Part 19

Here new incidents develop themselves.

After the arrest of Bourget and his wife, the Chaussards refuse to give up any more of the money, declaring themselves betrayed. This unexpected refusal was given at a moment when an urgent want of money was felt among the accomplices, if only for the purposes of escape. Rifoel was always clamorous for money. Hiley, Cibot, and Leveille began to suspect the Chaussards.

Here comes in a new incident, which calls for the rigor of the law.

Two gendarmes, detailed to discover the woman Bryond, succeeded in tracking her to Pannier’s. There a discussion is held; and these men, unworthy of the trust reposed in them, instead of arresting the woman Bryond, succumb to her seductions. These unworthy soldiers, named Ratel and Mallet, showed this woman the utmost interest and offered to take her to the Chaussards and force them to make restitution.

The woman Bryond starts on horseback, disguised as a man, accompanied by Ratel, Mallet, and the girl Godard. She makes the journey by night. She has a conference alone with one of the brothers Chaussard, an excited conference. She is armed with a pistol, and threatens to blow out the brains of her accomplice if he refuses the money. Then he goes with her into the forest, and they return with a heavy bag of coin. In the bag are copper coins and twelve-sous silver pieces to the amount of fifteen hundred francs.

When the woman Bryond returns to Alencon the accomplices propose to go in a body to the Chaussards’ house and torture them until they deliver up the whole sum.

When Pannier hears of this failure he is furious. He threatens. The woman Bryond, though threatening him in return with Rifoel’s wrath, is forced to fly.

These facts rest on the confession of Ratel.

Mallet, pitying the woman Bryond’s position, offers her an asylum. Then Mallet and Ratel, accompanied by Hiley and Cibot, go at night to the brothers Chaussard; this time they find these brothers have left the place and have taken the rest of the money with them.

This was the last effort of the accomplices to recover the proceeds of the robbery.

It now becomes necessary to show the exact part taken by each of the actors in this crime.

Dubut, Boislaurier, Herbomez, Courceuil, and Hiley were the ringleaders. Some deliberated and planned, others acted.

Boislaurier, Dubut, and Courceuil, all three fugitives from justice and outlawed, are addicted to rebellion, fomenters of trouble, implacable enemies of Napoleon the Great, his victories, his dynasty, and his government, haters of our new laws and of the constitution of the Empire.

Herbomez and Hiley audaciously executed that which the three former planned.

The guilt of the seven instruments of the crime, namely, Cibot, Lisieux, Grenier, Bruce, Horeau, Cabot, and Minard, is evident; it appears from the confessions of those of them who are now in the hands of justice; Lisieux died during the investigation, and Bruce has fled the country.

The conduct of Rousseau, who drove the coach, marks him as an accomplice. His slow method of driving, his haste at the entrance of the wood, his persistent declaration that his head was covered, whereas the passengers testify that the leader of the brigands told him to take the handkerchief off his head and recognize them; all these facts are strong presumptive evidence of collusion.

As for the woman Bryond and the notary Leveille, could any co-operation be more connected, more continuous than theirs? They repeatedly furnished means for the crime; they were privy to it, and they abetted it. Leveille travelled constantly. The woman Bryond invented scheme after scheme; she risked all, even her life, to recover the plunder. She lent her house, her carriage; her hand is seen in the plot from the beginning; she did not dissuade the chief leader of all, Rifoel, since executed, although through her guilty influence upon him she might have done so. She made her waiting-woman, the girl Godard, an accomplice. As for Leveille, he took an active part in the actual perpetration of the crime by seeking the axe the brigands asked for.

The woman Bourget, Vauthier, the Chaussards, Pannier, the woman Lechantre, Mallet and Ratel, all participated in the crime in their several degrees, as did the innkeepers Melin, Binet, Laraviniere, and Chargegrain.

Bourget has died during the investigation, after making a confession which removes all doubt as to the part played by Vauthier and the woman Bryond; if he attempted to extenuate that of his wife and his nephews Chaussard, his motives are easy to understand.

The Chaussards knowingly fed and lodged the brigands, they saw them armed, they witnessed all their arrangements and knew the object of them; and lastly, they received the plunder, which they hid, and as it appears, stole from their accomplices.

Pannier, the former treasurer of the rebels, concealed the woman Bryond in his house; he is one of the most dangerous accomplices of this crime, which he knew from its inception. In him certain mysterious relations which are still obscure took their rise; the authorities now have these matters under investigation. Pannier was the right hand of Rifoel, the depositary of the secrets of the counter-revolutionary party of the West; he regretted that Rifoel introduced women into the plot and confided in them; it was he who received the stolen money from the woman Bryond and conveyed it to Rifoel.

As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it deserves the severest penalty of the law. They betrayed their duty. One of them, foreseeing his fate, committed suicide, but not until he had made important revelations. The other, Mallet, denies nothing, his tacit admissions preclude all doubt, especially as to the guilt of the woman Bryond.

The woman Lechantre, in spite of her constant denials, was privy to all. The hypocrisy of this woman, who attempts to shelter her assumed innocence under the mask of a false piety, has certain antecedents which prove her decision of character and her intrepidity in extreme cases. She alleges that she was misled by her daughter, and believed that the plundered money belonged to the Sieur Bryond,--a common excuse! If the Sieur Bryond had possessed any property, he would not have left the department on account of his debts. The woman Lechantre claims that she did not suspect a shameful theft, because she saw the proceedings approved by her ally, Boislaurier. But how does she explain the presence of Rifoel (already executed) at Saint-Savin; the journeys to and fro; the relations of that young man with her daughter; the stay of the brigands at Saint-Savin, where they were served by her daughter and the girl Godard? She alleges sleep; declares it to be her practice to go to bed at seven in the evening; and has no answer to make when the magistrate points out to her that if she rises, as she says she does, at dawn, she must have seen some signs of the plot, of the sojourn of so many persons, and of the nocturnal goings and comings of her daughter. To this she replies that she was occupied in prayer. This woman is a mass of hypocrisy. Lastly, her journey on the day of the crime, the care she takes to carry her daughter to Mortagne, her conduct about the money, her precipitate flight when all is discovered, the pains she is at to conceal herself, even the circumstances of her arrest, all go to prove a long-existing complicity. She has not acted like a mother who desires to save her daughter and withdraw her from danger, but like a trembling accomplice. And her complicity is not that of a misguided tenderness; it is the fruit of party spirit, the inspiration of a well-known hatred against the government of His Imperial and Royal Majesty. Misguided maternal tenderness, if that could be fairly alleged in her defence, would not, however, excuse it; and we must not forget that consentment, long-standing and premeditated, is the surest sign of guilt.

Thus all the elements of the crime and the persons committing it are fully brought to light.

We see the madness of faction combining with pillage and greed; we see assassination advised by party spirit, under whose aegis these criminals attempt to justify themselves for the basest crimes. The leaders give the signal for the pillage of the public money, which money is to be used for their ulterior crimes; vile stipendiaries do this work for a paltry price, not recoiling from murder; then the fomenters of rebellion, not less guilty because their own hands have neither robbed nor murdered, divide the booty and dispose of it. What community can tolerate such outrages? The law itself is scarcely rigorous enough to duly punish them.

It is upon the above facts that this Court of Criminal and Special Justice is called upon to decide whether the prisoners Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, Melin, Binet, Laraviniere, Rousseau, the woman Bryond, Leveille, the woman Bourget, Vauthier, Chaussard the elder, Pannier, the widow Lechantre, Mallet, all herein named and described, and arraigned before this court; also Boislaurier, Dubut, Courceuil, Bruce, the younger Chaussard, Chargegrain, and the girl Godard,--these latter being absent and fugitives from justice,--are or are not guilty of the crimes charged in this indictment.

Done at Caen, this 1st of December, 180-.

(Signed) Baron Bourlac, Attorney-General.