Derues

A >> Alexandre Dumas, Pere >> Derues


A messenger had been sent off secretly with all haste to Lyons; his
return was awaited for a test which it was thought would be decisive.

One morning Derues was fetched from his prison and taken to a lower hall
of the Conciergerie. He received no answers to the questions addressed
to his escort, and this silence showed him the necessity of being on his
guard and preserving his imperturbable demeanour whatever might happen.
On arriving, he found the commissioner of police, Mutel, and some other
persons. The hall being very dark, had been illuminated with several
torches, and Derues was so placed that the light fell strongly on his
face, and was then ordered to look towards a particular part of the hall.
As he did so, a door opened, and a man entered. Derues beheld him with
indifference, and seeing that the stranger was observing him attentively,
he bowed to him as one might bow to an unknown person whose curiosity
seems rather unusual.

It was impossible to detect the slightest trace of emotion, a hand placed
on his heart would not have felt an increased pulsation, yet this
stranger's recognition would be fatal!

Mutel approached the new-comer and whispered--

"Do you recognise him?"

"No, I do not."

"Have the kindness to leave the room for a moment; we will ask you to
return immediately."

This individual was the lawyer in whose office at Lyons the deed had been
drawn up which Derues had signed, disguised as a woman, and under the
name of Marie-Francoise Perier, wife of the Sieur de Lamotte.

A woman's garments were brought in, and Derues was ordered to put them
on, which he did readily, affecting much amusement. As he was assisted
to disguise himself, he laughed, stroked his chin and assumed mincing
airs, carrying effrontery so far as to ask for a mirror.

"I should like to see if it is becoming," he said; "perhaps I might make
some conquests."

The lawyer returned: Derues was made to pass before him, to sit at a
table, sign a paper, in fact to repeat everything it was imagined he
might have said or done in the lawyer's office. This second attempt at
identification succeeded no better than the first. The lawyer hesitated;
then, understanding all the importance of his deposition, he refused to
swear to anything, and finally declared that this was not the person who
had come to him at Lyons.

"I am sorry, sir," said Derues, as they removed him, "that you should
have been troubled by having to witness this absurd comedy. Do not blame
me for it; but ask Heaven to enlighten those who do not fear to accuse
me. As for me, knowing that my innocence will shortly be made clear, I
pardon them henceforth."

Although justice at this period was generally expeditious, and the lives
of accused persons were by no means safe-guarded as they now are, it was
impossible to condemn Derues in the absence of any positive proofs of
guilt. He knew this, and waited patiently in his prison for the moment
when he should triumph over the capital accusation which weighed against
him. The storm no longer thundered over his head, the most terrible
trials were passed, the examinations became less frequent, and there were
no more surprises to dread. The lamentations of Monsieur de Lamotte went
to the hearts of the magistrates, but his certainty could not establish
theirs, and they pitied, but could not avenge him. In certain minds a
sort of reaction favourable to the prisoner began to set in. Among the
dupes of Derues' seeming piety, many who at first held their peace under
these crushing accusations returned to their former opinion. The bigots
and devotees, all who made a profession of kneeling in the churches, of
publicly crossing themselves and dipping their fingers in the holy water,
and who lived on cant and repetitions of "Amen" and "Alleluia" talked of
persecution, of martyrdom, until Derues nearly became a saint destined by
the Almighty to find canonisation in a dungeon. Hence arose quarrels and
arguments; and this abortive trial, this unproved accusation, kept the
public imagination in a constant ferment.

To the greater part of those who talk of the "Supreme Being," and who
expect His intervention in human affairs, "Providence" is only a word,
solemn and sonorous, a sort of theatrical machine which sets all right in
the end, and which they glorify with a few banalities proceeding from the
lips, but not from the heart. It is true that this unknown and
mysterious Cause which we call "God" or "Chance" often appears so
exceedingly blind and deaf that one may be permitted to wonder whether
certain crimes are really set apart for punishment, when so many others
apparently go scot-free. How many murders remain buried in the night of
the tomb! how many outrageous and avowed crimes have slept peacefully in
an insolent and audacious prosperity! We know the names of many
criminals, but who can tell the number of unknown and forgotten victims?
The history of humanity is twofold, and like that of the invisible world,
which contains marvels unexplored by the science of the visible one, the
history recounted in books is by no means the most curious and strange.
But without delaying over questions such as these, without protesting
here against sophistries which cloud the conscience and hide the presence
of an avenging Deity, we leave the facts to the general judgment, and
have now to relate the last episode in this long and terrible drama.

Of all the populous quarters of Paris which commented on the "affaire
Derues," none showed more excitement than that of the Greve, and amongst
all the surrounding streets none could boast more numerous crowds than
the rue de la Mortellerie. Not that a secret instinct magnetised the
crowd in the very place where the proof lay buried, but that each day its
attention was aroused by a painful spectacle. A pale and grief-stricken
man, whose eyes seemed quenched in tears, passed often down the street,
hardly able to drag himself along; it was Monsieur de Lamotte, who
lodged, as we have said, in the rue de la Mortellerie, and who seemed
like a spectre wandering round a tomb. The crowd made way and uncovered
before him, everybody respected such terrible misfortune, and when he had
passed, the groups formed up again, and continued discussing the mystery
until nightfall.

On April 17th, about four in the afternoon, a score of workmen and
gossiping women had collected in front of a shop. A stout woman,
standing on the lowest step, like an orator in the tribune, held forth
and related for the twentieth time what she knew, or rather, did not
know. There were listening ears and gaping mouths, even a slight shudder
ran through the group; for the widow Masson, discovering a gift of
eloquence at the age of sixty, contrived to mingle great warmth and much
indignation in her recital. All at once silence fell on the crowd, and a
passage was made for Monsieur de Lamotte. One man ventured to ask--

"Is there anything fresh to-day?"

A sad shake of the head was the only answer, and the unhappy man
continued his way.

"Is that Monsieur de Lamotte?" inquired a particularly dirty woman, whose
cap, stuck on the side of her, head, allowed locks of grey hair to
straggle from under it. "Ah! is that Monsieur de Lamotte?"

"Dear me!" said a neighbour, "don't you know him by this time? He passes
every day."

"Excuse me! I don't belong to this quarter, and--no offence--but it is
not so beautiful as to bring one out of curiosity! Nothing personal--but
it is rather dirty."

"Madame is probably accustomed to use a carriage."

"That would suit you better than me, my dear, and would save your having
to buy shoes to keep your feet off the ground!"

The crowd seemed inclined to hustle the speaker,--

"Wait a moment!" she continued, "I didn't mean to offend anyone. I am a
poor woman, but there's no disgrace in that, and I can afford a glass of
liqueur. Eh, good gossip, you understand, don't you? A drop of the best
for Mother Maniffret, and if my fine friend there will drink with me to
settle our difference, I will stand her a glass."

The example set by the old hawker was contagious, and instead of filling
two little glasses only, widow Masson dispensed a bottleful.

"Come, you have done well," cried Mother Maniffret; "my idea has brought
you luck."

"Faith! not before it was wanted, either!"

"What! are you complaining of trade too?"

"Ah! don't mention it; it is miserable!"

"There's no trade at all. I scream myself hoarse all day, and choke
myself for twopence halfpenny. I don't know what's to come of it all.
But you seem to have a nice little custom."

"What's the good of that, with a whole house on one's hands? It's just
my luck; the old tenants go, and the new ones don't come."

"What's the matter, then?"

"I think the devil's in it. There was a nice man on the first
floor-gone; a decent family on the third, all right except that the man
beat his wife every night, and made such a row that no one could
sleep--gone also. I put up notices--no one even looks at them! A few
months ago--it was the middle of December, the day of the last
execution--"

"The 15th, then," said the hawker. "I cried it, so I know; it's my
trade, that."

"Very well, then, the 15th," resumed widow Masson. "On that day, then, I
let the cellar to a man who said he was a wine merchant, and who paid a
term in advance, seeing that I didn't know him, and wouldn't have lent
him a farthing on the strength of his good looks. He was a little bit of
a man, no taller than that,"--contemptuously holding out her hand,--"and
he had two round eyes which I didn't like at, all. He certainly paid, he
did that, but we are more than half through the second term and I have no
news of my tenant."

"And have you never seen him since?"

"Yes, once--no, twice. Let's see--three times, I am sure. He came with
a hand-cart and a commissionaire, and had a big chest taken downstairs--a
case which he said contained wine in bottles....

"No, he came before that, with a workman I think.

"Really, I don't know if it was before or after--doesn't matter. Anyhow,
it was bottled wine. The third time he brought a mason, and I am sure
they quarreled. I heard their voices. He carried off the key, and I
have seen neither him nor his wine again. I have another key, and I went
down one day; perhaps the rats have drunk the wine and eaten the chest,
for there certainly is nothing there any more than there is in my hand
now. Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. A big chest, very big, quite new,
and corded all round with strong rope."

"Now, what day was that?" asked the hawker.

"What day? Well, it was--no, I can't remember."

"Nor I either; I am getting stupid. Let's have another little
glass-shall we? just to clear our memories!"

The expedient was not crowned with success, the memories failed to
recover themselves. The crowd waited, attentive, as may be supposed.
Suddenly the hawker exclaimed:

"What a fool I am! I am going to find that, if only I have still got
it."

She felt eagerly in the pocket of her underskirt, and produced several
pieces of dirty, crumpled paper. As she unfolded one after another, she
asked:

"A big chest, wasn't it?"

"Yes, very big."

"And quite new?"

"Quite new."

"And corded?"

"Yes, I can see it now."

"So can I, good gracious! It was the day when I sold the history of
Leroi de Valines, the 1st of February."

"Yes, it was a Saturday; the next day was Sunday."

"That's it, that's it!--Saturday, February 1st. Well, I know that chest
too! I met your wine merchant on the Place du Louvre, and he wasn't
precisely enjoying himself: one of his creditors wanted to seize the
chest, the wine, the whole kettle of fish! A little man, isn't he?--a
scarecrow?"

"Just SO."

"And has red hair?"

"That's the man."

"And looks a hypocrite?"

"You've hit it exactly."

"And he is a hypocrite! enough to make one shudder! No doubt he can't
pay his rent! A thief, my dears, a beggarly thief, who set fire to his
own cellar, and who accused me of trying to steal from him, while it was
he who cheated me, the villain, out of a piece of twenty-four sous. It's
lucky I turned up here! Well, well, we shall have some fun! Here's
another little business on your hands, and you will have to say where
that wine has got to, my dear gossip Derues."

"Derues!" cried twenty voices all at once.

"What! Derues who is in Prison?"

"Why, that's Monsieur de Lamotte's man."

"The man who killed Madame de Lamotte?"

"The man who made away with her son?"

"A scoundrel, my dears, who accused me of stealing, an absolute monster!"

"It is just a little unfortunate," said widow Masson, "that it isn't the
man. My tenant calls himself Ducoudray. There's his name on the
register."

"Confound it, that doesn't look like it at all," said the hawker: "now
that's a bore! Oh yes, I have a grudge against that thief, who accused
me of stealing. I told him I should sell his history some day. When
that happens, I'll treat you all round."

As a foretaste of the fulfilment of this promise, the company disposed of
a second bottle of liqueur, and, becoming excited, they chattered at
random for some time, but at length slowly dispersed, and the street
relapsed into the silence of night. But, a few hours later, the
inhabitants were surprised to see the two ends occupied by unknown
people, while other sinister-looking persons patrolled it all night, as
if keeping guard. The next morning a carriage escorted by police stopped
at the widow Masson's door. An officer of police got out and entered a
neighbouring house, whence he emerged a quarter of an hour later with
Monsieur de Lamotte leaning on his arm. The officer demanded the key of
the cellar which last December had been hired from the widow Masson by a
person named Ducoudray, and went down to it with Monsieur de Lamotte and
one of his subordinates.

The carriage standing at the door, the presence of the commissioner
Mutel, the chatter of the previous evening, had naturally roused
everybody's imagination. But this excitement had to be kept for home
use: the whole street was under arrest, and its inhabitants were
forbidden to leave their houses. The windows, crammed with anxious
faces, questioning each other, in the expectation of something wonderful,
were a curious sight; and the ignorance in which they remained, these
mysterious preparations, these orders silently executed, doubled the
curiosity, and added a sort of terror: no one could see the persons who
had accompanied the police officer; three men remained in the carriage,
one guarded by the two others. When the heavy coach turned into the rue
de la Mortellerie, this man had bent towards the closed window and
asked--

"Where are we?"

And when they answered him, he said--

"I do not know this street; I was never in it."

After saying this quite quietly, he asked--

"Why am I brought here?"

As no one replied, he resumed his look of indifference, and betrayed no
emotion, neither when the carriage stopped nor when he saw Monsieur de
Lamotte enter the widow Masson's house.

The officer reappeared on the threshold, and ordered Derues to be brought
in.

The previous evening, detectives, mingling with the crowd, had listened
to the hawker's story of having met Derues near the Louvre escorting a
large chest. The police magistrate was informed in the course of the
evening. It was an indication, a ray of light, perhaps the actual truth,
detached from obscurity by chance gossip; and measures were instantly
taken to prevent anyone either entering or leaving the street without
being followed and examined. Mutel thought he was on the track, but the
criminal might have accomplices also on the watch, who, warned in time,
might be able to remove the proofs of the crime, if any existed.

Derues was placed between two men who each held an arm. A third went
before, holding a torch. The commissioner, followed by men also carrying
torches, and provided with spades and pickaxes, came behind, and in this
order they descended to the vault. It was a dismal and terrifying
procession; anyone beholding these dark and sad countenances, this pale
and resigned man, passing thus into these damp vaults illuminated by the
flickering glare of torches, might well have thought himself the victim
of illusion and watching some gloomy execution in a dream. But all was
real and when light penetrated this dismal charnel-house it seemed at
once to illuminate its secret depths, so that the light of truth might at
length penetrate these dark shadows, and that the voice of the dead would
speak from the earth and the walls.

"Wretch!" exclaimed Monsieur de Lamotte, when he saw Derues appear, "is
it here that you murdered my wife and my son?"

Derues looked calmly at him, and replied--

"I beg you, sir, not to add insult to the misfortunes you have already
caused. If you stood in my place and I were in yours, I should feel some
pity and respect for so terrible a position. What do you want me? and
why am I brought here?"

He did not know the events of last evening, and could only mentally
accuse the mason who had helped to bury the chest. He felt that he was
lost, but his audacity never forsook him.

"You are here, in the first place, to be confronted with this woman,"
said the officer, causing the widow Masson to stand opposite to him.

"I do not know her."

"But I know you, and know you well. It was you who hired this cellar
under the name of Ducoudray."

Derues shrugged his shoulders and answered bitterly--

"I can understand a man being condemned to the torture if he is guilty,
but that in order to accomplish one's mission as accuser, and to discover
a criminal, false witnesses who can give no evidence should be brought a
hundred leagues, that the rabble should be roused up, that divers faces
and imaginary names should be bestowed on an innocent man, in order to
turn a movement of surprise or an indignant gesture to his disadvantage,
all this is iniquitous, and goes beyond the right of judgment bestowed
upon men by God. I do not know this woman, and no matter what she says
or does, I shall say no more."

Neither the skill nor threats of the police officer could shake this
resolution. It was to no purpose that the widow Masson repeated and
asseverated that she recognised him as her tenant Ducoudray, and that he
had had a large case of wine taken down into the cellar; Derues folded
his arms, and remained as motionless as if he had been blind and deaf.

The walls were sounded, the stones composing them carefully examined, the
floor pierced in several places, but nothing unusual was discovered.

Would they have to give it up? Already the officer was making signs to
this effect, when the man who had remained at first below with Monsieur
de Lamotte, and who, standing in shadow, had carefully watched Derues
when he was brought down, came forward, and pointing to the recess under
the stairs, said--

"Examine this corner. The prisoner glanced involuntarily in this
direction when he came down; I have watched him, and it is the only sign
he has given. I was the only person who could see him, and he did not
see me. He is very clever, but one can't be for ever on one's guard, and
may the devil take me if I haven't scented the hiding-place."

"Wretch!" said Derues to himself, "then you have had your hand on me for
a whole hour, and amused yourself by prolonging my agony! Oh! I ought to
have known it; I have found my master. Never mind, you shall learn
nothing from my face, nor yet from the decaying body you will find; worms
and poison can only have left an unrecognisable corpse."

An iron rod sunk into the ground, encountered a hard substance some four
feet below. Two men set to work, and dug with energy. Every eye was
fixed upon this trench increasing in depth with every shovelful of earth
which the two labourers cast aside. Monsieur de Lamotte was nearly
fainting, and his emotion impressed everyone except Derues. At length
the silence was broken by the spades striking heavily on wood, and the
noise made everyone shudder. The chest was uncovered and hoisted out of
the trench; it was opened, and the body of a woman was seen, clad only in
a chemise, with a red and white headband, face downwards. The body was
turned over, and Monsieur de Lamotte recognised his wife, not yet
disfigured.

The feeling of horror was so great that no one spoke or uttered a sound.
Derues, occupied in considering the few chances which remained to him,
had not observed that, by the officer's order, one of the guards had left
the cellar before the men began to dig. Everybody had drawn back both
from the corpse and the murderer, who alone had not moved, and who was
repeating prayers. The flame of the torches placed on the ground cast a
reddish light on this silent and terrible scene.

Derues started and turned round on hearing a terrified cry behind him.
His wife had just been brought to the cellar. The commissioner seized
her with one hand, and taking a torch in the other, compelled her to look
down on the body.

"It is Madame de Lamotte!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, yes," she answered, overwhelmed with terror,--"yes, I recognise
her!"

Unable to support the sight any longer, she grew pale and fainted away.
She and her husband were removed separately. One would have supposed the
discovery was already known outside, for the people showered curses and
cries of "Assassin!" and "Poisoner!" on the carriage which conveyed
Derues. He remained silent during the drive, but before re-entering his
dungeon, he said--

"I must have been mad when I sought to hide the death and burial of
Madame de Lamotte from public knowledge. It is the only sin I have
committed, and, innocent of aught else, I resign myself as a Christian to
the judgment of God."

It was the only line of defence which remained open to him, and he clung
to it, with the hope of imposing on the magistrates by redoubled
hypocrisy and pious observances. But all this laboriously constructed
scaffolding of lies was shaken to its base and fell away piece by piece.
Every moment brought fresh and overwhelming revelations. He professed
that Madame de Lamotte had died suddenly in his house, and that, fearing
suspicion, he had buried her secretly. But the doctors called on to
examine the body declared that she had been poisoned with corrosive
sublimate and opium. The pretended payment was clearly an odious
imposture, the receipt a forgery! Then, like a threatening spectre,
arose another question, to which he found no reply, and his own invention
turned against him.

Why, knowing his mother was no more, had he taken young de Lamotte to
Versailles? What had become of the youth? What had befallen, him? Once
on the track, the cooper with whom he had lodged on the 12th of February
was soon discovered, and an Act of Parliament ordered the exhumation of
the corpse buried under the name of Beaupre, which the cooper identified
by a shirt which he had given for the burial. Derues, confounded by the
evidence, asserted that the youth died of indigestion and venereal
disease. But the doctors again declared the presence of corrosive
sublimate and opium. All this evidence of guilt he met with assumed
resignation, lamenting incessantly for Edouard, whom he declared he had
loved as his own son. "Alas!" he said, "I see that poor boy every night!
But it softens my grief to know that he was not deprived of the last
consolations of religion! God, who sees me, and who knows my innocence,
will enlighten the magistrates, and my honour will be vindicated."

The evidence being complete, Derues was condemned by sentence of the
Chatelet, pronounced April 30th, and confirmed by Parliament, May 5th.
We give the decree as it is found in the archives:

"This Court having considered the trial held before the Provost of Paris,
or his Deputy-Lieutenant at the Chatelet, for the satisfaction of the
aforesaid Deputy at the aforesaid Chatelet, at the request of the Deputy
of the King's Attorney General at the aforesaid Court, summoner and
plaintiff, against Antoine-Francois Derues, and Marie-Louise Nicolais,
his wife, defendants and accused, prisoners in the prisons of the
Conciergerie of the Palace at Paris, who have appealed from the sentence
given at the aforesaid trial, the thirtieth day of April 1777, by which
the aforesaid Antoine-Francois Derues has been declared duly attainted
and convicted of attempting unlawfully to appropriate without payment,
the estate of Buissony Souef, belonging to the Sieur and Dame de Saint
Faust de Lamotte, from whom he had bought the said estate by private
contract on the twenty-second day of December 1775, and also of having
unworthily abused the hospitality shown by him since the sixteenth day of
December last towards the aforesaid Dame de Lamotte, who arrived in Paris
on the aforesaid day in order to conclude with him the bargain agreed on
in December 1775, and who, for this purpose, and at his request, lodged
with her son in the house of the said Derues, who of premeditated design
poisoned the said Dame de Lamotte, whether by a medicine composed and
prepared by him on the thirtieth day of January last, or by the beverages
and drinks administered by him after the aforesaid medicine (he having
taken the precaution to send his servant into the country for two or
three days), and to keep away strangers from the room where the said Dame
de Lamotte was lying), from the effects of which poison the said Dame de
Lamotte died on the night of the said thirty-first day of January last;
also of having kept her demise secret, and of having himself enclosed in
a chest the body of the said Dame de Lamotte, which he then caused to be
secretly transported to a cellar in the rue de la Mortellerie hired by
him for this purpose, under the assumed name of Ducoudray, wherein he
buried it himself, or caused it to be buried; also of having persuaded
the son of the above Dame de Lamotte (who, with his mother, had lodged in
his house from the time of their arrival in Paris until the fifteenth day
of January, last,--and who had then been placed in a school that the
aforesaid Dame de Lamotte was at Versailles and desired him to join her
there, and, under this pretence, of having conducted the said younger
Sieur de Lamotte, the twelfth day of February (after having given him
some chocolate), to the aforesaid town of Versailles, to a lodging hired
at a cooper's, and of having there wilfully poisoned him, either in the
chocolate taken by the said younger Sieur de Lamotte before starting, or
in beverages and medicaments which the said Derues himself prepared,
mixed, and administered to the aforesaid Sieur de Lamotte the younger,
during the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth days of February
last, having kept him lying ill in the aforesaid hired room, and having
refused to call in physicians or surgeons, notwithstanding the progress
of the malady, and the representations made to him on the subject, saying
that he himself was a physician and surgeon; from which poison the said
Sieur de Lamotte the younger died on the fifteenth day of February last,
at nine o'clock in the evening, in the arms of the aforesaid Derues, who,
affecting the deepest grief, and shedding tears, actually exhorted the
aforesaid Sieur de Lamotte to confession, and repeated the prayers for
the dying; after which he himself laid out the body for burial, saying
that the deceased had begged him to do so, and telling the people of the
house that he had died of venereal disease; also of having caused him to
be buried the next day in the churchyard of the parish church of Saint
Louis at the aforesaid Versailles, and of having entered the deceased in
the register of the said parish under a false birthplace, and the false
name of Beaupre, which name the said Derues had himself assumed on
arriving at the said lodging, and had given to the said Sieur de Lamotte
the younger, whom he declared to be his nephew. Also, to cover these
atrocities, and in order to appropriate to himself the aforesaid estate
of Buisson-Souef, he is convicted of having calumniated the aforesaid
Dame de Lamotte, and of having used various manoeuvres and practised
several deceptions, to wit--