial
cases half-certainties are not sufficient for the judges to proceed
upon. Nevertheless the case was ordered for trial, in hopes that the
truth would come to the surface when the case was brought into court, an
ordeal under which many criminals contradict themselves.
Monsieur Graslin was one of the jury; so that either through her husband
or through Monsieur de Grandville, the public prosecutor, Veronique knew
all the details of the criminal trial which, for a fortnight, kept the
department, and we may say all France, in a state of excitement. The
attitude maintained by the accused seemed to justify the theory of the
prosecution. More than once when the court opened, his eyes turned upon
the brilliant assemblage of women who came to find emotions in a real
drama, as though he sought for some one. Each time that the man’s
glance, clear, but impenetrable, swept along those elegant ranks, a
movement was perceptible, a sort of shock, as though each woman feared
she might appear his accomplice under the inquisitorial eyes of judge
and prosecutor.
The hitherto useless efforts of the prosecution were now made public,
also the precautions taken by the criminal to ensure the success of his
crime. It was shown that Jean-Francois Tascheron had obtained a passport
for North America some months before the crime was committed. Thus the
plan of leaving France was fully formed; the object of his passion must
therefore be a married woman; for he would have no reason to flee the
country with a young girl. Possibly the crime had this one object in
view, namely, to obtain sufficient means to support this unknown woman
in comfort.
The prosecution had found no passport issued to a woman for North
America. In case she had obtained one in Paris, the registers of that
city were searched, also those of the towns contingent to Limoges, but
without result. All the shrewdest minds in the community followed
the case with deep attention. While the more virtuous dames of
the department attributed the wearing of pumps on a muddy road (an
inexplicable circumstance in the ordinary lives of such shoes) to the
necessity of noiselessly watching old Pingret, the men pointed out that
pumps were very useful in silently passing through a house--up stairways
and along corridors--without discovery.
So Jean-Francois Tascheron and his mistress (by this time she was young,
beautiful, romantic, for every one made a portrait of her) had evidently
intended to escape with only one passport, to which they would forge the
additional words, “and wife.” The card tables were deserted at night in
the various social salons, and malicious tongues discussed what women
were known in March, 1829, to have gone to Paris, and what others could
be making, openly or secretly, preparations for a journey. Limoges might
be said to be enjoying its Fualdes trial, with an unknown and mysterious
Madame Manson for an additional excitement. Never was any provincial
town so stirred to its depths as Limoges after each day’s session.
Nothing was talked of but the trial, all the incidents of which
increased the interest felt for the accused, whose able answers,
learnedly taken up, turned and twisted and commented upon, gave rise
to ample discussions. When one of the jurors asked Tascheron why he had
taken a passport for America, the man replied that he had intended
to establish a porcelain manufactory in that country. Thus, without
committing himself to any line of defence, he covered his accomplice,
leaving it to be supposed that the crime was committed, if at all, to
obtain funds for this business venture.
In the midst of such excitement it was impossible for Veronique’s
friends to refrain from discussing in her presence the progress of the
case and the reticence of the criminal. Her health was extremely feeble;
but the doctor having advised her going out into the fresh air, she
had on one occasion taken her mother’s arm and walked as far as Madame
Sauviat’s house in the country, where she rested. On her return she
endeavored to keep about until her husband came to his dinner, which she
always served him herself. On this occasion Graslin, being detained in
the court-room, did not come in till eight o’clock. She went into the
dining-room as usual, and was present at a discussion which took place
among a number of her friends who had assembled there.
“If my poor father were still living,” she remarked to them, “we should
know more about the matter; possibly this man might never have become a
criminal. I think you have all taken a singular idea about the matter.
You insist that love is at the bottom of the crime, and I agree with you
there; but why do you think this unknown person is a married woman? He
may have loved some young girl whose father and mother would not let her
marry him.”
“A young girl could, sooner or later, have married him legitimately,”
replied Monsieur de Grandville. “Tascheron has no lack of patience; he
had time to make sufficient means to support her while awaiting the
time when all girls are at liberty to marry against the wishes of their
parents; he need not have committed a crime to obtain her.”
“I did not know that a girl could marry in that way,” said Madame
Graslin; “but how is it that in a town like this, where all things are
known, and where everybody sees everything that happens to his neighbor,
not the slightest clue to this woman has been obtained? In order to
love, persons must see each other and consequently be seen. What do you
really think, you magistrates?” she added, plunging a fixed look into
the eyes of the _procureur-general_.
“We think that the woman belongs to the bourgeois or the commercial
class.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Madame Graslin. “A woman of that class
does not have elevated sentiments.”
This reply drew all eyes on Veronique, and the whole company waited for
an explanation of so paradoxical a speech.
“During the hours I lie awake at night I have not been able to keep my
mind from dwelling on this mysterious affair,” she said slowly, “and I
think I have fathomed Tascheron’s motive. I believe the person he loves
is a young girl, because a married woman has interests, if not feelings,
which partly fill her heart and prevent her from yielding so completely
to a great passion as to leave her home. There is such a thing as a love
proceeding from passion which is half maternal, and to me it is evident
that this man was loved by a woman who wished to be his prop, his
Providence. She must have put into her passion something of the genius
that inspires the work of artists and poets, the creative force which
exists in woman under another form; for it is her mission to create men,
not things. Our works are our children; our children are the pictures,
books, and statues of our lives. Are we not artists in their earliest
education? I say that this unknown woman, if she is not a young girl,
has never been a mother but is filled with the maternal instinct; she
has loved this man to form him, to develop him. It needs a feminine
element in you men of law to detect these shades of motive, which too
often escape you. If I had been your deputy,” she said, looking straight
at the _procureur-general_, “I should have found the guilty woman, if
indeed there is any guilt about it. I agree with the Abbe Dutheil that
these lovers meant to fly to America with the money of old Pingret. The
theft led to the murder by the fatal logic which the punishment of
death inspires. And so,” she added with an appealing look at Monsieur de
Grandville, “I think it would be merciful in you to abandon the theory
of premeditation, for in so doing you would save the man’s life. He is
evidently a fine man in spite of his crime; he might, perhaps, repair
that crime by a great repentance if you gave him time. The works of
repentance ought to count for something in the judgment of the law. In
these days is there nothing better for a human being to do than to give
his life, or build, as in former times, a cathedral of Milan, to expiate
his crimes?”
“Your ideas are noble, madame,” said Monsieur de Grandville, “but,
premeditation apart, Tascheron would still be liable to the penalty of
death on account of the other serious and proved circumstances attending
the crime,--such as forcible entrance and burglary at night.”
“Then you think that he will certainly be found guilty?” she said,
lowering her eyelids.
“I am certain of it,” he said; “the prosecution has a strong case.”
A slight tremor rustled Madame Graslin’s dress.
“I feel cold,” she said. Taking her mother’s arm she went to bed.
“She seemed quite herself this evening,” said her friends.
The next day Veronique was much worse and kept her bed. When her
physician expressed surprise at her condition she said, smiling:--
“I told you that that walk would do me no good.”
Ever since the opening of the trial Tascheron’s demeanor had been
equally devoid of hypocrisy or bravado. Veronique’s physician, intending
to divert his patient’s mind, tried to explain this demeanor, which the
man’s defenders were making the most of. The prisoner was misled, said
the doctor, by the talents of his lawyer, and was sure of acquittal;
at times his face expressed a hope that was greater than that of merely
escaping death. The antecedents of the man (who was only twenty-three
years old) were so at variance with the crime now charged to him
that his legal defenders claimed his present bearing to be a proof of
innocence; besides, the overwhelming circumstantial proofs of the theory
of the prosecution were made to appear so weak by his advocate that the
man was buoyed up by the lawyer’s arguments. To save his client’s
life the lawyer made the most of the evident want of premeditation;
hypothetically he admitted the premeditation of the robbery but not of
the murders, which were evidently (no matter who was the guilty party)
the result of two unexpected struggles. Success, the doctor said, was
really as doubtful for one side as for the other.
After this visit of her physician Veronique received that of the
_procureur-general_, who was in the habit of coming in every morning on
his way to the court-room.
“I have read the arguments of yesterday,” she said to him, “and to-day,
as I suppose, the evidence for the defence begins. I am so interested in
that man that I should like to have him saved. Couldn’t you for once
in your life forego a triumph? Let his lawyer beat you. Come, make me a
present of the man’s life, and perhaps you shall have mine some day. The
able presentation of the defence by Tascheron’s lawyer really raises a
strong doubt, and--”
“Why, you are quite agitated,” said the viscount somewhat surprised.
“Do you know why?” she answered. “My husband has just remarked a most
horrible coincidence, which is really enough in the present state of my
nerves, to cause my death. If you condemn this man to death it will be
on the very day when I shall give birth to my child.”
“But I can’t change the laws,” said the lawyer.
“Ah! you don’t know how to love,” she retorted, closing her eyes; then
she turned her head on the pillow and made him an imperative sign to
leave the room.
Monsieur Graslin pleaded strongly but in vain with his fellow-jurymen
for acquittal, giving a reason which some of them adopted; a reason
suggested by his wife:--
“If we do not condemn this man to death, but allow him to live, the des
Vanneaulx will in the end recover their property.”
This weighty argument made a division of the jury, into five for
condemnation against seven for acquittal, which necessitated an appeal
to the court; but the judge sided with the minority. According to the
legal system of that day this action led to a verdict of guilty. When
sentence was passed upon him Tascheron flew into a fury which was
natural enough in a man full of life and strength, but which the court
and jury and lawyers and spectators had rarely witnessed in persons who
were thought to be unjustly condemned.