On the 3rd of March 1877, within a bedchamber in the village of Cuzy, eight revolver shots were discharged point-blank into the body of Madame Duverne. She had only just risen and stood half-clad when the balls struck her down. Yet this night of violence had merely begun: Cannet was yet to fire upon the Daudannes, lay siege to their dwelling, pursue one of them into the home of the village schoolmaster, and be overpowered at last only through the intervention of the local curé. The Gazette des Tribunaux gave this chronicle a singular heading: “A Curious Lover.” The accused was named Marie Cannet; the journal portrayed him as a twenty-eight-year-old clog maker residing in Cuzy.
One must retrace the events of several preceding weeks to understand how the dispute assumed such an aspect. Cannet lived near Madame Duverne. Her husband, an itinerant tailor, was frequently absent from home. According to the indictment summarised by the Gazette, Cannet had taken advantage of these absences to press the woman with his importunities. He claimed that she had ultimately yielded to his entreaties and become his mistress. The chronicle does not hold this liaison to be proved: it states merely that Madame Duverne sought to bring it to an end, whilst Cannet persisted, and that their estrangement had already necessitated the intervention of the law.
A first judicial warning had been delivered at Autun. On the preceding 10th of December, Cannet had broken a window at Madame Duverne’s domicile under cover of night, having assaulted her some time prior. On the 8th of January 1877, the correctional court sentenced him to six days’ imprisonment. The Court of Dijon upheld this judgment on the 31st of January. Madame Duverne’s complaint had set the prosecution in motion; to this conviction, reports the gazette, Cannet responded with bitter resentment.
On the 14th of February, he was present at the inn kept by Daudanne, Madame Duverne’s uncle, in the company of the married couple. A dispute erupted. Cannet mounted a table and hurled insults at Madame Duverne and her husband. On the 24th of February, Monsieur Duverne summoned him before the justice of the peace to obtain redress for this abusive language. This second confrontation, according to the prosecution’s account, heightened Cannet’s exasperation and brought to a head the vengeful designs he had long harboured.
The weapons themselves had been assembled by degrees. In December or January, Cannet purchased a revolver and ammunition from Pronnet, at Luzy. On the 22nd of February, he returned to the same shopkeeper for a box of cartridges; on the 28th, at Autun, he procured a second revolver of heavier calibre, alongside further ammunition. This progression gives the report a distinct contour: the man who was about to present himself at the inn and return home was no longer merely a quarrelsome neighbour. The prosecution discerned in this a deliberate and premeditated preparation.
On the 2nd of March, toward five o’clock in the afternoon, Cannet purchased a litre of eau-de-vie at Vincent’s inn and carried it to his lodging. Later, he went drinking at Daudanne’s establishment; he departed around ten o’clock, without his conversation, says the article, betraying any signs of excitement. He returned home after satisfying himself that Madame Commeau, who was accustomed to sleeping alongside Madame Duverne when her husband was away, had not arrived that night. Monsieur Duverne was labouring in another parish. The house was thus occupied by his wife alone, and Cannet could assume his design would unfold without an immediate witness.
Toward midnight, having drunk deep to embolden himself, he seized an iron bar, shattered the shutters and the casement, and forced an entry into the chamber. He carried both revolvers upon his person. Madame Duverne had risen; she was on her feet, half-dressed, when she collapsed beneath eight shots fired at point-blank range. The violence did not halt at the threshold of that chamber. Cannet lingered beside the corpse, striking the table with the barrel of his weapon and shouting threats. When Madame Daudanne hastened to the scene with Madame Commeau, she retreated into her own home without lighting a lamp, seeking refuge with her husband and neighbours.
Cannet presently appeared at the Daudannes’ door, demanding tobacco; he threatened to smash doors and casements alike if they did not grant him entrance. The door remaining barred, he climbed onto the roof of a small lean-to, broke the glass and the uprights of a window, thrust his arm within, and discharged his weapon into the room. A ball struck François Commeau in the thigh, though the wound proved slight. Daudanne then seized an iron pitchfork and thrust the assailant back. Yet Cannet returned a second time, clambered to another window, broke a pane, and fired once more in the direction of the couple.
The curé of Cuzy, the Abbé Papillon, had already endeavoured to placate Cannet. Hearing the gunfire, he ran to the spot and strove to coax him down from the window, assuring him the house was empty. Cannet retorted that by the flash of his revolver he had glimpsed “that monster” Daudanne; he then continued to fire in the direction where he believed he had seen him. The priest pulled at his sleeve to divert his aim and prevent him from striking the man he pursued.
Cannet descended at last and turned his fury upon Madame Daudanne, who had taken refuge at the presbytery. He levelled his weapon toward a window; hearing a voice in an adjoining room, he cried out that she was in the kitchen. Three times, according to the article, he attempted to wrench open the shutters whilst aiming his two revolvers at the house. Failing in this, he returned to his own home, declaring that he intended to take his own life. Yet he had not abandoned his pursuit of the couple. Toward six o’clock in the morning, he returned to Madame Duverne’s house, and then made for that of the Daudannes. The husband had fled through a rear door and sought sanctuary with the neighbouring schoolmaster. Cannet pursued him, revolver in hand. Cornered in a room without an egress, Daudanne succeeded in seizing him by the throat; the schoolmaster rushed in and, with the aid of the curé, the pair reduced the prisoner to helplessness.
At the trial, the conduct of that night became the subject of extensive debate, and Cannet’s own version of events was recorded with all its contradictions. He admitted his deeds, their prolonged premeditation, and his design to kill Madame Duverne, the Daudannes, and subsequently himself. He stated that he had acquired a revolver on the 28th of February for this express purpose, whereas the prosecution’s narrative had already established an initial purchase in December or January. Questioned as to his motives, he claimed that Madame Duverne had robbed him and procured his wrongful conviction; he maintained further that the Daudannes had conspired to prevent his marriage by spreading malicious rumours.
The preliminary inquiry offered no corroboration of the alleged theft. Nor did it permit, according to the journal, the establishing with any certainty of the true nature of the relations between Cannet and Madame Duverne; prior to the correctional proceedings, no one in Cuzy had ever imputed a guilty liaison to the woman. The account adds that the Daudanne couple had done nothing to hinder Cannet’s matrimonial prospects. The reporter thereupon advances his own interpretation: jealousy, the aberrations born of passion, and bitter resentment following the conviction. This remains an explanation offered by the chronicler, rather than any inward sentiment revealed by the court records themselves.
The Gazette finally portrays Cannet as an illiterate peasant, fair-haired, of short stature and broad shoulders, bearing a tranquil countenance. The proceedings were held on the 15th and 16th of June; nineteen witnesses had been called by the prosecution. Ladey appeared for the Crown, while Maître Ceyssel conducted the defence. The curé received the commendations of the President of the Assize Court for his courage and devotion. The jury then retired; their verdict was affirmative, yet tempered by extenuating circumstances. Marie Cannet was sentenced to hard labour for life.
The account affords us neither the voice of Madame Duverne, nor the full substance of the oral pleadings, nor even a Christian name for the victim. Yet it preserves, across those tightly knit dates, a sequence that no flippant title can obscure: a conviction for a broken casement, a fresh summons before the bench, two revolvers, a night during which several homes were assaulted, and a man hunted by his neighbour into the parlour of a village schoolmaster. The sentence pronounced answered the verdict; it could not restore to the dead the speech that the newspaper failed to record.