The merchant would indeed find a shop at the designated address, but when the debt fell due, the shopkeeper who had ordered the goods was nowhere to be found. A successor would present himself, as though the business had changed hands; the merchandise itself had already vanished. The account of the proceedings on August 14, 1875, thus summarizes the mechanism of a string of swindles attributed to thirteen Auvergnats whom the press styled the “Black Gang” or the “Auvergnat Gang.” The accused appeared to keep retail establishments; wine and coal were delivered to them in bulk, whereupon the shops were emptied and the faces changed.
In the 9th Chamber of the Correctional Tribunal of Paris, under the presidency of M. Thirouin, the dock brought together Battut, Salles, Giroux, Douzel, the widow Jeantot, Goudal, Chabroulais, Causse, Bonnel, the wife Patrice, Rames, the widow Maillard, and Patrice. The newspaper account opened with a derisive remark concerning their origin and dialect; this belongs to the journalist’s prejudices, not to the evidence of the trial. The prosecution, for its part, described temporary establishments, accommodation signatures, and “successors” whose role was to divert the attention of defrauded merchants.
Certain shops did genuinely exist, but only for a fleeting spell; their physical presence reinforced the appearance of security without ensuring that the trade would endure.
According to the report, all save Causse and the widow Jeantot had previous convictions; no particulars are provided here regarding those prior affairs. The defendants also lent one another their signatures and stood surety for each other, which lent the shops an air of financial solidity. The prosecution distinguished several roles, though not every defendant featured in each of the six detailed instances.
The earliest episode recounted in the article dates to September 1874. Battut, already ostensibly established on Rue des Abbesses, in the Passage de l’Arcade, obtained two hogsheads of wine from Quenender. He was to pay cash, reports the newspaper, but immediately sold his business; Giroux became its obliging purchaser. At the same time, Goudal, Chabroulais, and Causse presented themselves as wine merchants at three different addresses: Rue de Clignancourt, Rue de Bellune, and Rue de Provence. Battut introduced them to the same wholesaler, who delivered two hogsheads to each. A portion of the wine supplied to Goudal was carted off that very day by Giroux; Chabroulais sold his trade a few days later, and Causse disappeared.
In November, Battut presented himself to Amberny with a printed invoice bearing the merchant’s address, which he claimed to have received from Pagès. He likewise described himself as a wine and coal merchant and operated, at least momentarily, a shop on Rue des Abbesses. Two hogsheads of wine were delivered. Salles had furnished his signature to give him credit; the promissory note delivered to Amberny was never paid. The operation rested upon few visible elements: a printed address, a shop opened for a season, and a signature that lent credit to him who borrowed it.
On November 1, according to the article, Battut obtained four thousand kilograms of coal from Arnoult. He presented himself at the same shop as a wine and coal dealer. Payment was to be in cash; a pretext delayed it. Two days later, the coal had vanished and the business had been sold. Upon delivery, the supplier believed he was dealing with an established tradesman; at the hour of settlement, nothing remained but an address at which the tradesman was no longer to be found.
In December, the same mechanism took two successive forms at Fouquerolles’s establishment. Douzel introduced Battut as a tavern-keeper and obtained a delivery of four hogsheads of wine on his behalf. Douzel subsequently returned under the name of Jeantot, claiming to keep a shop at No. 40 Rue de la Roquette. The widow Jeantot was then operating a wine shop and restaurant there. He presented Fouquerolles with the wholesaler’s own client ledger and obtained five further hogsheads. The two transactions traded upon the reputation of an existing business and the identity of a merchant who was not the man he purported to be.
The Fontaine affair went beyond a mere delivery of goods. Five defendants—Bonnel, the Patrice spouses, Rames, and the widow Maillard—allegedly conspired in the sale of Fontaine’s wine business at No. 4 Rue Sibour. Patrice presented Bonnel as a wine merchant established on Rue d’Abbeville who also owned a timber yard in Saint-Ouen. He added that Madame Desoil, who was in fact the wife Patrice, was to become Bonnel’s partner and bring capital to the venture. Rames, who was no relation of Bonnel, played the part assigned to him in this scheme. Fontaine agreed to sell the business to Bonnel and Desoil for 2,500 francs.
The price was never paid, according to the prosecution. A few days later, Bonnel staged a resale to the widow Maillard; a fortnight after that, she was supposed to resell the business to Duconseil, who in turn resold it. In the course of these conveyances, Bonnel disappeared. Fontaine lost the value of his business. The succession of proprietors bore the regularity of a legitimate commercial transaction; yet it yielded none of the expected payment. The press report saw in this a case of confederacy, wherein apparent signatures and securities circulated among the very same individuals.
In January 1875, Battut had changed addresses. He presented himself at No. 16 Rue de Trévise, where he had feigned establishing himself after the simulated conveyance of his previous shop. Mérard delivered eighty-five francs’ worth of wine by the liter to him. A few days later, Battut sold the shop to a successor whom the text calls “Donzel,” though it writes “Douzel” in the other instances. The latter presented himself in turn and obtained another sixty-five francs’ worth of wine by the liter. The article does not resolve this discrepancy in the name; it must remain apparent.
These six matters were, wrote the *Gazette*, merely the principal ones. The prosecution’s closing speech reportedly highlighted other analogous facts, and several defendants answered for bankruptcies whose connection to the confederacy appeared more tenuous. The journal stated that the accused did not deny the physical acts, but pleaded their good faith. The public prosecutor maintained the charges; several advocates presented the defense. The report does not detail all the pleadings and does not permit the reconstruction of the debates beyond the passages recorded.
The judgment disentangled the thirteen names joined at the outset. Salles, Chabroulais, Causse, and the widow Maillard were acquitted. Battut received fifteen months’ imprisonment and a fifty-franc fine; Giroux, fifteen months and fifty francs; Douzel, two years; the widow Jeantot, six months; Goudal, three months; the wife Patrice, three months; Rames, three months; Patrice, eight months. As for Bonnel, listed under that spelling among the defendants, the operative holding records “Bonnet”: fifteen months and a fifty-franc fine. This variation should not be smoothed away beneath a certainty not supplied by the text.
The mechanism ascribed to the gang was not so much that of keeping a shop as that of continually supplanting it. A storefront, an invoice, a signature, or the reputation of another merchant served to obtain the delivery; when the supplier returned to collect his payment, the name had changed, and the goods along with it. In court, four defendants were acquitted and nine convicted to diverse penalties. The *Gazette* does not provide the grounds of the judgment; it nevertheless leaves bare, behind every conveyance, the identical question for the merchants: who, precisely, had received the goods, and who was to answer for the debt?