They had drawn Paulet up from the well; they swore they had found him beside his bed. None among them claimed to have preserved his life. Their falsehood was intended solely to protect his memory, and perhaps his family, from the ignominy that the laws of the era still visited upon self-murder. Yet the clothing had vanished, a hat remained floating in the water, and the chief beneficiaries of his testament were counted among those who had moved the corpse. Very little imagination was required to transform this pious, clandestine precaution into an accusation of murder.
Paulet resided in Lunel. For many years, he had shared his home with his sister, the widow Mourgues, in an accord that the chronicle portrays as affectionate. Gambling is said to have shattered this equilibrium. Around 1768, ruinous losses were succeeded by mental disorders, prompting his sister to petition for an order of civil interdiction. Her son obtained the administration of Paulet’s estate; he himself was confined at Saint-Rémi in Provence. Champagnac writes with great severity of the wardens and the care afforded there. Paulet ultimately escaped, returned to the environs of Lunel, and shunned his sister, whom he held responsible for his captivity.
Following an interval in the countryside, he obtained his legal rehabilitation and resumed possession of his house and property. He initially engaged a married couple named Valès, whom he subsequently discharged, turning thereafter to persons of long acquaintance: Ducros and his wife, Marie Coton. She had served him prior to his confinement; he had spent part of his youth under Paulet’s roof. The Ducros had children and retained their lodging in an adjoining quarter. They thus came to labour in his house without establishing their household beneath his roof—a detail of no small moment when the magistrates endeavoured to reconstruct his final night.
Paulet manifested his gratitude to them across several successive wills. The last, dated the 3rd of June, 1780, upheld their claims to his fortune after various specific bequests. The chronicle regards these dispositions as the recompense of a devotion thoroughly tried. To the testator’s sister, they were soon to constitute the motive for an assassination. Between care faithfully rendered and money promised, the selfsame bond may assume a vastly different complexion depending upon the narrator; a testament remains a formal instrument, yet each party professes to know the secret intent that guided the pen.
In September 1782, Paulet returned to gambling with consuming feverishness. He passed his nights at the billiard table, squandering there, according to the chronicle, approximately four thousand livres. Haunted by the spectre of indigence, he refused all sustenance, convincing himself that the officers of justice were coming to arrest him. Ducros endeavoured to quiet his mind by feigning an appeal to the magistrates, subsequently announcing that a pardon had been secured. Champagnac recounts these tribulations in the medical idiom of his day. What his chapter allows one to observe, without imposing any modern diagnosis, is the relentless succession of terrors, the refusal of food, and the desperate efforts of his household to win a brief respite of calm.
On the 31st of October, Paulet set forth without informing the Ducros couple. He reached the town where his sister resided and sent for his nephew from an inn. He who had hitherto refused all commerce with his kin now sought an audience, gave voice to his contrition, and passed the night under their roof. He departed early on the morrow. A few days later, on the 6th of November, he once again summoned his sister. Marie Coton offered to remain and sleep in his house that night. He dismissed her. She harboured the intention of warning the family of his deteriorating condition, the chronicler records, yet deferred her departure until the following day, stayed by Paulet’s entreaties for discretion.
On the following morning, carrying her provision basket, she called first at his residence. She possessed a key. The chamber window stood open; neither the master nor his customary attire was anywhere to be seen. She called out, received no answer, and went to fetch her husband. Ducros returned with the key, resumed the search, and at last descried the body in the depths of the well. He alerted his family, then dispatched a messenger for the surgeon Barthélemy. In the interim, Marie had returned accompanied by neighbours: the shoemaker Lombard, his son, and his son-in-law.
The body was drawn up, stripped, dried, and laid upon the bed. Barthélemy concluded that any attempt at resuscitation was utterly futile. It was in the wake of this discovery, according to the narrative, that the fatal pact was forged. Every soul present suspected suicide. Every one of them dreaded the infamous indignities that might yet be visited upon the corpse of an individual accused of having laid hands upon himself. The surgeon advised that the true circumstances be suppressed: they would declare that they had found Paulet lying dead beside his bed. The soaked garments were deposited at the house of the elder Lombard. The Ducros then sent word to the sister, announcing a sudden demise.
Justice soon arrived in a house fast filling with kin and curious onlookers. Marie delivered the concerted version; the other witnesses reiterated it in turn. When the widow Mourgues was apprised of her brother’s death, she recalled his recent visit, asserting that he had resolved to bestow upon her his entire estate. In her eyes, the Ducros had held an overriding interest in preventing any fresh testamentary disposition. She lodged a formal complaint. The chronicle mounts a resolute defence of the couple; nonetheless, it adduces sufficient facts to elucidate how suspicion took root. The heirs had lied regarding the place where their benefactor had breathed his last, and his clothes were nowhere to be found.
The post-mortem examination contradicted their depositions. The medical men concluded that death had ensued from submersion, noting sundry marks which they set down in their report. The Ducros, however, persisted in their initial account. Subsequent searches in the well recovered a wig and a hat, which the couple were compelled to identify. The King’s prosecutor demanded their immediate arrest. The judge refused to take so grave a step, preferring to pursue the inquiry. This refusal erased neither the falsehoods nor the suspicions; it merely prevented the sister’s interpretation from precipitating an immediate incarceration.
On the 3rd of December, fresh searches were ordered. The Lombards grasped that their story could no longer be sustained and confessed to the secret pact. The hidden garments were produced. Their sodden condition matched the account of the corpse being drawn from the water. The well was drained; the stones and gravel dredged from its bottom gave rise to further conjectures, notably the hypothesis of an assault. The medical experts weighed this theory and rejected it for the reasons recounted by Champagnac. A stained sheet was likewise submitted for inspection: they judged that it had served to dry a wet and bloodied body. The marks remained, but they now received a markedly different explanation, once the witnesses conceded their actions upon discovering the deceased.
The surgeon admitted to the advice he had imparted. The magistrate brought together the medical findings, the clothing, the hat, and the depositions regarding Paulet’s antecedents and mental state. He again declined to order their imprisonment, requiring instead the personal appearance of the six implicated individuals: the Ducros couple, Barthélemy, the two Lombards, and Viala, the son-in-law. The widow Mourgues appealed. On the 8th of August, 1783, the court dismissed her petition and left the Ducros at liberty, while remanding the case to the court of first instance for the continuation of the proceedings. They had not yet escaped the shadow of the accusation.
On the 22nd of June, 1784, the royal officers of Lunel discharged them entirely. The widow was condemned to pay the costs and hefty indemnities: fifteen hundred livres to the Ducros, twelve hundred to the Lombards, and three hundred to Barthélemy. Once again, she entered an appeal. By 1786, she was still demanding the conviction of the spouses, along with a sum of ten thousand livres destined for the destitute of the Lunel hospital. Meanwhile, the legal expenses were exhausting the resources of those whose rights the judgment had upheld. Liberty preserved did not prevent the suit from consuming their modest fortune.
The widow’s death did not stay the proceedings. The Ducros pursued the action against her son in order to obtain definitive confirmation of the ruling. On the 14th of August, 1787, the Parlement of Toulouse affirmed the innocence of the six accused, rejected the appeal, and confirmed the pecuniary penalties. It further ordered that the decree be printed and publicly posted at the accuser’s expense. The decision was thus commanded to emerge from the courtroom: after so many years of opprobrium, it had to be seen by all. At the origin of this protracted pursuit lay a contested inheritance, but also a sentiment shared by six well-meaning souls: to spare the honour of the dead, they had deemed it necessary to conceal the truth from the living.