The History and Romance of Crime 17

The History and Romance of Crime 17

These relations continued unchanged for several years, and the Duchess,

although consumed with jealous rage, would have ended them by pleading

for a divorce. Here the King and Queen intervened, and sought to

reconcile husband and wife. Madame Deluzy left the Praslins to take

a situation at a school, the head of which, not strangely, asked for

a personal character from the Duchess. Curious stories had been put

about, which must be cleared up before the new governess could be

engaged. The Duchess refused pointblank to give a certificate, although

the mistress came in person with Madame Deluzy to seek it. No doubt the

Duke took this refusal in very bad part, and it is believed a violent

quarrel ensued, although no record of it was preserved. But it is a

fact of the utmost importance as supplying the motive for the crime

committed the same night, or rather in the small hours of the following

morning.

 

At four o’clock agonized cries disturbed the sleeping household. They

proceeded from the Duchess’s apartment, and were compared by those

who heard them to the yells of a lunatic in a fit of fury. Frantic

ringings of the bell, rapid and intermittent, were the next sounds,

followed by deep groans, the thud of blows and the fall of a heavy

body. The servants rushed down, and found an entrance through doors,

which had been locked from within. All the external doors and shutters

giving upon the gardens were closed, their fastenings intact; only that

of an antechamber, leading to the staircase which communicated with

the Duke’s bedroom on the floor above, was open. He was apparently

still undisturbed, and it was not until the servants had penetrated

to the inner apartment, where they found the Duchess lying prone in

her nightdress and deluged with blood, that the Duke appeared on the

staircase. He was greatly agitated, asked excitedly and repeatedly what

had happened, and struck the wall and his head with his hands. When he

saw the corpse he cried: “Who can have done this? Help! Help! Fetch a

doctor. Quick!”

 

The doctors arrived, and close behind them the commissaries of police,

who began their investigation immediately. That murder had been

committed was clear from the slashed and stricken state of the corpse.

There were quite a dozen wounds. The throat was cut down to the bone,

the carotid artery and the jugular severed. Gashes in the hands showed

that desperate attempts had been made to ward off the murderous blows

by catching at the blade of the knife used. The poor woman had fought a

hard fight for her life. Later, a close examination of the Duke proved

that he had been wounded. His left hand was lacerated, and the thumb

had been bitten, deep scratches with nails convulsively used,--all

these bore witness to the struggle, and turned suspicion to the Duke.

This was strengthened by other telltale facts. His bedroom was in the

utmost disorder, water had been poured into the basin to wash off

traces of blood, and several garments wringing wet were hung up in the

place.

 

When called upon to state the facts as he knew them, the Duke made a

very lame defence. He had roused from a sound sleep by loud cries, but,

believing they came from the street outside, he waited until he thought

he heard steps in the garden; then he rose, put on a dressing-gown,

took a loaded pistol, and went down to his wife’s room. He called to

her, but received no answer, and then lit a candle, by the feeble

light of which he discovered her where she lay bleeding to death.

Overcome with horror, he said, he ran back to his own room to wash

off the blood with which he was now covered, and again descended to

join the servants, who had now arrived upon the scene. The replies

to the many serious questions put to the Duke were considered highly

incriminating, and as by this time the highest officers of justice had

reached the spot it was decided that the supposed murderer, whose guilt

seemed clear, should be taken into custody. The King (Louis Philippe)

was absent at his seaside residence, the Castle of Eu, and a special

messenger was despatched to the coast, asking that the House of Peers

should be summoned as a high court of justice to deal with the crime.

 

Meanwhile an order of arrest was issued, and the Duke would have been

conveyed to the nearest prison but that a disturbance was dreaded.

Great crowds had assembled near the Hotel Sebastian, and feeling ran

high against the aristocratic criminal. A day was thus wasted, and when

the Duke was removed at length to the Luxembourg lock-up he was too

weak to walk, and could barely speak. It was thought at first that he

had been attacked with cholera; for that dread epidemic was just then

ravaging Paris, and he exhibited some of the symptoms of that disease;

but there was presently little doubt that when left unobserved in his

own house he had contrived to become possessed of some poison, and had

attempted his own life. When searched, on leaving his house, a phial

was found in his pocket, containing laudanum mixed with arsenical

acid. Remedies were promptly applied, but failed to counteract the

evil effects of the strong dose.

 

The “instruction,” or preliminary inquiry, was, however, continued,

despite the condition of the accused and the constitutional

difficulties which demanded the intervention of the House of Peers.

But the Duke grew weaker hourly, and could frame no replies to the

questions, and was beyond doubt dying. At the last, just three days

after his commission of the crime, he made full confession of his

guilt. Nothing had been proved against Madame Deluzy. She had been

charged with complicity, but was in due course discharged.

 

The crime of De Choiseul-Praslin occurred at a time when political

passion ran high, and the reign of Louis Philippe was approaching its

term. The feeling against the aristocracy was greatly embittered; the

republican opposition was strongly moved by this atrocious murder

committed by a Duke and Peer of France upon an unoffending wife. A

report gained ground and could not be discredited, that the authorities

had permitted him to evade justice; that the story of his death was

quite untrue, and that he had been allowed to escape to England. There

were people who afterwards declared that they had met the Duke, walking

with Madame Deluzy in a London street, and when the funeral took place

an attack was threatened upon the hearse so as to verify the matter.

All this increased the popular excitement, and the government was

fiercely denounced for daring to shield a titled criminal from the

consequence of his acts. No doubt the Praslin murder was a contributory

cause of the Revolution of 1848 and the downfall of Louis Philippe.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

THE COURSE OF THE LAW

 

The depot of the Prefecture--Procedure on arrest--Committal

to Mazas--Origin of Mazas--First inmates victims of the coup

d’état second of December, 1852--Description of Mazas--The

régime--The cells--The prisoners and their dietaries--Method of

conducting divine service--Escapes from Mazas--Chief Parisian

criminals have passed through it--Demeanor of the convicted

upon arrival and while waiting the extreme penalty--Abadie and

Gilles--How affected.

 

 

He of whom the law falls foul in Paris finds himself in due course

at the depot or prison of the Prefecture. This has been called the

universal prison, for it is the portal through which all offenders, all

actual or suspected law breakers, must necessarily pass. It receives,

examines, rejects and releases, or commits for further proceedings,

a whole world of people. The continuous stream passing in and out

includes all classes, men and women, old and young, the healthy and the

infirm, Parisian and provincial, natives and foreigners of nearly all

nationalities. It has well been called a place of deposit, in which

all are impounded who have gone astray under suspicious circumstances.

Every one is brought here,--the criminal and the degenerate; the

luckless and the unfortunate; the vagabond, the lost or abandoned,

the weakminded and the unprotected. Three times in every twenty-four

hours, the cellular omnibuses lodge all they find in their rounds of

the sub-police stations, the _violons_, so called from the well-known

musical instrument, and also from an instrument by which prisoners’

feet are bound.

 

The process of arrest and treatment at the _violon_ has been

graphically described by one who has been through it. “As soon as

my name had been inscribed on the register, the brigadier in charge

promptly ordered me to empty my pockets, and not to forget anything.

After this, to make quite sure, I was personally searched, and

everything of value, and much that was not, was taken from me; my

collar, my necktie, one cigar, my penknife, watch, purse and even my

braces, were all put into my pocket handkerchief and tied up. As they

were taking me away to the cell I begged that my braces and pocket

handkerchief might be returned. The rude answer was, ‘You must hold

up your trousers with your hand, and blow your nose as best you can.

That’s enough;’ and I was very summarily locked up in one of three

cells at the end of the passage; a dirty looking place, smelling like a

rabbit hole, and already occupied by a ragged creature, who immediately

demanded tobacco; and, on my saying I had none, asked me to stand treat

for some food as he had not eaten since the day before. I ordered this

out of compassion, and he devoured it voraciously, then went soundly

to sleep upon the wooden guard bed. It was bitterly cold, and towards

morning my companion, saying that he was half frozen, battered at the

door, and asked permission to go out into the large room and warm

himself by the stove, a privilege accorded to me also.

 

“At an early hour the omnibus came, and I was taken to the depot,

where I was registered in the outer office, and then passed in to

undergo the ordeal of the _petit parquet_, where I was subjected to

the interrogations of one of the substitutes of the Procureur of the

Republic. The work is done quickly. Time presses. There are many cases

to be examined and disposed of.”

 

The plan of procedure is the same for all. Where the offence is venial

the culprit is speedily set at large. Others whose guilt is clearly

proved, or who make a clean breast of it, are passed on without a

moment’s delay to the correctional police. It is only for those who are

charged with grave crimes, with robbery, forgery, murderous assaults,

and the like; whose cases are surrounded with doubt, or who obstinately

refuse to confess, that the whole machinery of the French law is set

in motion. The accused is then handed over to the tender mercies of

one of the _juges d’instruction_, in order that, at all costs, the

ends of justice may be assured. The examination was conducted until

recently in a manner abhorrent to all ideas of fair play. It is the

rule in a free country that no man need incriminate himself. In France

the accused was fully expected to do so. He was, indeed, forced into

it if he would not do it of his own accord. Under the system which

prevailed till quite recently the judge in turn cajoled, beguiled and

hectored the accused. He set pitfalls and wove snares; he repeated his

questions in a dozen different forms; he had recourse to _coups de

théâtre_, and openly produced the _piéces de convictions_, the weapons

used in a murder to confront a supposed criminal, or brought him face

to face with the reeking and revolting remains of the victim. Sometimes

judge and accused were fairly matched, and there was as much fence and

finesse, as much patient cunning and persistency on the one side as on

the other. Sometimes the moral torture was more than the prisoner could

bear, and he abandoned his defence. It is of record that a murderer,

maddened by the assiduity of the interrogating judge, cried suddenly:

“Yes, I did it. I can deny it no longer. I’d rather be guillotined than

be bullied like this.” But in most cases the process of investigation

ordinarily extended over many days. The prisoner was brought up

again and again before he was finally arraigned. Even then there was

a further delay before he was convicted and received sentence. All

this time he spent at Mazas, the old _maison d’arrêt cellulaire_. He

now goes, after sentence, to Fresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, the imposing prison recently erected to replace Mazas.