The postmaster had refused to surrender the funds. Before him, in Guebwiller, a young man had presented himself under the name of Jean Kinck; yet the age did not correspond. Thereupon, the visitor claimed to be Jean Kinck’s son. He produced a power of attorney, insisted, and disputed the formalities. A female relation summoned to the post office gave him the lie: this lad was not whom he claimed to be. The official stood his ground. The 5,500 francs remained at the post office.
The man’s name was Jean-Baptiste Troppmann. Behind the papers he flourished there already lay a corpse. Others were soon to follow, for the monies demanded could no longer be procured without fresh falsehoods, and each of these lies drew another member of the same family into his orbit. The affair that was to become the Pantin Massacre had begun far from the Parisian plain, born of a relationship of trust between two Alsatian mechanics.
The First Absence
Troppmann had made the acquaintance of the Kincks in Roubaix, where he had journeyed for machinery work. Jean Kinck lived there with his wife Hortense and their six children. He retained strong ties to Alsace as well, and was attentive to business ventures in his native region. The young mechanic had cultivated this intimacy. In August 1869, a journey brought them together toward Soultz and Wattwiller. Jean Kinck took leave of his household, announcing an absence of limited duration. He was seen in Troppmann’s company; thereafter, he was never seen again.
In Roubaix, nevertheless, tidings arrived. An unfamiliar hand had replaced that of the husband. An injury to his hand, it was explained, prevented him from holding a pen; his companion was writing on his behalf. Accounts of prosperous dealings accompanied requests for money. Hortense had the 5,500 francs withdrawn and remitted to Alsace. She believed she was assisting her husband. Troppmann, who had seized his papers, sought to collect the remittance under his name.
The postmaster’s refusal threw his design into disarray. Troppmann therefore returned to Roubaix and offered an expedient: Gustave, the eldest of the sons, would undertake the journey armed with the requisite powers. The father, he alleged, was currently in Paris, detained by considerable business interests. The entire household was soon to join him there. Fortunes were spoken of with that reassuring precision that lends to illusions the concrete certainty of a railway timetable.
Hortense, however, grew uneasy over these missives that her husband no longer penned with his own hand. Her second son wrote on her behalf to demand explanations. A reply reiterated the story of the injured hand and affirmed that all was proceeding smoothly. These sheets of paper were no mere accessories to the crime. They directed the movements of the victims, arranged departures, deferred an arrival, or dictated an evening train. The voice of an absent father thus continued to govern the household, because another had usurped his signature.
Gustave, Then the Others
Gustave met with no greater success in securing the money: a formality was still wanting upon the power of attorney. The youth ultimately set out for Paris. Troppmann awaited him, received him at a hotel, and had him write a brief note to his mother. The adolescent confirmed his arrival and set out the journey the others were to undertake. This note carried, for Hortense, a weight that the suspicious letters no longer possessed: it came, undeniably, from her son.
Gustave went out with Troppmann. On the morrow, his companion reappeared alone. The investigation would later trace the shopkeepers from whom Troppmann had purchased tools, as well as Gustave’s personal effects which had fallen into his hands. The young man had been murdered upon the plain of Pantin and buried. The family in Roubaix was still preparing to join him.
On September 19, Hortense arrived in Paris with her five other children. Running ahead of the appointed hour, she proceeded to the hotel where her husband was purported to be staying. He could not be produced. She elected to return to the station, where she expected to meet him. Later, a cabman named Bardot conveyed the mother, the children, and Troppmann toward the Quatre-Chemins. They were entirely trustful. The man escorting them was no stranger accosted at random upon a railway platform.
When the carriage halted, Troppmann first led Hortense and the two youngest children aside. The three others waited behind with the driver. When he returned, he was alone. He discharged the fare and led the remaining boys away in their turn. Bardot drove off without having witnessed the slaughter. His testimony, however, would make it possible to comprehend how six souls had been separated, then brought successively to the very same spot.
The Field and the Harbor
The following morning, a farmer named Langlois caught sight of disturbing signs and a scrap of cloth protruding from the earth. He raised the alarm. Excavations brought to light a woman and five children laid in a trench. The work of identification directed the investigators toward Roubaix; the Parisian hotel likewise provided positive recognitions. The father and Gustave were missing. Their absence, prior to the recovery of their remains, even exposed them to the suspicion of having butchered their own kin.
Troppmann had departed for Le Havre, where he sought passage for America. His inquiries and his papers drew scrutiny. On September 23, while in the custody of a gendarme, he broke away and plunged into a harbor basin. A caulker, Hauguel, dived in and hauled him out alive. Upon his person were found papers and effects belonging to the Kincks. His flight had run headlong into a man who, without yet knowing the full scope of the affair, had prevented it from ending in the harbor waters.
Troppmann acknowledged a degree of complicity, but initially designated Jean and Gustave as the principal perpetrators. The discovery of Gustave’s body shattered this account. In November, fresh confessions disclosed the spot where Jean Kinck had been buried in Alsace. The body was discovered there. Troppmann admitted to having poisoned him. The succession of absences could henceforth be aligned with the succession of murders; there remained no fugitive father somewhere in America to uphold the initial line of defense.
Before the Court of Assizes, in late December, the accused continued to invoke accomplices whose verifiable identities he could not supply. Charles Lachaud appeared for the defense. The prosecution’s case marshaled the forgeries, the purchases, the witness testimonies, the possession of the victims’ goods, and the sequential confessions; the jury delivered a verdict of death. He was guillotined on January 19, 1870, outside La Roquette prison.
The press had chronicled the case almost day by day. Readers had grown familiar with the paths, the tools, and the faces; broadsheets and street ballads were to prolong this acquaintance. The crime was stamped with the name of Troppmann. Yet its entire efficacy had rested upon another name—that of Kinck, inscribed at the foot of letters that a family had obeyed so that they might, at long last, be reunited.