A Nameless Body
On 9 February 1888, a fisherman hauled a human arm from the waters of the Yonne at Joigny. It fell to justice to identify the remains and piece together the man's final hours. The watchmaker Vétard had vanished the previous day, 8 February; his absence at once became an avenue of inquiry to be pursued, though not yet proof of murder. Dr. Leriche identified Vétard by two singular marks he had noted while attending him as a patient: a deformed thumbnail and an old scar upon the leg. This recognition converted a disappearance into a capital affair, without as yet pointing to a culprit.
The earliest trail led to the Mouillon brothers. Witnesses swore under oath to have seen them prowling about Joigny on the day of the crime. Yet the brothers produced evidence establishing their presence in Dijon. The judicial record notes that several persons, sincere to all outward appearance, clung stubbornly to memories wholly incompatible with their presence elsewhere. Such an error serves as a salutary warning: a witness may speak in perfect good faith and yet mistake a face, a street, or a date. The Mouillons were dismissed from the case, but the inquiry had already demonstrated how readily an alarmed township can manufacture certainty.
Five persons ultimately stood in the dock: the day-labourer Morand; his neighbour, the tavern-keeper Julius Bacher; Joséphine Martin, who occupied a nearby lodging; Amélie Bacher; and Eugénie Clergeot, Joséphine's sister. The indictments were by no means identical. The proceedings had to weigh murder, alleged participation in the robbery, and the unlawful possession of goods. The chronicle of 1889 recounts the debates, but appends at its close a virulent ideological commentary directed against French juries and female defendants. This conclusion belongs solely to its author; it forms no evidence against the accused.
A Letter to Lure Vétard
The investigators scrutinised several letters signed "R. M.", contrived to draw Vétard to a tryst. Joséphine Martin admitted having penned certain of these notes, but initially sought to diminish their gravity, claiming it was a jest devised at Morand's behest. The public prosecutor argued, on the contrary, that the missives were meant to ensnare the watchmaker. Their handwriting was submitted to experts; the intimate particulars they contained pointed also toward Eugénie Clergeot and Rosalie Mary, a woman whose private life was unsparingly laid bare before the court. Mary insisted that the letters were not hers, adding that Joséphine and her sister were privy to confidential matters that might easily have been turned to account.
Another letter, received after the deed, was read out during the hearing. Its anonymous author reproached Joséphine for having "delivered" a man, announced a departure for foreign parts, and bade her consign the paper to the flames. The postmark indicated Paris in March 1888, then Quarré-les-Tombes; the sender and the precise import of the lines remained obscure. Joséphine denied ever receiving it and professed not to recognise the hand. The prosecution presented it as a fabrication intended to confound the scent; the defence insisted that its origin had never been brought to light. The document fed suspicion without resolving the enigma.
At the trial, Joséphine delivered a minute account of the evening of 8 February. She stated that she had gone out with her young daughter to visit her mother, stopping on the way at Morand's. The latter allegedly asked for her bunch of keys, then handed her a letter for Vétard. She claimed she led the watchmaker to the foot of her staircase, where Morand received him. According to her, Morand then poured her a glass of wine and bade her depart. Returning later, she found Vétard dead, Morand and Bacher standing by the corpse, and met with threats when she attempted to raise the alarm. Morand denied ever having visited her. Bacher denied having been present.
This testimony had been far from immutable since the outset of the proceedings. Joséphine had first accused Auguste Pietre, a friend of Morand's, who readily established an alibi. She then named Bacher. She likewise admitted to having prevailed upon Gabrielle Vellon, the Bachers' servant, to declare falsely that Morand had sent her to fetch Vétard. Vellon finally confessed to the perjury, explaining that Joséphine had requested the favour in order to break Morand's resolve. The contradiction weakened Joséphine's tale, but did not render it inherently false in every particular. The magistrates were left to weigh separately the details she supplied and those that could be independently corroborated.
Incompatible Hours
The alibis were constructed around precise hours, and along those very hours they fractured. Madeleine Salmon maintained that she remained at Morand's from five until ten o'clock on the night of the crime. She swore he had gone out shortly after supper and had not returned by the time she took her leave. Morand insisted that he had eaten around six, then retired to bed. His aunt, another woman named Salmon, stated she had seen him come in around eight. Yet, pressed as to the presence of another woman, her answer shifted: before the examining magistrate, she had named Vellon; before the court, Madeleine Salmon. The prosecution perceived herein a desperate effort to shield her nephew. The defence urged that the depositions clashed, and that no man could account with certainty for every fleeting minute of his evening.
A neighbour, Madame Droin, stated she had seen Morand enter Joséphine's dwelling. She also reported having heard him summon Bacher with a whistle on the morning following the murder. Morand denied this, asserting that Droin bore him a grudge for an earlier legal complaint he had lodged against her. She replied that she harboured no animosity. Other witnesses caught sight of a woman resembling Joséphine and an unidentified man near the well. One witness declined to name Morand from a distance; the boots and gait observed did not consistently match those attributed to the prisoners. The tribunal possessed no unified scene, but merely fragmented glimpses that overlapped without ever coinciding.
The testimonies concerning Bacher were contested with equal vehemence. Vellon asserted that he had quitted his establishment around nine o'clock and did not return until late in the night. She maintained that she had not played cards with the couple, despite their denials. Two men stated they had called at the tavern and failed to find Bacher; one admitted, however, to having been in his cups, and may well have confused his evenings. Conversely, the trumpeter Le Bâtard and the photographer Legraverend could not confirm with precision when Bacher had departed. A coachman swore he had encountered him at daybreak, bareheaded and clad in a linen shirt, but Bacher disputed that any man could have recognised him in the morning gloom.
The matter of money and effects introduced further perplexity. Vellon recalled a sudden need for a thousand francs voiced by Bacher before the crime, and a sum of six hundred francs he was later said to possess; the defence challenged the weight of these recollections. Later, Vellon spoke of Vétard's belongings in Amélie Bacher's portmanteau, yet admitted she had neither witnessed their sale nor known when they might have vanished. The couple explained their journey to Paris by an invitation and certain household purchases. The court was thus compelled to sift what the maidservant had seen with her own eyes from what she had merely deduced. The journey fuelled suspicions of receiving stolen goods, but could not of itself place the husband and wife upon the scene of the slaughter.
The Traces and the Verdict
The experts deposed to the presence of blood in Joséphine's chamber, upon certain saws, and within baskets. Dr. Leriche linked the condition of the remains to an assault near the stairs, followed by their removal. A chemist discovered minute stains in Morand's basket; the defence disputed that they were indisputably human. A second expert opined that the blood detected within the hampers might have sprung from several species. As to Morand's clogs, a witness claimed to have noticed spots upon them, whereas Morand reminded the court of his habitual nosebleeds. His large knife bore no trace of human blood according to the recorded examination. The objects were material; their interpretation, nonetheless, remained fiercely disputed.
The trial laid bare the frailties of the preliminary inquiry. The court clerk, Labesse, was alleged to have attempted to sway witnesses and Joséphine herself; the presiding judge acknowledged that irregularities had indeed occurred. Sundry exhibits had to be demanded anew in the course of the hearings. Morand's counsel recalled that the Mouillon brothers, though wrongly accused by several witnesses of unimpeachable sincerity, might well have been condemned but for their Dijon alibi. He exhorted the jury not to mistake collective prejudice for judicial certainty. The public prosecutor countered with the letters, Joséphine's admissions, the physical traces, the suspicious movements, and the collapse of the alibi. In Bacher's case, the very same web of circumstance failed to convince the jurors of his complicity in the murder.
The verdict declared Morand guilty of murder without extenuating circumstances. Julius and Amélie Bacher were acquitted of participation in the murder, but convicted of robbery committed by multiple persons in an inhabited dwelling. Joséphine Martin was acquitted of murder and aggravated robbery, but found guilty of simple theft; Eugénie Clergeot was acquitted. Morand was condemned to death. He drew himself up and cried out his innocence. Yet, after the sitting, the jurors themselves addressed a petition for mercy to President Sadi Carnot. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal lodged on two procedural grounds; Carnot subsequently commuted the penalty to ten years of penal servitude. The populace had clamoured for the scaffold; the court's judgment, followed by executive clemency, uttered two very different decrees.