On March 24, 1823, Henri Feldtmann purchased a kitchen knife upon the Quai de la Ferraille and made his way to the lodgings of his two daughters. Coffee was set before him. Once more, he resumed the singular subject that had sundered the household: he demanded that they return home with him. Victoire refused. For two hours, the women met his demands with the same steadfast, quiet resistance. At last, she declared that she would rather perish than return. Feldtmann thereupon drew the weapon he had carried into the room. When the assize opened, justice was called upon to judge a murder, two attempts upon life, and the utterances of a father who, before the jurors, sought to cast the blame upon the very women he had assailed.
Victoire was still an infant in the care of a wet nurse when her mother died, in 1801. Her father, Henri Feldtmann, was a tailor by trade. Shortly following his wife’s demise, he formed a liaison with Madeleine Léger, who bore him a second daughter, Élisabeth-Constance. The two children grew up beneath the same roof. Madeleine tended to each of them as though both were of her own flesh. Feldtmann, who professed the Reformed faith, entrusted their instruction to Pastor Gœpp. The chronicler portrays Victoire as modest and artless, animated by an unfeigned desire for virtue. For many years, Feldtmann himself had set before his daughters lessons and patterns of upright conduct. At Victoire’s first communion, Pastor Gœpp had pledged to her his solemn protection and fatherly benevolence. That promise bound the minister to the elder girl long before the household fell apart. Madeleine watched over the two sisters and departed with them when Victoire was no longer safe beneath her father’s roof.
When Victoire attained her youth, her father began to press upon her unnatural advances. She resisted and sought to conceal her father’s conduct from the others, Champagnac records. When she perceived that remaining beneath that roof could offer her no shelter, she fled the paternal house in company with Élisabeth and Madeleine. Their departure was no fleeting estrangement. Feldtmann pursued them, discovered their new retreat, and came repeatedly to demand their return. Every visit brought the same entreaty and ended in the same refusal; Victoire proved unshakeable.
On the morning of Monday, March 24, the two sisters were already risen; Madeleine was still abed when the father was announced. She rose at once. He was offered breakfast, and Feldtmann accepted a cup of coffee alongside the others. The meal did not divert him from the purpose of his coming. He urged his daughters and Madeleine to return with him. Each woman resisted. Victoire, seated beside the hearth, maintained the same composed demeanour as during his former visits. Élisabeth sat in the centre and Madeleine opposite, while the father remained standing, his back against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed upon Victoire.
The exchange endured for nearly two hours. Victoire remained steadfast. According to the bill of indictment, she ended by saying she would rather die than return to his house. Feldtmann answered: “Thou shalt be the cause of my dying upon the scaffold!” Then he added: “Thou art obstinate… thou shalt be my ruin.” Instantly, he drew from his pocket the kitchen knife he had kept concealed and plunged it into Victoire’s bosom. She was mortally stricken.
Élisabeth stood petrified with horror at what had befallen her sister. Feldtmann then turned upon the younger girl to strike her down in turn. Madeleine threw herself against his arm and deflected the blow; the younger daughter was wounded, though less grievously. A desperate struggle ensued between the women and the assailant. Madeleine was struck in her turn, though slightly. The neighbours, alarmed by the outcry, burst into the room and secured Feldtmann. He dropped the knife and declared that he had no thought of flight.
Victoire found the strength to open the door and drag herself to the landing of the first floor. There she collapsed backward, insensible, and expired shortly thereafter.
On April 23, Feldtmann appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Seine. During the reading of the indictment, Madeleine, called as a witness, swooned beneath the surge of emotion. Feldtmann, for his part, remained impassive, according to Champagnac. His interrogation was marked by incoherent explanations and scandalous imputations. He denied having harboured any illicit passion for Victoire and attempted to justify himself by alleging disorder in her conduct and a want of probity. He levelled equally grave accusations against Madeleine. Both women were thus subjected to the slanders of the accused after having suffered his blows.
Pastor Gœpp gave testimony concerning the confidences made to him, whether by Feldtmann’s mother or by Victoire herself, regarding the attempts directed against the young woman. He had approached the prefecture of police to prevent further outrages and had seen the accused on the eve of the crime. In his judgment, Feldtmann seemed no longer master of his faculties whenever he spoke of his relations with his daughter; he likened him to a man possessed by a fixed idea, whose imagination broke all bounds whenever he dwelled upon it. The remaining depositions afforded fewer particulars, Champagnac notes. The jurors were nonetheless required to answer separate questions regarding the death of Victoire and the violence inflicted upon Élisabeth and Madeleine.
The Advocate General maintained that no passion, however violent, could palliate the crime. Counsel for the defence possessed but a single ground to avert the scaffold: to dispute premeditation and depict Feldtmann as driven by an irresistible impulse rather than by his own will. The trial thus weighed deliberate intent against alleged unreason. Following protracted deliberation, the jury returned an affirmative verdict upon all counts. They pronounced him guilty of the premeditated murder of Victoire and of attempted murder against Élisabeth and Madeleine. He was condemned to death. His appeal to the Court of Cassation was dismissed.
On May 21, Feldtmann was executed upon the Place de Grève. The insensibility he had displayed throughout the trial broke, the chronicler records, when the moment came to mount the steps of the scaffold. The executioners were obliged to support him up the ladder. Champagnac writes that he appeared dead before the blade had even fallen—he who, through every stage of the trial, had preserved an unshakeable composure.