On the 17th of May 1817, Étienne Rouvelle was discovered dead beside his hearth, within his solitary dwelling at Bennecourt, in the department of Seine-et-Oise. He was seventy-two years of age, and rumour held that he kept five thousand francs in savings. Suspicion fell upon several individuals; his son-in-law, Guillaume Normand, was apprehended, brought to trial, and pronounced guilty by a majority of seven jurors against five. At the Versailles Court of Assizes, the magistrates themselves were divided: three favoured an acquittal, while two voted for conviction. The law inclined towards capital punishment, which Normand underwent shortly thereafter.
A few months elapsed before the same canton was once more shaken by violent deaths. At Villez, near Bennecourt, Planche the miller lived on wretched terms with his spouse. The scandalous chronicle, as Champagnac relates, imputed several lovers to her, the latest being Barnabé Pernelle, a twenty-five-year-old baker. Pernelle himself stood in exceedingly ill repute throughout the countryside on account of the ill treatment he inflicted upon his own wife, a woman whom her neighbours held in high esteem.
On the 23rd of November 1817, Planche was found drowned in the Epte, the little river that turned his mill wheels. As he was prone to frequent intoxication, his death was initially taken for an accident. Rumours nonetheless circulated against Barnabé Pernelle and the miller’s wife. One inhabitant went so far as to declare that, the miller being dead, the turn of Pernelle’s wife would not be long in coming, and that she would not survive the year. This sinister report did not yet constitute proof; yet, a few months later, Pernelle’s wife would indeed be murdered in her turn.
On the 14th of May 1818, the wife of Barnabé Pernelle was found lifeless, her head lying within the hearth and her garments half consumed by fire. Violent death was duly certified. The homicide appeared unaccompanied by theft: the gold cross still hung from the victim’s neck. Barnabé, present during the judicial search, discovered two louis in a wardrobe, which he initially described as the household’s entire fortune. He subsequently recanted, alleging that one hundred and fifty francs had been stolen from him. These shifting sums drew the attention of justice without resolving the question of who had taken his wife’s life.
Suspicion presently settled upon Crespin Normand, a thirty-four-year-old vine-dresser. Marks of blood had been observed upon his clothes; at the moment of his arrest, his wife had just washed his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. During his initial examination, Crespin confessed to the murder. He related that Barnabé Pernelle had lent him five hundred francs, at an annual interest of forty francs, and had compelled him to sign a promissory note for eight hundred francs which he was unable to discharge. He thus represented himself as entirely under the dominion of his creditor.
According to Crespin’s confession as recorded by Champagnac, Barnabé had proposed that he smother his wife without leaving any outward marks of violence, in exchange for a full discharge of the debt. Crespin claimed to have repeatedly rejected these overtures, before ultimately yielding to Pernelle’s demands and the crushing weight of an obligation he could not meet. The instructions were precise: to suffocate the woman without leaving marks, and thereafter receive acquittance of all arrears. On the evening of the 13th of May, he repaired to her home. They conversed peaceably for two hours; then, while she was preparing her husband’s supper, he struck her down with a single blow from a heavy wooden mallet. Thus, in Crespin’s confession, was explained the demise that had occurred on the eve of the day the body was discovered.
Prior to her death, Pernelle’s wife had made a confidence to a neighbour, which Champagnac adduces as a presumption lending credit to Crespin’s admissions. Crespin had reportedly confessed to her that Barnabé had charged him with smothering her without leaving marks, but had promised her that he would never execute such a commission. The order and the promise stemmed from this account reported by the victim herself; they placed her husband at the heart of suspicion, though they did not yet constitute a judicial verdict against him.
Crespin further denounced Barnabé Pernelle and his cousin Valentin as accomplices in the death of Planche. According to this version, Barnabé, who maintained an intrigue with the miller’s wife, had entreated him to remove the husband from their path. Several attempts had allegedly miscarried. One night, the three men were said to have entered the chamber where Planche lay sleeping, inebriated and near insensibility. They supposedly carried him to the Epte to drown him. The miller was said to have recovered his senses as they were about to plunge him into the water, biting one of the Pernelles upon the thigh and tearing his trousers with his teeth. Such was Crespin’s account of the murder; the narrative of that night rested entirely upon his own declarations.
Planche’s widow, implicated by these admissions, was taken into custody. She was soon restored to liberty for want of sufficient evidence. Shortly afterwards, she poisoned herself with arsenic. Before expiring, she had confided to a witness that Crespin had revealed the plot to her a fortnight after her husband’s drowning. Her end was thus not the consequence of a judicial sentence; the chronicle attributes it to the torment induced by this revelation and by the weight of suspicion resting upon her.
In subsequent depositions, Crespin sought to clear Guillaume Normand, with whom he shared a patronymic, of the murder of Étienne Rouvelle. The two Normands occupied converse positions in this sequence of dossiers: Guillaume, the old man’s son-in-law, had been condemned in 1817; Crespin, the vine-dresser, confessed to having slain Pernelle’s wife, while charging Barnabé and Valentin with the drowning of Planche. Ultimately, he sought to exonerate the latter two as well from the crimes he had initially imputed to them. Crespin’s successive declarations had thus brought forth, and subsequently shifted, accusations to which he would never be called to answer at the bar.
The bill of indictment was drawn up on the 14th of May 1819 and served a few days later. The public awaited the proceedings with keen curiosity to observe Crespin’s demeanor; yet he never appeared. In his cell, he had strangled himself, writes Champagnac, seeking no doubt to forestall the ignominious end that awaited him. His demise left the Pernelle cousins to face the charges alone, deprived of any confrontation with the author of the accusations.
The two Pernelles alone remained to be tried: Barnabé, the baker, indicted for complicity in the homicides of his wife and of Planche the miller; Valentin, charged with participating in the death of the latter. The deliberations were lengthy. The jury pronounced them guilty by eleven votes to one upon the charges retained, and both were sentenced to death. Champagnac does not record whether the sentence was carried into execution. The narrative halts before revealing what ultimately befell them.
The chronicle proceeds to recount a further, distinct tragedy. The elder Lemoyne, father to the widow Planche, had been summoned as a witness. While journeying on foot from Mantes towards Versailles, he was set upon by unknown assailants, hurled down, and drowned in the Seine. No attacker is identified in the record. The road he was to travel toward Versailles came to its end in the waters of the Seine.