The gazette’s report of 25 January 1862 opens with a name: Sloan. The defendant, writes the journal, maintained he had not assumed it to commit the swindle for which he now stood trial; by his account, it simply rang more genteel than Solomons—a name the landlady had discovered upon certain letters. This barbed remark belongs to the reporter, not to any question formally recorded from the bench. Another pledge, altogether less refined, ran through the proceedings: a process for printing upon linen, a suite of hotel chambers, and an unsettled bill of 966 francs.
Mme Lavergne, mistress of the Hôtel des Gentilshommes in the Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins, placed the arrival on the preceding 7 November. She stated that two Englishmen had alighted at her establishment: the defendant she described as wearing the uniform of a rifle volunteer officer, and the other man as his secretary and interpreter. The guest presented an armorial calling card bearing the name of Sloan and entered himself accordingly upon the register. Later, according to Lavergne, letters addressed to the guest brought to her knowledge the name of Solomons. She did not explain how these letters came into her hands, nor did the newspaper supply any further proof of identity.
Initial trust, in her testimony, rested upon the totality of this display. There was the card, the uniform, and the ledger entry; there was also the assertion of belonging to a family of distinction. The guest engaged two rooms at eight francs a day each, announcing his intention to take up residence in Paris for three months. This was no fleeting tavern halt: the landlady gathered that he intended to conduct affairs and establish his household in the capital. The secretary-interpreter at his side seemed to lend substance to the enterprise, being presented as a salaried employee rather than a partner.
During the first fortnight, Lavergne related, the guest spent lavishly. Upon examining his account, she found it already formidable. She presented him with the bill; he requested three or four days’ grace, explaining that he awaited remittances from his family. A day or two later, he fell ill. Lavergne had him attended by her own physician, asserting that roughly one hundred francs remained outstanding for these ministrations, which she herself would be obliged to discharge. The debt thus assumed palpable shape: the lodging continued, the reckoning mounted, and the expectation of familial succour was tendered to excuse the delay.
Upon his recovery, the mistress of the house again pressed for settlement. The guest replied that he had still received no word from his family, but proposed to venture forth with his interpreter to procure funds. Lavergne refused to let them depart together. He went out alone and did not return. The gazette mentions neither the exact day of this departure nor the name of the person who traced him. It merely records that, a fortnight later, the landlady discovered his new lodgings in a narrow lane near the church of Saint-Paul. Repairing thither in a carriage with a companion, she brought him back to the hotel, demanding that he either discharge his debt or reveal the address of his family.
According to her deposition, he refused to provide it, flew into a rage, and created a public disturbance. She thereupon summoned a city serjeant and had him taken into custody. Her claim amounted to 966 francs. The chronicle does not itemise this sum entry by entry. The total nevertheless represents the nexus between two divergent accounts: for the landlady, the debt was the inevitable consequence of a residence and expenditures whose tariffs were well known to the guest; for the accused, the chambers, the costs, and his available resources had to be viewed through the lens of an enterprise he claimed to have been actively pursuing.
The presiding judge examined him through an interpreter. He denied ever having announced that he would remain three months, stating rather that he had been advised his business would require as much time. And this business? The exploitation of a process for printing by means of a stamp. The president enquired whether he held a patent. No, he replied, but he held an interest in its exploitation. The distinction proved material at the bar: the gazette records not a patent already granted, but a venture in which the accused claimed a stake. The commercial promise featured in his explanation; its lawful standing remained wholly unproven.
The next witness was the man introduced at the inn as secretary and interpreter. He recounted having met the defendant in Guernsey, at his father’s house, that November. He stated he had seen an English volunteer uniform and heard tales of an opulent family. The accused had allegedly offered to bring him to France as an interpreter and servant at forty francs a week. He spoke, added the witness, of a patent for a wooden stamp designed to mark linen. The witness affirmed that he gave credit to these assurances and accompanied him to Paris. These words establish what the employee claimed to have understood; they do not substantiate the existence of any patent.
The examination returned to the stamp. The defendant described an instrument designed for printing upon wearing apparel, asserting that he had sold one to a M. Dusautoy for twenty-five francs. The witness confirmed this sale. A single detail thus prevented the entire enterprise from being dismissed as a phantom invention: at least one transaction was attested in court, even as the patent demanded by the president proved non-existent. The newspaper did not exhibit the object, nor did it describe any orders or the quality of the impression. It affords no means of ascertaining how far the process might have functioned, recording only that the prisoner employed it to explain his stay, and the witness to explain his employment.
The distinction between servant and partner grew sharper when the bench scrutinised the expenditures. The defendant stated that he had arrived with three hundred francs and had laid them out on tavern meals, apothecary’s draughts, and the hiring of two rooms for himself and his interpreter. The president contrasted this sum with two rooms at eight francs a day, the duration of the sojourn, and the reckoning tendered by the hotel. He enquired how three hundred francs could have been expected to satisfy nine hundred in the space of three weeks. The accused replied that he was ignorant of the price of commodities and had relied upon his interpreter, whom he had taken into partnership.
The interpreter instantly repudiated any such title. He declared he had never been an associate: he had merely followed the defendant upon agreed terms, pursuant to an understanding with the hotel manager, who was to secure him clientele. This divergence touched upon the heart of practical liability. If the man was merely a hireling procured through the establishment, the defendant could hardly transform him into the partner who had administered their outlays. Yet the Gazette published neither articles of agreement nor payment ledgers that might settle the true conditions of this arrangement. It records a resolute denial, not the instruments of a written compact.
Recalled to the bar, Mme Lavergne maintained that the guest had taken the two rooms at eight francs without once enquiring after the tariff. The hotel card, she observed, was printed in both French and English; the rates could not, therefore, have been unknown to him. She added that he had solicited her to procure him orders. Here the two narratives converged without blending: such commercial canvassing was consistent with the projected enterprise, but the landlady insisted it in no way dissolved the obligation to pay for the rooms.
Lastly, Lavergne depicted a style of living which, in her eyes, belied the pleaded penury: the guest bore himself “like a grand seigneur,” drank port wine at eight francs the bottle, and was perfectly cognizant of his daily expenses. This portrait was drawn by a witness with an interest in recovering her debt; it does not suffice, of itself, to prove that every expenditure was designed to defraud the house. Yet it explains why the plea of financial innocence stood so poorly against her testimony: the accused had engaged two rooms, begged for delay, and then slipped from the establishment without returning, notwithstanding that the tariffs hung displayed in both tongues.
A written defence, drafted in English, was translated by the sworn interpreter appointed by the court. The Gazette did not reproduce its text. The reader is thus unable to weigh the document against the verbal replies, or to ascertain what arguments were advanced therein. The report then reverted to the explanation of the name Sloan: the defendant asserted he had borne it for several years, believing such usage to be lawful. He likewise maintained that he was indeed a volunteer and entitled to wear the uniform. The journal records no distinct finding upon these two heads. Nor does it state whether the court deemed the identity of Solomons established by any evidence beyond the letters mentioned by Lavergne.
At the close of the hearing, the tribunal sentenced the prisoner to six months’ imprisonment. The Gazette furnished neither detailed grounds, nor mention of appeal, nor any further account of the invention or the debt. Its report reveals a persona that had grown untenable: a name upon a register, an interpreter whose status was contested, an imaginary family supposed to finance the journey, and finally an unpatented enterprise and an unsettled reckoning. It published neither the letters, nor the written defence, nor the full audit of the 966 francs. The penalty is recorded; the complete reasoning of the court remains shrouded in silence.