At Faucoucourt, the first clue remarked upon in the wake of the fire was no confession, but a pipe. It lay along an alleyway, amidst the enclosed gardens that separated the Lagneaux farmstead from the incinerated outbuilding. On the morrow, the woman Delplace gathered it up and carried it to her husband. The latter readily recognised its contour and the small notches upon its bowl: this pipe, he declared, belonged to Louis-Victor Montellier, who was accustomed to supping at their table and had lent it to them on prior occasions. Discovered within an open passage, this humble implement was to become the pivot about which the prosecution marshalled the circumstances of that night.
The account in the Gazette des Tribunaux places the trial before the Assize Court of the Aisne, on 7 May 1874, under the presidency of M. Davost. Montellier, born at Faucoucourt on 22 May 1850, stood indicted for arson. The bill of indictment recalled that a blaze had erupted on 19 January, towards ten o’clock in the evening, within a storehouse sheltering harvested crops pertaining to the farm tenanted by Lagneaux. The damage was assessed at 1,700 francs, an amount partially met by insurance.
Malice was instantly presumed. The structure stood within the walled garden of Nigon. Access might be gained either from the farm itself, or through a breach made in the estate wall. This breach opened upon an alleyway which likewise traversed the garden of Fissiaux; the gate of the latter, abutting the Chaussée de l’Étang, stood unbolted. The land thus offered diverse passages. The conflagration had not broken out within an area utterly secluded from the gaze of neighbours, but at the terminus of a route intersected by several thoroughfares.
It was along this alley that the pipe was retrieved. Delplace explained that he knew the article well, Montellier being in the habit of supping at his hearth and having repeatedly lent it to him. A carpenter named Villain likewise avowed having made use of it. Such identifications endowed the pipe with a provenance deemed incontestable by the prosecution; yet, of themselves, they established neither when it had been dropped nor how it had reached the garden. It remained necessary to trace its owner through the hours immediately preceding the alarm.
Montellier asserted that he had returned home around seven o’clock for his evening meal, thereafter venturing out to call upon Delplace. Failing to find him at home, he claimed to have repaired to Dérozier’s dwelling, tarrying there until half past nine before retiring to bed. Yet the statements assembled during the preliminary examination belied this itinerary. One Lévêque declared he had encountered Montellier towards seven o’clock, in a condition of utter intoxication. According to this witness, Montellier passed both his house and that of Delplace without halting, making directly for the Chaussée de l’Étang, where lay the ingress to Fissiaux’s garden.
Towards eight o’clock, he entered Dérozier’s house; thence, returning home, instead of seeking his bed, he donned his fireman’s uniform and waited, as the prosecution contended, until the fire should break out at Lagneaux’s. Shortly thereafter, Pourceau, who first descried the blaze, raised the alarm. Montellier was thereupon among the first to appear before the engine-shed. He was already clad in full uniform; neighbours, who had hastened forth without even pausing to attire themselves, remarked his appearance.
The prisoner offered another explanation. He maintained that he had heard the outcries from his bed and caught sight of the fire’s glare. The President set the disposition of the premises against him: his residence, three storeys high, possessed no window overlooking the burning farm. Pourceau, the magistrate added, had not yet raised his cry when Montellier arrived beside the pump, nor had the tocsin yet sounded. These particulars were urged at the bar as irreconcilable with the version of an awakening prompted by shouts and flames.
The pipe offered a second point of contention. Montellier denied its ownership outright, though Delplace and Villain maintained they had recognised it. The prosecution contended that he had dropped it while crossing the garden wherein he had laid the fire. The witnesses did not describe an isolated discovery: they linked the article to his familiarities at Delplace’s table, his presumed passage through the alley, and his arrival in uniform at the very inception of the relief effort. Taken singly, each fact admitted of explanation; marshalled by the public prosecutor, they formed an indictment woven of precise chronology.
The prosecution likewise invoked Montellier’s antecedents. It was recorded that at eleven years of age he had suffered a fine for a fire occasioned by imprudence, and that a conviction for theft had since supervened. In open court, the President dwelt upon his childhood and his long-standing propensity for fire: after the incident of the colza rick, another disaster imputed to his carelessness had reportedly occasioned over 19,000 francs in damages. The gazette records these matters as elements adduced before the bench; they do not supply direct proof of the January conflagration, yet they weighed heavily in the portrayal drawn by the prosecution.
Montellier replied that he had never borne any grudge against Lagneaux. His father and he, he said, had quitted the farm merely because their wages were insufficient; this afforded no motive for burning the property of his former master. He explained furthermore that he ever kept his fireman’s uniform in readiness, which rendered his prompt arrival at the scene entirely natural. Lagneaux, however, deposed that he stood in fear of the accused, whose father was alleged to have uttered threats against him. In the village, he added, common rumour designated Montellier as the incendiary; yet this opinion belonged to hearsay, rather than to any independent material finding.
The remaining depositions thickened the narrative without rendering it uniform. Pourceau recounted giving the alarm. Charpentier and Villain related their astonishment at finding Montellier already accoutred for service with the fire brigade. The lieutenant of the sappers and another witness stated that, on the following day, Montellier, being in liquor, had tumbled into the smouldering debris and required hauling out and conveyance to his home. They added that he had laboured valiantly at the extinction. His share in the rescue was thus never disputed; the prosecution directed its force rather to the hour of his arrival, his attire, and the path he had previously trodden.
The nineteen witnesses summoned by the State did not profess, according to the published summary, to have witnessed Montellier ignite the building. The gendarmerie brigadier collated the findings of the inquiry and the statements collected; his deposition reconciled the clues of time, place, and circumstance, yet failed to resolve the cardinal dilemma: no eye-witness to the actual kindling of the flame is mentioned in the record. M. de Namuroy pressed the charge; M. Godfrain defended Montellier. The chronicle does not detail the pleadings of counsel. It records that the jury found the prisoner guilty, while admitting extenuating circumstances. The court sentenced him to fifteen years of penal servitude and ten years of police surveillance. The printed record supplies the outcome, yet leaves unrevealed what precise weight the jurors attached to each separate strand of proof.
Thus the pipe spoke only through those who claimed its recognition, and the uniform proved premeditation only by the light of the hours reconstructed by the witnesses. It was the judicial apparatus that, following the pleadings, welded this bundle of suspicions into guilt, tempered by leniency. The several stages must be kept distinct: the blaze of 19 January, the article discovered the following morning, the conflicting accounts of Montellier’s nocturnal route, and finally the verdict. A judicial history gains nothing by confounding mere suspicion, forensic argument, and the solemn determination of a jury.