At ten o’clock in the morning, the widow Aubois returned from her milk round and called out for Jules Hilt. The Cropage couple, who were threshing wheat in the barn, replied that they had not seen him. A moment later, Vincent Cropage stepped into the cowshed. His wife rushed toward the mistress of the farm: “He says the boy is hanged!” Yet the cord was not cut by Cropage. Madame Aubois handed him a knife, then hastened into the fields to fetch her son; a schoolmaster from Melun, drawn by the commotion, was obliged to enter the shed and untie the knot himself. The body was still warm, but Jules was dead.
The account in the Gazette des Tribunaux opens upon this scene, where no witness beheld the fatal act. It takes up the bill of indictment presented before the Assize Court of Seine-et-Marne, whose hearing on August 1, 1874, sat in judgment over a death that occurred the preceding January 28. The journal names the accused as Vincent-François Cropage and Prudence-Alexandrine Boutet, his wife, both employed as barn threshers for the widow Aubois in Melun. Jules Hilt, fourteen years of age, had worked on the same farm for more than two years.
The boy, writes the Gazette in its summary of the prosecution’s case, was of a naturally good and cheerful disposition. He was attached to his mistress and appeared contented with the kindness and care she bestowed upon him. During a visit to his father on New Year’s Day, he had once again expressed his satisfaction at being in Madame Aubois’s service. The journal notes that January 28 followed “a few days later”; yet its two dates leave twenty-seven days between the visit and the discovery. The report thus preserves a discrepancy between its wording and its chronology. This harmony, however, did not extend to the general relations on the farm. The Cropages, according to the indictment, harbored a dislike for the young servant and had repeatedly voiced a desire to see him leave the house. They proposed that the widow Aubois dismiss him and leave his labor to them: the husband would work the fields, and his wife would attend to the house.
Hilt was aware of this design. He spoke of it to his mistress, who promised to keep him so long as he continued to conduct himself well. The chronicle also notes a more immediate cause of friction. One day, the lad saw Cropage stealing wine and warned Madame Aubois. On another occasion, he advised her to put a padlock on the henhouse. The farmer’s widow understood, she said, that such a precaution might well be necessary on account of the threshers. These incidents are recounted in the summary of the indictment as contextual elements of the trial.
The morning of January 28 provided the investigation with a succession of hours, none of which, taken in isolation, demonstrated who had killed Jules. The widow Aubois left her house around seven o’clock to deliver milk to her customers. The accused were threshing wheat in the barn; the boy was peeling beetroots in the cellar. At half-past eight, Louis Nassoy, a boy on his way to school, no longer heard him singing or working. He crossed the yard and observed that the threshers were not in the barn. He likewise noticed that a door of the cowshed, customarily left open, was shut fast.
At half-past nine, Madame Nassoy heard neither Jules in the cellar nor the threshers in the barn. At a quarter to ten, she again affirmed that the latter were not threshing. When Madame Aubois returned at ten o’clock, she called Jules and asked the Cropages if they had seen him. Both answered in the negative. The prosecution juxtaposed these hours, these locations, and these replies; yet none of these witnesses is presented as having seen the fatal blow.
The examination of the body afforded the proceedings a firmer foundation. The report of the physician who performed the autopsy was submitted to Doctor Tardieu, who confirmed its conclusions. According to the Gazette, Tardieu did not hesitate to conclude that Jules was already dead when his body was suspended, that he had died of suffocation, and that his death could be attributed neither to an accident nor to a voluntary act on his part: he concluded it was a crime.
Cropage’s conduct following the discovery of the body likewise drew the attention of witnesses. While Madame Aubois ran toward the fields, he remained upon the threshold of the street door, his hands thrust into his pockets. To those who inquired whether he had cut down the body, he replied: “No, that is no concern of mine; it is none of my business.” It was Monsieur Destouches, a professor at the collège of Melun, who unfastened the rope. The accused then kept watch beside the corpse throughout the night. Cropage reportedly refused to allow anyone to touch the boy and shrouded him himself, assisted by a neighbor. Returning from the burial, he wept, according to Madame Aubois, and said: “That poor child, I shall think of him always.” She was astonished by the profound sorrow he appeared to display.
Three days after the death, the widow Denis informed the couple that an exhumation had been ordered. Both appeared visibly troubled. Madame Cropage replied that the body might well be dug up, since they were not guilty; her husband turned the conversation. That very evening, a female neighbor read aloud at the fireside an account of an exhumation concerning a woman dead for several years. Madame Cropage started; her husband turned pale. This circumstance nourished the suspicions reported by the journal, though it could not by itself establish the extent of their knowledge.
Later, when the magistrates came to the farm, Cropage reportedly remarked to two witnesses: “They cannot convict me, for they have no proof,” and then, after their departure: “Another assault weathered!” His wife declared to the examining magistrate that she had not seen her husband kill the boy and could not speak of what she had not witnessed. Yet to a fellow prisoner in the house of detention, she was said to have confided: “If my husband is guilty, that is no reason to keep me.”
The article weaves into the Hilt affair an older history, which must be distinguished from the trial of 1874. In 1859, at Chailly-en-Bière, Madame Cropage was still married to a certain Hochard, for whom Cropage had reportedly served as carter before being discharged owing to his relations with the wife. Hochard was subsequently found at the bottom of a well, wounded in the head; he died three days later without having been able to speak. A coping stone from the well was discovered at the bottom, and a witness suspected the couple. The Gazette makes clear that these facts were by then covered by the statute of limitations. It reports the accusation of public rumor, not a judicial conviction of the Cropages for the death of Hochard.
Following Cropage’s arrest, the police discovered beneath his bed a pair of shoes and a hammer stolen from the widow Aubois; a new handle had been fitted to the hammer. Both husband and wife were indicted for the willful and premeditated murder of Jules Hilt. Cropage alone was charged with the thefts. Twenty-five witnesses were heard. The public prosecutor called for the conviction of both prisoners, urging that the verdict be inexorable toward the husband. Maître Albert Joly presented their defense.
The jury returned an affirmative verdict on the counts of willful homicide and premeditation. They answered in the negative regarding the charges of theft brought against Cropage alone. They granted extenuating circumstances to both prisoners. The court sentenced them to hard labor for life. The account concludes with this sentence, making no mention of an appeal or subsequent proceedings. Concerning the death of Hochard, it records nothing more than a local rumor, not a judicial verdict.
Documentary note: Account of the Seine-et-Marne Assizes, Gazette des Tribunaux, August 3–4, 1874, printed pages 740–741. The motives, remarks, and prior suspicions remain attributed to the prosecution and the witnesses as reported by the Gazette.