Joseph Triquet’s drawer was supposed to contain two hundred francs; upon opening it, he found only one hundred and fifty. He took the money to hide it away. Joséphine Tropée, his wife, demanded it back. Three days later, another quarrel would bring them into a bedchamber where Triquet, lying with his face to the wall, was struck repeatedly on the head with a heavy piece of wood.
A farmer in Billé, in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, Triquet had married Joséphine-Anne-Marie Tropée in November 1871. She was then nineteen years old. The Gazette depicts the husband as mild-tempered and easygoing, his wife as avaricious and vindictive; it reports that domestic accord was short-lived, and that arguments were soon followed by acts of violence. Triquet attributed a share of these scenes to the influence of his mother-in-law, the widow Tropée.
When he insisted that they cease living together under the same roof, he prevailed upon his mother-in-law to lease him her farm, sell him her furniture, and withdraw to a separate dwelling. Yet once the widow had departed, the household was no happier. Triquet reproached his wife for carrying money and farm produce to her mother; she reproached him for taking to drink and spending recklessly. In October 1873, the widow Tropée advised an amicable legal separation. It was never concluded.
On Sunday, February 8, 1874, Triquet, wishing to make a purchase, opened the armoire where he had put away two hundred francs. He found only one hundred and fifty. He took this sum to conceal it. Toward two in the afternoon, Joséphine discovered he had moved it. “You will give it back to me, or I will never let you be,” she told him.
Triquet fled outside and ran to his neighbor Machard. Joséphine pursued him, cudgel in hand. She berated him for keeping the money. “If you will not give me back the money, one of us will have to perish,” she cried out before seizing him by his garments. Machard had to tear them to pull him free; shreds of cloth remained in the woman’s hands. Triquet managed to escape.
Toward four o'clock, in the courtyard of their house, Joséphine again demanded the sum. She struck him on the head with her fist, then locked him in the barn. He forced the door. As he emerged, she hurled a billet of wood at him: “You are going to give me that money, or I shall begin all over again,” she said.
That very evening, Joséphine went to sleep at her mother’s house. On Monday, February 9, around seven in the morning, she pursued Triquet once more and threw a piece of wood at him, which struck the back of his head. “You want to go to Fougères? Here is something to hurry you along,” she told him. On Tuesday the 10th, Triquet spent the day at his brother’s house in the same commune.
On Wednesday, February 11, between five and six in the morning, Joséphine again demanded the money. “If you will not give it back, you are going to swallow another dose,” she told him. Triquet was in bed. Upon his refusal, she took a billet of wood from beside the hearth and struck him three or four times about the head while he lay facing the wall. He raised himself up, telling her she had “hurt him very sore.” Shortly thereafter, he complained of feeling cold, got out of bed, and walked over to Machard’s house around half past six.
He begged Machard’s wife to fetch his parents and a priest. His wife had just inflicted wounds upon his head, he said; he added that she had struck him in his sleep. Joséphine disputed this last assertion. Toward eight o'clock, Triquet lost consciousness. When his wife was informed of his alarming condition, she refused to see him, replying that she wished he were already dead.
At noon, Triquet was carried back to his home. The physician arrived around three o'clock to find him insensible, seated upon a chair. Four wounds marked his head, covered in clotted blood. He was undressed and put to bed. He expired at eleven o'clock that night without ever regaining consciousness. At the autopsy, the medical men attributed death to multiple fractures of the skull, severe cerebral contusion, and extensive effusion of blood both within and outside the cranium.
Joséphine admitted to having struck her husband on February 8, and confessed that on the morning of the 11th she had dealt him three or four blows with the billet of wood. She declared that the injuries had proved far more severe than she had intended. That same day, shortly after the deed, she went to confess to the parish priest of Bellé, and subsequently made a full confession to the mayor.
The billet of wood was produced in court as an exhibit. The Gazette described it as hard, slender at one end and thicker at the other, wielded like a club. It depicted Joséphine as petite, almost frail, with a rosy complexion. The deputy public prosecutor, M. de Lesquen, pressed the indictment, castigating her for having shown no mercy to her dying husband. Maître Hamard, for the defense, disputed premeditation and appealed to the jury’s leniency. He reminded the court that his client was young, already the mother of an infant, and with child once again; this unborn child, he pleaded, would be born in prison. Following the summary by the presiding judge, the jurors deliberated for twenty minutes.
Their verdict was affirmative, finding her guilty while admitting extenuating circumstances. The Court sentenced Joséphine Tropée, widow Triquet, to ten years of penal servitude. It decreed that upon the expiration of her term, the convict should not be subjected to subsequent surveillance by the state police.
Archival note: Limited OCR transcription of the report in the Gazette des Tribunaux, No. 14637, May 11–12, 1874, session of May 5, PDF p. 2, columns 2–3, from the departmental heading to the verdict and sentence. The recitation of the facts, declarations, pleadings, and medical findings are drawn from this contemporary report. The chronicle locates the confession with the parish priest of “Bellé,” an archaic spelling preserved herein; the household itself resided in Billé. The OCR was verified against image clippings of the masthead, opening, chronology, confession, and conclusion, without a line-by-line collation; the report does not record the detailed grounds of the jury.