On the 16th of March, before the Court of Assizes of Tarn-et-Garonne, a young man of twenty-two years stood face to face with his wounded neighbour without ever entering upon the path of confession. Picou, whom the Gazette described as still bearing the visible marks of his injuries, pointed to his neighbour as the author of an assault committed three months earlier. Upon his arrest, the report designated the prisoner as “Pern, known as Revel”; thereafter, it referred to him simply as Revel. The accused set forth an entirely different account: a thief, he claimed, had stolen his gun, assumed his name, and gained admittance to the house in his stead. Between these two men, the trial was to summon forth a dismantled weapon, an umbrella, a handkerchief, a candle recovered from a well, and hours that refused to agree.
On the evening of the 17th of December, at about a quarter to eight o’clock, a double detonation rang out in the hamlet of Pegassou, in the commune of Montalzat. Shortly thereafter, Picou arrived at the home of the Vidals, his neighbours, his face streaming with blood. He had sustained two wounds to the head: one between the eye and the left wing of the nose, the other to the back of the skull. Upon crossing the threshold, he cried out that the murderer was in his house. Pain and the severity of his wounds at first robbed him of speech. Then, according to the account preserved by the journal, he made an effort and related that which had just occurred.
Revel, he stated, had arrived at his dwelling around six o’clock, carrying a shotgun and an umbrella. Revel had proposed a game of cards; the two men had eaten and drunk together. Revel had then asked him for forty francs, which Picou had refused. As Revel was on the point of leaving, while Picou had his back turned, Revel fired a first shot. Picou fell. As he struggled to his feet, he received a second discharge; then the butt of the weapon crashed down upon him. He had nevertheless managed to flee to the neighbouring house. His accusation was brief, reiterated to all who hastened to his side: Revel had remained behind in his dwelling.
The neighbours fetched a physician and alerted the magistrates. The bill of indictment described projectiles driven deeply into the cranial cavity, which could not be extracted. Picou had lost both speech and memory; for several months his life hung by a thread. At the time of the trial, his condition remained precarious. The indictment went so far as to foresee that he might lose his reason should he survive.
Within the house, the magistrates found an overturned chair and a shattered table. Blood spattered the floor, the walls, and the hearth; a tuft of hair still adhered to a fragment of scalp. The armoire had been forced, one of its leaves wrenched away. The investigators seized an umbrella and a handkerchief, and observed that a candle was missing from a candlestick. From the hearth, the gendarmerie collected lead pellets of two different gauges, together with fragments of a broken shotgun.
Revel was brought to the bedside of Picou, who had remained silent for several hours. Picou made no reply to the magistrates. The judge then bade Revel ask the victim who had attempted to murder him. Picou turned toward him with an unhesitating accusation: “You know full well, wretched man, it was you!” Revel protested with great vehemence, and his remand in custody was maintained.
He maintained that at the moment of the shots he was two miles distant, at the house of his mistress, the Durou woman. The preliminary inquiry, reported the Gazette, had established that she lived in Montpezat with her daughter, who had gathered several neighbours for an evening vigil. Yet Revel was said to have entered this house only at eight o’clock, whereas the detonations had been heard at approximately a quarter to eight.
The umbrella found at Picou’s residence presented a further difficulty. A witness identified the object and recounted that, on the eve of the crime, he had accompanied Revel to deliver invitations to the funeral of the widow Sol. At the Vidal inn, Revel had displayed the shaft of the umbrella, worn down and whittled into the shape of a whistle, remarking jocularly: “One might think I have walked far today; see how worn my umbrella is.” The accused replied that he had lent the umbrella to Picou on the 13th of December and that Picou had not returned it. Yet the witness asserted he had seen it in Revel’s hands on the 16th, the day before the attack.
The fragments of the gun were subjected to examination. Their colour and the wear of the wood led to their identification as belonging to Revel’s weapon. Revel stated that on the first Sunday of December, surprised by gendarmes while hunting near Pécholier, he had concealed his gun in a bush; upon returning to fetch it, the weapon had vanished, having evidently been stolen. The gendarmerie disputed this account: on the day in question, they averred, no patrol had visited Pécholier, the men having been assembled at the church of the canton’s chief town for the public prayers of the Assembly.
A buff-coloured handkerchief with red checks had likewise been discovered in Picou’s bedchamber. Revel admitted that it resembled his own, whilst observing that many handkerchiefs looked alike and that he was accustomed to marking his with his initials. The report added that, of thirty-five similar handkerchiefs found at his domicile, twenty-five were seized unmarked. The barrel and stock of the shotgun remained missing. The lock, however, was identified by a witness who affirmed he had given it to Revel the previous year.
Near the Durou residence, at the bottom of a dry, isolated well drained by the firemen of Montpezat, the missing candle was discovered. The Gazette conjectured that it had been cast into the depths whilst Revel was fleeing Picou’s house to join his mistress, after having lighted his search for money. A material problem remained to be resolved: the shotgun had but one barrel and one trigger, yet two shots had been heard. A search of Revel’s dwelling brought to light a pistol which the consulting gunsmith declared had been freshly discharged. There was also found a bag containing a mixture of No. 00 and No. 4 shot; the indictment linked this mixture to the pellets gathered from the hearth.
The judicial report set forth the prosecution’s theory: the game of cards had served to lull Picou’s suspicions and allow Revel to bide his time; the pistol explained the second discharge, and the broken shotgun accounted for the blows struck thereafter. The alleged premeditation and the motive of robbery thus remained assertions advanced by the prosecution, rather than independently established facts. In court, however, the presiding judge questioned Revel with insistence, confronting him with the evidence, yet failed to elicit any confession. The witnesses were heard; the correspondent recorded but one incident: the confrontation with Picou. “Yes, it was you—you, my neighbour, you, my friend, who sought to kill me,” the victim declared. Revel rejoined: “You have a fine cheek to say such things.” He asserted that the man who had stolen his gun might well have taken his name, caused Picou to open his door, and fired before Picou could unmask the impostor. Maître de Selves conducted the defence; the correspondent judged his task an arduous one, yet equal to his talents.
Public Prosecutor Bazin demanded a verdict without extenuating circumstances. Following the presiding judge’s summing up, the jury answered the questions put to them in the affirmative, while granting Revel the benefit of extenuating circumstances. The court sentenced him to hard labour for life. The account concluded upon this striking contrast: a chain of material objects and testimonies had led to the verdict, whilst the prisoner persisted in his tale of a stolen gun and a borrowed identity. Picou had survived the night of Pegassou.