The private gamekeeper Roche and the coachman Émilien Menuet had already traversed an initial portion of the woods south of M. Bordeaux’s château at Meulles. Having discovered no poachers there, they were preparing to return when, toward eleven o’clock, according to the indictment read before the assize court, Menuet called out to his companion. He had just heard a gunshot in the woods opposite, toward the road from Courson to Orbec. The two men struck out in different directions, intending to meet again. A few moments later, another shot rang out, and Menuet ran toward the sound. Roche lost sight of him, but soon heard him cry: “I have you, or I see you!” accompanied by a certain commotion. A second gunshot resounded immediately; after it, the silence was total.
Roche moved forward, calling for his companion. No one answered in the woods. He returned to the farmhouse, some two hundred meters distant, to fetch assistance, and then returned with the younger Grenier. They found Menuet lying at the edge of the woods, lifeless and covered in blood. M. Bordeaux, upon being alerted, had the body conveyed to the outbuildings of the château. The following morning, the authorities arrived upon the scene. The chronicle, published on August 11, 1886, relates the affair to October 25 “last”: this phrasing places the event in 1885, though the year is not explicitly repeated in the indictment. It provides no precise date for the trial.
Dr. Colombe, a physician from Lisieux, had drafted the autopsy report. The fatal shot had been discharged at close range; according to the indictment, the charge had entered through the chest. Death, the physician concluded, had been instantaneous. The report also noted fractures to the face, produced by a violent blow delivered with a heavy instrument. The gazette did not yet state who had struck these blows. What it first established was the brutality of the scene and the absence of any answer to Roche’s final call.
For a long time, the initial inquiries came to nothing. The brothers Alexandre-Désiré Hurel, aged forty-three, and Louis-Baptiste Hurel, aged forty-four, were initially placed respectively at Notre-Dame-de-Courson and at Meulles. In the account of the early investigations, the indictment places Alexandre at Courson and Louis at Moutiers-Hubert, on the border of Meulles and at most four kilometers from the scene of the crime. They furnished accounts of their movements which the investigation could not verify. Another man, Louis Bertrand, was arrested and detained for a time. The Gazette reports that, some time after this arrest, Bertrand’s sister met Hurel. In a jesting tone, Hurel allegedly remarked to her that it was astonishing she had not encountered her brother, “for the gendarmes have paraded him about Meulles quite enough,” before adding that he must have been too tall, and that they had surely had to “shorten” him. Bertrand was set at liberty. The article records the jest, without specifying what the investigators knew at that time.
The decisive lead came from Prudence Duros, referred to as the Bunel woman in the report, Alexandre’s concubine. In the month of March, following acts of brutality she claimed to have suffered, and in fear for her own life and that of her child, she went to M. Bordeaux. She named the two brothers as the perpetrators of Menuet’s death and, according to the indictment, provided the particulars of the crime. Her declaration depicted the intimacy of the household as a place where Alexandre’s acts and words had left indelible marks. Yet these statements remained those of an informer, and Louis would deny all participation.
In the version attributed to the Bunel woman, the brothers had set out together on October 25, toward eight o’clock in the evening: Alexandre carrying his Lefaucheux shotgun, Louis a heavy bludgeon. Alexandre reportedly returned alone toward midnight, covered in blood. To the question of whether he had killed any rabbits, he reportedly replied: “Yes, and a man along with them; I killed Bordeaux’s keeper.” He allegedly made her wash his garments so that he might put them on again the following day. The indictment further recorded that the violence against her had escalated; on March 19, Alexandre had allegedly beaten her and torn out handfuls of her hair. By the 26th, she still bore bruises upon her neck and legs. He had once told her: “You may yet be the cause of my ruin, but I shall kill you.”
The brothers were arrested on March 27. Louis denied the facts. Alexandre initially denied them as well during his interrogation that same day; two days later, the journal reports, he resolved to confess and recounted the crime in a manner that accorded with the declaration of the Bunel woman. These admissions did not constitute the final version he would present before the court. The indictment opens with the nocturnal patrol of Roche and Menuet, which set out toward ten o’clock; it then recounts the brothers’ departure for their hunt around eight o’clock. The declaration of the Bunel woman likewise assigns the brothers a departure around eight o’clock. These two times refer to distinct excursions. According to the indictment, the brothers had gathered apples during the day of October 25 before deciding to go poaching. They manufactured five cartridges; Louis tore a stake from the fence of Alexandre’s yard to serve as a bludgeon. Alexandre took the gun, for his eyesight was better, and he was to do the shooting.
Along the edge of a ditch, Alexandre first shot a fox. The two brothers retrieved it; Louis sat down beside his brother with his feet inside his sack, placing the creature there to warm himself. Alexandre then fired at a rabbit, which he missed, and then at another. As he was preparing to pick it up, Menuet came running toward them. The indictment stated that he had pursued Alexandre into the woods and seized him from behind, crying: “Ah! This time, I have you!” Menuet seized Alexandre’s gun by the barrel; Alexandre grasped Menuet’s. Louis, encumbered in his sack, shouted: “Shoot, then!” Alexandre fired point-blank. The coachman collapsed upon him; Louis raised him up and, according to the prosecution, struck him two or three times across the face with the club. The physician had observed the corresponding fractures during the autopsy.
The indictment continued the narrative of their flight: Alexandre recovered his gun, which had become entangled with Menuet’s, and passed it to Louis, who carried it off. Louis had lost a wooden shoe, which Alexandre found, but Alexandre’s cap remained upon the ground. Hearing the shouts of the gamekeeper Roche, the two men crossed the woods in the direction of Courson. The same indictment notes separately that Louis burned the club, and that Menuet’s gun, which he had concealed, was never recovered. The prosecution concluded that, notwithstanding Louis’s denials, the judicial inquiry had established his participation. It was precisely upon this point that the two defenses would clash.
At the trial, Alexandre admitted the acts alleged against him, but recanted his confessions regarding intent: he declared that he had not intended to kill. He also maintained that he had acted upon the instructions and advice of his brother. Louis, for his part, energetically denied everything and denounced Alexandre as a liar; he refused, according to the journal, to yield to “the evidence that overwhelms him.” Dr. Colombe confirmed that death was caused by the shot fired by Alexandre and that it had been instantaneous. Roche related that he had been accompanying Menuet, that he had heard the fatal shot, and that the victim had just uttered: “I see you, or I have you.” The Bunel woman confirmed her denunciation and stated she feared becoming in her turn a victim of the accused.
Other depositions weighed against Louis’s defense. Albert Hurel reported a phrase his brother had supposedly spoken to him when justice was still on a false scent: “The one who killed Bordeaux’s keeper is a Frenchman. He is in Meulles.” Quinquet judged both brothers to be bad characters, especially the elder; Houlley and Houssaye reported threats uttered by Louis against gamekeepers. These testimonies consisted of reported remarks and assessments of character, not direct observations of the murder. The Advocate General, Lerebourg-Pigeonnière, maintained the accusation and demanded a verdict without mitigating circumstances.
Me Fleury defended Alexandre. In his view, the court possessed against his client only a confession that had to be accepted as it had been given: the homicidal intent requisite for a conviction did not exist; failing that, he asked the jury to accord mitigating circumstances. He portrayed Alexandre as led astray by his brother, an “unconscious and irresponsible instrument.” Me Lefèvre defended Louis upon distinct ground. The declaration of his brother, who had an interest in shifting the blame, was insufficient; that of the Bunel woman, Alexandre’s mistress, ought no more to carry conviction. He disputed above all that the legal criteria for complicity had been met: Louis had neither rendered assistance to his brother nor made any promises.
The jury found both brothers guilty while admitting mitigating circumstances. The court sentenced them to hard labor for life. Such is the term recorded by the Gazette; it says nothing of their subsequent fate. In the woods of Meulles, Roche’s call had remained unanswered; at the trial, the two men answered each in his own manner, but the verdict united them in the same punishment.