He had worn the formal weeds of mourning for his first wife. He had produced a letter announcing her demise, assumed the decorous exterior of affliction, and subsequently married Anne Allard. When that first wife reappeared, she came not merely to reclaim a husband. Her very presence tore asunder the final veneer of an existence wherein almost every title had been purloined.
In the beginning, however, Michel Feydy had not sought to become Claude de Verré. The family had all but thrust the offer upon him. In this singular affair, the falsehood found its place even before the deceiver had resolved to occupy it.
The true Claude had quitted his kin in 1638. He was then fourteen years of age and departed to serve as an ensign in a marching regiment. His father, Guy de Verré, Lord of Chauvigny in Poitou, died thereafter. His mother, Marie Petit, remained with Jacques, her second son, receiving no tidings of the elder. With the passing years, his absence deepened into an unresolved question that no letter ever came to answer.
During the upheavals of the Fronde, an officer of the Harcourt regiment presented himself at Chauvigny. Jacques perceived in him a striking resemblance to his brother. He conducted the visitor before his mother, imparting this impression to her. Marie Petit recognized the son for whom she had so long waited. The old chronicle ascribes to her an overwhelming emotion, to which the officer initially offered a feeble demurral, followed by a request for time to consider.
He returned on the morrow and accepted the name. To explain his reserve of the preceding day, he pleaded the fear of not being recognized after so protracted an absence, and the pardon he felt bound to solicit. The mother presented him to the family, to the neighbours, and to their acquaintance. A feast was held to celebrate his return. The long-lost wanderer now possessed that which the traveller of the previous evening lacked: a house, a lineage, and a history welcomed as his own.
One man alone refused to follow the tide. Piedfélon, brother to Marie Petit, maintained that this newcomer was not his nephew. His obstinacy was ascribed to a contrary temper. Against the general rejoicing, the objection of a single man seemed almost an incivility. The officer retained his standing as the elder son.
The king's service soon summoned him back to Normandy. He departed with Jacques, the very man who had fostered his initial recognition. In his new garrison, he sought the hand of the daughter of the Sieur de Dauplé. The nuptials were celebrated following the publication of one ban and the dispensation of the remaining two. To expedite his affairs, Champagnac relates, he gave out that his mother was dead. Thus, the mother whose recognition had bestowed a name upon him was made to vanish the moment she impeded the dispatch of a marriage contract.
A covenant in the contract stipulated a considerable sum to be paid to the young gentlewoman in the event of a separation. The union was not slow to suffer from the husband’s absences. The regiment departed for Flanders; at the conclusion of the campaign, the officer returned to Chauvigny with Jacques, without ever rejoining his spouse. The ancestral home received him once more with open arms.
At Saumur, he met Anne Allard. She was wealthy and belonged to a family of consequence. Their liaison rendered marriage urgent, according to the chronicle. There remained, however, an obstacle of no small gravity to be cleared away: a living wife. A report soon circulated through Saumur and as far as Chauvigny. The officer had indeed been married, but his lady had just expired.
He corroborated this intelligence by means of a letter. The trappings of mourning accomplished the rest. Having confessed to Marie Petit this first marriage, hitherto concealed, he obtained her consent to the second. On the 16th of March, 1653, he wedded Anne Allard. Marie Petit and Jacques set their hands to the contract. Their presence conferred upon the man far more than a domestic blessing: it bore public witness to the place they had accorded him.
The new bride established her household among them. Two children were born of the union. The chronicle portrays a harmonious hearth, a patrimony husbanded with vigilance, lands improved, and a chateau embellished. The false son discharged with diligence every duty the family expected of a rightful heir. This deep-rooted establishment would render the impending exposure all the more cruel. It would not suffice merely to cast out an impostor; an entire daily life would have to be dismantled, and the family would be forced to acknowledge that they had built it with their own hands.
A soldier of the Guards then reappeared in the country. He proclaimed that Claude de Verré was none other than himself.
His tale possessed none of the elegance of a triumphant homecoming. He recounted how his misadventures and conduct had ruined his advancement, reducing him at last to serve as a common private soldier. He stated that he had been taken captive at the siege of Valenciennes in 1656, and had long dreaded the reproaches of his kin. The intelligence that a man had settled himself under his name had finally resolved him to return.
Before Marie Petit, he invoked his memories of childhood, his voice, his mannerisms. He showed her the scar of a burn upon his brow. She refused to recognize him. She had two sons, and she believed them both to be at her side. Anne Allard’s husband joined his menaces to her refusal: the soldier would be prosecuted as an impostor. The ground already occupied thus furnished him who held it with a weapon against him who sought to reclaim it.
The soldier laid his complaint before the Lieutenant Criminel of Saumur. The interrogatories and confrontations did not immediately dispel the perplexity. The magistrate then learned of Piedfélon’s long-standing dissent. This uncle, who had never accepted the first claimant, offered the means to test a recognition untainted by the initial enthusiasm.
The encounter between the soldier and Piedfélon proved decisive in Champagnac’s account. They had not seen one another since the return; the uncle embraced the new claimant as his true nephew. The rest of the kin soon rallied to his side. Yet the inquiry did not halt at this second domestic scene. Officers of the Harcourt regiment identified Anne Allard’s husband under his true name: Michel Feydy, Sieur de la Lerauderie. Other witnesses deposed that they had known the soldier under the name of Verré.
On the 21st of May, 1657, the Lieutenant Criminel declared the soldier to be Claude de Verré and reinstated him in his estates. Michel Feydy was sentenced to be hanged for imposture and assumption of status. He eluded the gallows by flight. Anne Allard aided his escape, even as she heard him still protest that he was the true Claude. He entrusted her with a power of attorney, took what effects he could carry, and vanished into the shadows.
Anne did not remain idle. She lodged an appeal in her husband’s name and brought suit personally against Marie Petit and Jacques. Those who had acknowledged the officer had likewise signed her marriage contract. Their error had compromised the fate of another woman and that of two children. The issue could no longer be reduced to restoring an heir to his demesne.
It was then that Mademoiselle Dauplé reappeared. She whose death had been proclaimed petitioned to intervene in the proceedings. She likewise appealed against the capital sentence and demanded of Marie Petit and Jacques an annual pension of five hundred livres, together with the arrears accrued since her abandonment. Two women now demanded justice around the figure of the same absent man.
On the 21st of June, 1659, the Parlement confirmed Claude de Verré in his name and prerogatives. Anne’s children were declared legitimate by reason of their mother’s good faith. Marie Petit was cast in damages and interest to Anne Allard. The court pronounced no ruling upon the capital sentence rendered against the fugitive, who failed to appear. No return of Feydy is ever recorded. He had fled the house; yet his two marriages, his two children, and the signatures obtained at Chauvigny left behind them obligations that his vanishing could never efface.