The receipt was authentic. That was precisely what made the affair so vexing: one could neither accuse a forger of having imitated the signature, nor consign the paper to the wastebasket. Jean Roumage held it and claimed to have paid. Banès had brought it and maintained he had received virtually nothing. Between these two men, four hundred and fifty thousand francs had changed hands—or had never left the debtor’s possession. All Paris was soon to take an interest in that difference.
On July 17, 1824, however, the matter was merely the settlement of an ordinary transaction on the Bourse. Roumage was to take delivery of seven hundred bonds of the Royal Spanish Loan. The market price had fallen; the stockbroker Chaulet was eager to conclude the transaction prior to its maturity date. An early delivery had been agreed upon, discounted to the sum of 454,100 francs. Banès, a managing clerk and associate of Chaulet, undertook the exchange. He carried the certificates, the broker’s contract note, and his partner’s signature. He lacked only the money.
Charles Jambon, a bank messenger, accompanied him. They met Roumage, then proceeded to his apartment. A table was drawn up to the window to verify the serial numbers of the bonds. The messenger was helping arrange the papers when Roumage observed that his presence was no longer required. Banès dismissed him. That economy of a witness was to cost everyone dearly. Jambon could attest to the preparations, identify the certificates, and confirm the meeting. Regarding the payment itself, he could say nothing.
Here diverged two entirely different days, though bearing the very same date. In Banès’s account, Roumage carried the receipted broker’s note into his private study, then returned with six hundred francs in specie and thirty-five hundred in banknotes. The odd change, he explained; the remaining four hundred and fifty thousand francs awaited them at his brother Constant’s residence on the Rue Saint-Marc. Banès consented to accompany him there. Why should a merchant keep such a sum in his private chambers? The promise seemed plausible enough. It suffered, however, from this singular disadvantage: the receipt was already in the hands of the man making the promise.
Still according to Banès, Roumage concealed one hundred and fifty bonds beneath his frock coat, put away the rest, and set out with him. In the Passage des Panoramas, he complained of abdominal cramps. Arriving at Constant’s, they went upstairs; Roumage directed his companion into the office and slipped through another door to attend to an urgent physical necessity. Banès waited. The brother knew nothing of any promised payment. They searched for Jean Roumage. He had vanished. The money, the debtor, and the explanations were plainly to be sought elsewhere.
Banès hastened back to the apartment, confronted the family, and sent word to Chaulet. The latter had caught sight of Roumage elsewhere in Paris. One hundred and fifty bonds were already in the hands of the financier Aguado. Toward four o’clock, the interested parties finally met face to face. Roumage protested against the scandal: he had paid in full, in banknotes and coin. Banès maintained the contrary. After an arduous discussion, it was agreed to deposit all seven hundred bonds in the safekeeping of Aguado. The certificates were recovered; the truth was not.
Roumage related his day with an altogether different simplicity. Once the transaction was concluded and the price paid, he and Banès had walked out together, then parted ways. He had gone to his brother’s on a matter of family business, deposited the bonds with Aguado, and purchased an orange tree at the Flower Market. The tree was intended for a friend whose patron saint’s day was being celebrated. The gift, at least, was no fabrication: the recipient confirmed its arrival. But an innocent visit could appear, depending on who told the tale, as the natural leisure of an honest man or the calculated detour of a swindler.
The trial opened on August 28 before the Sixth Correctional Chamber of Paris. The magistrates were not searching for a forged signature: they had to determine whether a genuine signature had been procured through fraudulent machinations. Roumage commanded formidable counsel and an argument intelligible to all. A receipt signifies that its signatory has received payment. If a man’s bare word could subsequently efface it, of what use were receipts? Banès countered with an equally obvious truth: if the document had been surrendered before the coin was counted out, was the creditor to be abandoned to the mercy of one who suddenly refused to pay?
The witnesses contributed their fragments of the day, which did not piece together without friction. A young seminarian, Guillebault, had seen Banès at Constant Roumage’s with a small satchel, visibly vexed at being unable to make his deposit. He had no recollection of seeing Jean. The clerk Fournier likewise failed to confirm the joint arrival of the two men. A domestic servant of Roumage, questioned regarding papers Banès was alleged to have carried off under his arm, retreated from his initial recollection. The defence secured objections; the plaintiffs maintained their accusation. No single witness could close that gaping hour.
Thereupon the fortune took on physical bulk. Banknotes were brought into court—four hundred and fifty one-thousand-franc notes—to demonstrate what such a sum represented in the hand or beneath a coat. The package proved an unwieldy object, comparable in size to a substantial volume. This demonstration presented a conspicuous difficulty to the alleged payment. Roumage replied that Banès might easily have divided the notes into several parcels; once paid, it was no longer his affair to supervise how his creditor carried them away. One could measure a stack of paper. One could not, by that measure alone, reconstruct every movement of a man obscured behind conflicting testimonies.
A second inquiry was opened into the ledgers. Had Roumage ever possessed the funds he claimed to have disbursed? The court examined his means, his family’s dealings, his borrowings, his pocket memorandum book. His adversaries perceived in them the obscurity requisite for a fraud; his defence pointed to available capital and entries predating the dispute. Hennequin, his advocate, forcefully contested the notion of an altered or fabricated notebook. The variations in ink and the testimony of the bookkeeper served his purpose. At every line, the same dilemma arose anew: to possess wealth, to have cash on hand on a given day, and to have actually parted with it were three distinct things.
Reputations were summoned to the aid of arithmetic. Roumage could cite his charities, his connections, and glowing testimonials; Banès enjoyed the confidence of his financial circle and the backing of men who vouched for his integrity. The trial threatened to dissolve into a contest of honourable character. Yet the magistrates were compelled to choose between two versions of the facts, and both parties could not be truthful regarding the payment. At the conclusion of the initial hearings, the court found the charge of fraud established. Roumage was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of three thousand francs, and ten years’ deprivation of civil rights. The receipt was declared null and void, the bonds were to be restored to Banès, and interest together with the depreciation of the securities was included in the damages awarded.
The signature had thus failed to shield its possessor. There remained the right to challenge those who had condemned him. Roumage appealed, contended that the matter did not fall within the jurisdiction of a correctional magistrate, and carried the question before the Court of Cassation. This initial petition was rejected. In January 1825, proceedings resumed in Paris. The witnesses reappeared, the memorandum book returned to the bar, and the physical topography of the premises was debated once more. The court affirmed the conviction. One might have thought the dossier closed; yet it contained an error, this time committed by the judiciary itself.
A supplementary investigation had been ordered by the presiding judge after the court was already seized of the matter. Such inquiries could no longer proceed outside the adversarial debate where the parties and the public were entitled to be present. On March 19, 1825, the Court of Cassation quashed the Paris judgment and remitted the case to Orléans. Roumage obtained a new hearing, though not the vindication of his payment. The distinction was momentous for Banès: the proceedings were to begin anew, with the very same bonds and the very same four hundred and fifty thousand francs at the heart of the contest.
The chronicle records that Orléans ultimately upheld the judgment of first instance. The five-year sentence remained; the receipt did not regain its status as victorious proof. After so many witnesses, ledgers, and appeals, the document retained its singular character: the signature was genuine, yet the payment it purported to record had been judicially erased. Banès had been forced to litigate for months to wrest back from written words what he maintained he had never received in coin. A fortune hung upon a few lines of script. It had taken a succession of courts to tear them apart.