In Évreux, an accusation of poisoning arose before the family had yet committed their dead to the earth. Cochart Deservolus, a former military man, passed away in the midst of his kin following a violent seizure which the physicians had pronounced to be fatal. His sudden end did not astonish those acquainted with his excessive recourse to strong liquors; nonetheless, at the very moment he drew his last breath, suspicion spread through the town. None paused at first to ask whence the proofs derived; they merely repeated the terrible word.
A few moments after his demise, the deceased man’s sister, Madame du Roule, hurried into the house, cast herself upon the corpse, and displayed an extravagant grief. She demanded vinegar and a looking-glass from the attendant watching by the bed; when the woman refused to quit her post, Madame du Roule departed in a fury. Witnesses attributed to her the utterance of the word “poisoning.” Her estrangement from a branch of the family, an ancient breach born of pecuniary interests, lent to this phrase an authority which its uncertain source could scarcely warrant. The widow and her sister-in-law soon found themselves enveloped in the suspicions engendered by the words ascribed to the sister.
On 19 Messidor, Year X—a date which the chronicle also records as July 6, 1802—the physicians Delzeuzes and Renault, who had attended Deservolus throughout his seizure, proceeded to a first post-mortem opening of the body. Their formal report, according to the narrative, left no doubt as to the natural condition of the organs. They were preparing to impart their findings to the widow when the magistrate of security arrived, accompanied by other medical practitioners and bearing a formal order for an autopsy issued upon common rumour. For the second time that day, the body was subjected to anatomical inspection. Those present at the operation were able, so the chronicler affirms, to observe the very same absence of any sign of poison.
Before quitting the residence, the magistrate ascended to the widow’s chambers. In the presence of four witnesses, he assured her that the examination had furnished the means to confound all calumny, and announced to her sister-in-law that he would deliver the official report which dispelled every doubt surrounding the death. The funeral took place that very evening. Yet scarcely had the earth closed over the coffin when a fresh rumour began to circulate: the health officers charged with the legal inspection, it was whispered, now entertained grave misgivings regarding the natural causes of the demise. The declaration made before the family had by no means quelled the suspicion; it became merely the first episode in a series of conflicting testimonies.
In Évreux, the medical practitioners did not live on cordial terms. The chronicle recalls the rapid advancement of Delzeuzes, his lofty opinion of his own superiority, and the keen resentment of colleagues attached to the committee for vaccination. These professional jealousies attended every stage of the proceedings. Four days after the burial, on 22 Messidor, a first exhumation took place. Delzeuzes once more set forth his hypotheses regarding the malady and the subsequent death. The physicians and surgeons in attendance answered him with vehement rancour; bitter reproaches and personal insults resounded through the graveyard. Notwithstanding these dissensions, the men of art appeared to concur in the total absence of any trace of poison. The report of this verification, according to Champagnac, justified no measures of severity whatsoever.
Then arose the report of a third medical statement, delivered in secret to the magistrate by the adversaries of Delzeuzes and Renault. It was said to have been drafted following the exhumation, destined to serve as the foundation for a formal indictment against the widow and her sister. The chronicle presents its existence and its filing as mere circulating rumours, rather than as a document submitted to the scrutiny of the reader. The children of Madame Deservolus petitioned for yet another exhumation, this time to be conducted by health officers summoned from beyond the department of the Eure. They addressed themselves to the magistrate who had hitherto had cognizance of the affair. He refused, deeming that another examination would serve no purpose and that the proceedings were concluded. To the children, this assurance did nothing to allay the distress occasioned by the ongoing prosecution.
The commissioner attached to the criminal court authorised that which the first magistrate had denied. On 27 Messidor, a physician and two surgeons from Rouen, whom the chronicler depicts as men of unimpeachable skill and integrity, repaired to Évreux. The initial experts were likewise summoned. The corpse was drawn from the pit for the second time. The Rouen practitioners examined it with minute attention and concluded that death had been natural: they discovered not the slightest vestige of any deleterious agent or noxious substance.
Yet a vital piece was wanting at the moment of the inspection. Among the extracted viscera, the stomach was not to be found within the napkin wherein the other organs had been conveyed. Perchance it had slipped through an unstitched opening; perchance it had been lost during the nocturnal transit; the chronicler likewise entertains the possibility that some interested hand had purloined it. None of these hypotheses was ever established. Its absence, duly recorded in the official report, proved sufficient to revive every conjecture. The conclusion of the Rouen physicians, who detected no sign of poison in the organs submitted to their view, failed to silence the town: public malice discovered in the missing organ fresh nourishment for its suspicions.
The selfsame magistrate who had assured the children that the matter was at an end thereupon commenced a clandestine preliminary inquiry. Delzeuzes, a friend of the family, was calumniated and became himself an object of suspicion in the magistrate’s eyes. The deputy prosecutor likely found insufficient grounds to order immediate imprisonment; he remitted the papers to the director of the jury. The latter examined the dossier and prepared to close the proceedings by a formal dismissal of charges. Nevertheless, the deputy prosecutor issued a warrant of arrest against Madame Deservolus, her sister Émilie Le Prévot, and Delzeuzes.
The director of the jury held that, in the absence of evidence, the crime itself remained unproven; he rendered an order dismissing the indictment. The court of first instance of the arrondissement affirmed this judgment on 10 Fructidor, following the submissions of its commissioner. The deputy prosecutor lodged an appeal against this ruling. The commissioner attached to the criminal court examined the records in his turn and, on 17 Fructidor, adhered to the decision of the district tribunal. At each of these stages, the accusations dissolved before magistrates summoned to evaluate the selfsame proofs; yet the widow and her sister were still compelled to carry their plea to a higher jurisdiction.
At the entreaty of the children, Maître Billecocq drafted an exhaustive legal brief. His advocacy was intended to enlighten public opinion and guide the supreme court, which had remitted the cause before the magistrate of security and the director of the jury of the arrondissement of Mantes. Madame Deservolus and her sister entered formal opposition against this decree. The Court of Cassation rescinded its decision by a final ruling on 9 Prairial, Year XI, which the chronicle presents as rendering full justice and completely clearing the accused of every imputation.
The widow was thus spared the ordeal of a full assize trial, wherein she would have been compelled to answer, one by one, the conjectures accumulated around her husband’s remains. Physicians had examined the organs on the very day of his demise; a first exhumation had provoked violent professional wrangling without yielding any trace of poison; a second, conducted by practitioners summoned from Rouen, had confirmed a natural death, even as the missing stomach gave rise to malicious gossip. Successive magisterial rulings set aside the prosecution, and the Court of Cassation finally delivered the accused from all shadow of guilt. Thus the entire affair was overturned: the widow and her sister had been delivered up to infamy by an idle word attributed to Madame du Roule, but the supreme decision, as recorded by Champagnac, ultimately restored their untarnished name.