Too high a price had been asked to keep watch over the scaffold. On the eve of the execution, in La Châtre, several men had offered their services; their demands had given cause for hesitation. A young man named Barbone accepted fifty sous and went to lie down upon the boards. On the morrow, Bernardet and Darchy were to die there. For that night, it was a municipal work that could not be left unattended, and the price of a watchman’s slumber had at last been settled.
The town had been waiting for weeks. An initial crowd had gathered for nothing on the day it was believed the condemned men would be put to death; it had been forced to turn back, its legs weary and its curiosity unsatisfied. Now, the red timbers had been unloaded, assembled, and even handled by spectators. This time, there would be something to see.
The affair had begun with a goat wandering far from home, scorched by fire.
The Fortune of the Marchoise
Jeanne Raimond, who was called the Marchoise, was eighty-five years of age. She lived alone in an isolated hovel in Saint-Denis-de-Jouhet, near La Châtre. Charity supplied a portion of what she required; her goat provided her with milk. The animal was both a livelihood and a companion, in a house where one might go long without speaking to a soul.
Yet Jeanne had managed to scrape together sixty francs. One must grant this sum its true magnitude in the life that produced it: expenses denied, needs deferred, the satisfaction of finally possessing something that did not depend upon the next handout. She would display her money and kept it by her, the journal relates. One cannot turn this pride into the fault that justified what befell her. One can only understand that her savings were known, even to that neighbourhood from which she ought to have expected protection.
On the 29th of November 1829, a man from a nearby village caught sight of her goat, roaming and partly burned. He made his way toward the hovel. The flames had consumed it. Jeanne had not fled with the beast: the remains of her body lay among the rubble. The fire, however, had not obliterated every trace. Marks of blood remained, enough to compel the authorities to consider something other than an accident.
The magistrates of La Châtre arrived upon the scene. Suspicion fell upon Darchy and the Bernardet couple, neighbours of Jeanne, with whom she had had monetary disputes and who were alleged to have threatened her. At Darchy’s dwelling, the search yielded nothing compromising. At Bernardet’s, they found a bloodstained axe, garments, and the poor furniture of the dead woman. What had been carried away from the hovel reappeared beneath another roof.
Bernardet admitted that he had been present at the murder. He cast the blame upon Darchy: the latter, he claimed, had struck Jeanne with the axe; he himself, terrified and threatened, had merely assisted in carrying away the goods. Such was his defense. It accounted for the presence of the objects in his home while shifting onto his neighbour the guilt of the blows. Justice had to weigh this advantageous division, and not take it for truth merely because a man offered it under the guise of a confession.
Two Condemned Men and an Acquitted Woman
Bernardet, his wife, and Darchy were detained, then committed for trial before the assize court of the Indre. The trial took place on the 20th of March 1830. Bernardet’s wife was acquitted; both men were condemned to death, the execution to take place at La Châtre. The published record does not rehearse all the depositions. It sets forth the investigations, Bernardet’s account, and then that verdict whose consequences were to reach far beyond the courtroom walls.
The news spread throughout the neighbouring communes. At La Châtre, according to the correspondent, no public execution had been witnessed for thirty-seven years. This rarity, which might have seemed a blessing, only heightened the public expectation. The condemned men had lodged an appeal in cassation; for the populace, the matter had already resolved itself into a date to be marked.
The Court rejected the appeal on the 15th of April. It was assumed the punishment would take place on Saturday the 1st of May, market day. The country folk flocked to the town in numbers. Yet neither the condemned nor the instrument of execution appeared. A petition for clemency entered on Bernardet’s behalf had suspended the expected course of events. The crowd dispersed, and the journalist remarked upon its vexation. For the two men, there remained a few more days to live; for some of those who had made the journey, it was a wasted trip.
The rejection of the pardon was at last made known. Saturday the 29th of May, a fair day, was announced. The town could resume its preparations. Ordinary commerce and the taking of life would unfold according to the same timetable, amidst arranged meetings and journeys to which the folk of the surrounding country were well accustomed.
The Sister Who Knew
On the preceding Thursday, a carriage escorted by four gendarmes brought the two men back. Darchy was twenty-three years old. He stepped down with ease despite his irons, greeted persons whom he recognised, and declared he had nothing to fear, since he had done no wrong. Bernardet, fifty years of age, appeared feebler, pale and dejected. Both men still believed, according to the account, that their return was intended to allow for fresh inquiries favourable to their cause.
Darchy asked to see his sister. The prosecutor promised to grant permission. When she entered, she did not share the hope to which he clung. She embraced him, speaking of their last meeting. The return to La Châtre thereupon took on its other meaning for him.
One may picture the loosening embrace, the gaze searching the familiar face for some mistake she might be made to correct. She had come because she knew; he had asked for her because he still believed he could speak of the future. He protested his innocence and fell into despair. The prosecutor, a witness to the scene, attempted to reassure him by saying that nothing had yet been decided. This remark is reported by the newspaper, which leaves us ignorant of his precise motives. For Darchy, it may have reopened the breach that his sister’s words had just closed.
Upon the square, however, the timber for the scaffold was already being brought in. The carts were followed by women and children. The sight of the structure caused fear at first; then the curious drew near. One can grow accustomed even to this, provided the object remains motionless before one’s eyes long enough, and provided it is another who must ascend it. Barbone then found his night’s employment.
Half an Hour More
On the Saturday, as early as four o’clock, the final preparations commenced. The prosecutor warned the condemned that they must hope no longer. Darchy ate some milk soup. Curé Pignet and the curate Gros remained beside the two men. In the market square, the crowd continued to swell.
At noon, Bernardet appeared, supported by the curé. He wept, kissed the crucifix, and was executed without delivering any address. His judicial history ended there. The square, however, still waited for Darchy. For half an hour, he did not come. The correspondent describes a redoubled impatience, as though a reprieve threatened to rob the public of half of what had been promised.
Darchy arrived at last. The curate exhorted him to speak the truth; he continued to protest his innocence. He prayed, embraced the priest, then asked leave to speak. Before the onlookers, he gave his name and affirmed one last time that he had not committed the crime laid to his charge. The newspaper preserves this solemn declaration. It belongs to his history, without thereby becoming for us proof of an innocence that we might decree from afar. The conviction likewise belongs to the record, without giving us leave to invent a confession he never made.
He was executed in his turn. The two men announced were dead; the crowd could leave the square.
The Marchoise herself had been granted neither a dying speech nor the recorded visit of a sister. We are left with her name, her hovel, her goat, and the sixty francs scraped together with such toil. For weeks, people had talked of the day when they would see the men condemned for her murder die. It is permissible to remember also the solitude of an old woman whose final night no one had watched approach.