The shot was fired from the corner of an orchard, hard by the road to Saint-Béat. Three balls struck the Sieur de Fondeville; his son received the very same discharge in the arm. The merchant’s companions ran to his side, bore him away to the Château de Rap, and administered whatever care was in their power. According to Champagnac, he expired without having named or designated anyone. Yet almost immediately, his son, the Sieur de Labatut, asserted that the murderer was Bernard Martin, and that his father, upon falling, had uttered: “Ah, Martin! What hast thou done?”
Such was the cry reported in the midst of an affair wherein two families were already deeply divided. De Fondeville was engaged in a weighty lawsuit against the Martins; accommodations had indeed been proposed, but the feud remained unresolved. Their resentments were public knowledge, threats had been recounted, and Bernard Martin, the younger son, had himself manifested animosity toward the opposing house. When the young man’s name was thus put forward, the long-standing enmity lent the accusation the semblance of a motive. By itself, however, it could never reveal who had actually pulled the trigger.
In the early days of January 1781, Bernard was working at Bagnères on behalf of his father, who owned a manufactory at Saint-Béat and employed him in preparing the charcoal required for the workshop. On January 8, a carter delivered a letter to Martin the elder. The father ordered his eldest son to write to Bernard, instructing him to remain in Bagnères until all the charcoal had been transported. The letter did not depart until noon. The following day, Bernard found himself in company with the Cazat brother and sister, who proposed that they set out together on the morrow. Bernard replied that he was willing enough, but that his father’s injunction commanded him to wait. Mademoiselle Cazat insisted, undertaking to appease the father herself. The source places his departure at noon on Thursday; he set out with the Sieur Cazat and Laffont, the latter taking the young lady up behind him on his mount.
Along the road, Bernard appeared in high spirits, though he dreaded his father’s reception. Near Gaud, he parted company with the travelers to give instructions at a house belonging to his father. The road he had just traversed connected Saint-Béat, Gaud, the estate of Rap, and the neighboring hamlets; it was within this precinct that the movements of several persons were soon to be traced, before the differing accounts of their encounters were brought face to face.
On January 10, a neighbor named Soulé had borrowed the fowling piece of Martin the elder, a man well known as a hunter. The following day, one of Martin’s daughters requested that he go to Gaud to deliver grain for the poultry to the servant girl. A she-ass set out ahead in the maid’s charge. For his walk, the father likewise desired a gun: his own being still on loan, his fourth son procured another for him, a single-barreled piece. That very morning, Fontan the elder came to ask him for a portmanteau in order to transport 3,181 livres to Fondeville, a sum owed by the Martins by virtue of a writ of execution. Domestic errands, monetary settlements, and sporting excursions thus crossed paths along that same highway.
Martin the elder set forth on foot between nine and ten o’clock, carrying his gun and his game bag. At the gates of Saint-Béat, he informed Consul Boussac that he was bound for Gaud, but would first pass along the Garonne to hunt duck. He reached the house between noon and one o’clock, ordered a small fire to be kindled, and sat down to read. Bernard was astonished to find him there. His father reproached him for having disobeyed the command to remain in Bagnères; the son offered his excuses.
They rested, and then went out together. Upon departing, the son took the gun and the game bag from his father. As they quitted Gaud, they encountered Castevan, the miller, who was returning from the hunt. He spoke of the wild ducks, remarking that they were difficult to approach. The father bade Bernard go after them; the young man replied that he would make his way through the meadow. They proceeded side by side as far as the slope, and there parted. Bernard turned toward the Garonne; his father remounted his horse and returned to Saint-Béat toward three o’clock.
At the billiard hall, Martin the elder met Fontan once more. The latter had not journeyed to the Château de Marignac as announced, for Fondeville had departed the previous day for Fos. The merchant had traveled thither in company with Bessan de Rap and the curate of Tusaguet; they had supped and passed the night under the roof of Doniez. On the morrow they set out anew, the company subsequently separating on the return journey. Labatut halted to play billiards with a cousin; Fondeville tarried for a time in Saint-Béat on business, while Bessan and the curate walked on ahead toward the château.
Another witness had caught sight, toward four o’clock near Géry, of an unknown man clad in grey and wearing a hat. A mendicant had just passed by; the stranger had crouched down in the snow, and subsequently inquired after the road to the heights of Géry. The deposition gave no name for him, nor did it connect him with any of the accused. Yet the figure remained among the fleeting silhouettes encountered along that road, at the very hour when Bernard Martin was returning from his hunt.
Toward half-past four, the young man met the daughter of Buhan-Denard near the Estagnan pond, and thereafter Pierre-la-Gaillarde. A little further on, he came upon Bessan and the curate of Tusaguet near the limekilns. They asked whether he had taken any ducks; Bernard replied that he had met with no success. Having lost his dog, Bernard drew a jest from Bessan about a pilgrim without a staff; Bessan offered him the use of his own hounds. Bernard thanked him and continued on his way. Next, he encountered Fondeville and Labatut, and afterwards Mademoiselle de Rap and Jeanneton La Molle. He re-entered the town, greeted Mademoiselle Cazat, and repaired to his father’s house.
It was after five o’clock that the shot rang out. Labatut maintained before all present that his father had called Bernard by name. Efforts were made to impress upon him the imprudence of designating a murderer with such haste; he persisted. The multitude soon echoed his accusation as though it were established fact. The only man who might have confirmed it was dead; the chronicle records that he had named nobody. The phrase attributed to him by Labatut was thus to become one of the starting points of an inquest tasked with disentangling what a son asserted from what the witnesses had truly seen and heard.
On the morrow, Bernard learned of the rumor. His first impulse was to surrender himself to justice. Diverse persons dissuaded him, urging that he would do better to wait until the tumult subsided and reason prevailed. He yielded, and crossed over into Spain. His absence immediately took on two contradictory interpretations: to the prosecution, it bore the appearance of flight; to Bernard, it had been counseled as a means of escaping the initial fermentation of popular passion. Fondeville’s son subsequently contended that the murder had been concerted between Bernard and his father.
The preliminary investigation was concluded on May 8, and the case was brought before the judges on the 23rd of the same month. More than one hundred and fifty witnesses had been examined; Champagnac observes that no two of them could be found to depose in the same manner concerning the selfsame fact. The depositions mingled direct observation, hearsay, conjecture, and words imputed to absent persons. The prosecution lacked no material: the long-standing feud between the families, Bernard’s movements throughout the day, the fowling piece, his flight following the rumor, and the utterance reported by Labatut. Yet these disparate elements carried neither equal weight nor a common origin.
On June 25, 1781, a sentence condemned Bernard Martin to be broken alive upon the wheel. His father, accused of complicity, likewise evaded the authorities and was condemned in contumacy at first instance. The eldest son then retained Élie de Beaumont to undertake the defense of both men. The advocate re-examined the initial proceedings, exposed their irregularities, and contended that the murder could not be fixed upon Bernard: Fondeville had made enemies both in France and in Spain, and his assassin might well have been someone other than the Martins’ younger son.
In 1784, the Parlement of Toulouse dismissed all charges against Bernard Martin, discharging him from the court.