Certain inhabitants of Barcus had devised a singular petition to lay before the magistrates: if the judges could not convict Etchehon, let them at least keep him behind bars. The petition was handed up during the hearings, in the midst of a trial wherein the accused was already reproached for his brawls, his jealousy, his violent temper, and his flight. It produced the very opposite effect of that which its signatories had intended. A man who claimed to be hounded by his enemies now saw them openly demand that their dread should serve as a verdict. In this assize, proof would have to pick its way between two prevailing fears: that of the village, and that of the accused.
The affair had begun on the 1st of May, 1827. Dominique Etchegoyen was returning home from the fair at Oloron. Toward ten o’clock in the evening, near a small bridge close to his dwelling, he caught sight of a flash and was struck down by a gunshot. He made out a man fleeing, took a few more paces, and collapsed. Neighbours heard his cries and ran to his aid. To those who asked who had struck him down, he replied that the darkness had prevented him from recognising the assailant. He repeated this answer before the mayor, and subsequently before the justice of the peace. Etchegoyen survived. His initial deposition offered the investigation not a single name.
He was known to have few enemies. Yet suspicion soon fell upon a friend, Etchehon, for the simple reason that the latter had failed to pay him a sickbed visit. An absence is sometimes enough to draw every eye toward the man who has omitted the expected gesture. Here, it fell upon an already burdensome reputation. Etchehon had previously suffered a conviction for striking a man with an axe; another affair had entangled him in an accusation of uttering counterfeit coin. He squabbled with his kin and suspected his wife of cuckolding him. The neighbours, therefore, had a great deal to say about the man long before they possessed anything to say about the gunshot.
The man whom Etchehon regarded as his rival was named Eguiapal. He dwelt not far from the bridge. On the day of the ambush, Etchehon had reportedly enquired whether Eguiapal was present at the fair; witnesses claimed to have seen him set out in that direction. A sharecropper declared that Etchehon had proposed they murder Eguiapal alongside several others. Lastly, witnesses reported having seen him shaping small pellets of pewter, while projectiles of that very metal were extracted from Etchegoyen’s wounds. These elements suggested a theory that reconciled the victim’s blameless nature with the hatred imputed to the suspect: he had shot the wrong man.
This presumed mistake spread swiftly. It possessed the compelling force of those tales in which every detail finds its place: the fair accounted for the journey, the bridge for the ambush, jealousy for the motive, and friendship for the errant target. Etchehon vanished. His departure cemented the suspicions; he had fled the village just as tongues began to wag. After wandering through the countryside, he found refuge high in the mountains with a shepherd. There he recounted his misfortunes and, according to the chronicle, composed a song in the Basque tongue. Thus did his flight bring forth its own narrative, meant for other ears than those of the magistrates.
The translation preserved by Champagnac gives voice to a man who claims to be persecuted, betrayed in his marriage, and stripped of his worldly goods. The song addresses the rival, evokes a blow intended for one man and received by another, denounces the wife, and concludes by begging forgiveness for the transgressions of all. It is tempting to discern therein the neat confession that would bring order to the case file. Yet a song, even when attributed to the prisoner, remains a literary composition in which a solitary voice distributes the roles. We receive it here through an antiquated translation embedded in a judicial chronicle; it can replace neither a tested deposition nor the explanations offered before the bench.
Etchehon eventually returned to Barcus. Around the time of his return, a house belonging to Eguiapal burned to the ground. The chronicler himself underlines that no circumstance permitted the arson to be laid at Etchehon’s door; public opinion, however, did so without hesitation. The man had become sufficiently tainted for events to assign him authorship the moment he appeared. He was apprehended. While being led away to prison, he crossed paths with Etchegoyen. The latter spoke to him of the clothes Etchehon had worn on the night he had struck him. Etchehon reportedly answered that his old friend knew very well that he bore him no ill will. According to the account, the two men shared a glass of wine before the gendarmes resumed their march.
This encounter did not efface the initial depositions. Etchegoyen had altered his story at the fourth interrogation, asserting this time that he had indeed recognised Etchehon. Why had he kept silent? He explained that, believing himself mortally wounded, he had wished to forgive, unwilling to heap a fresh misfortune upon his own. Such an explanation might stir sympathy, yet it still demanded scrutiny. The selfsame witness had first invoked the pitch darkness, and only later a desire to shield the man he recognised. The defence found here a substantial difficulty, one resolved neither by the friendly gesture of an offered cup nor by the violent reputation of the man who had accepted it.
Before the Assize Court of the Basses-Pyrénées, Etchehon spoke at length. Unversed in the French tongue, he had recourse to imagery and circumlocutions that the court reporter deemed remarkable. He retraced the story of his life, his marriage, his quarrels, and his past affairs, presenting the present charges as the fruits of a concerted enmity. He then delivered a radically different account of the night by the bridge. He had concealed himself, he said, to surprise his wife and Eguiapal at an assignation, in order to secure a legal separation. From that vantage, he claimed to have seen Eguiapal himself, bearing arms and taking aim at the wayfarer who would prove to be Etchegoyen.
He thus denied having fired the shot, turning the accusation squarely upon his rival. He likewise challenged Etchegoyen’s belated change of heart, attributing it to resentment over a rejected marriage proposal. The court was not called upon to crown the finest tale; it had to weigh these assertions like any other. The sharecropper took the stand to repeat that Etchehon had urged him to kill several persons. The accused mocked him, reminding the court of their long-standing feud. When Eguiapal appeared, Etchehon’s fury erupted: he reproached him with usurping his place in the household, and devouring the bread and goods that were his while he lay in a prison cell.
This outburst laid bare the violence of his jealousy. It did not, however, suffice to establish whose hand had held the weapon near the bridge. The villagers’ petition subsequently revealed how far their resolve to keep him at bay could stretch: they demanded his perpetual confinement even should the court find no cause to convict him. The two days of argument weakened the prosecution’s case, according to the chronicle. In particular, it was never established that Etchehon had even possessed a musket. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and he was acquitted amid loud demonstrations of approval from a great portion of the assembled public.
Etchegoyen remained a man grievously wounded by a shot whose author the trial had failed to name. Etchehon walked forth a free man, though the fury displayed in the courtroom had not subsided, nor had his own recriminations been proven true. The chronicler had entitled the affair a case of criminal mistaking; its very conclusion compels us to preserve far greater uncertainty. Therein, perhaps, lies its most compelling interest. A village had believed it knew the truth; a man had sung his own defense; a victim had remade his recollection; the judges were under no obligation to lock a man away merely so that all these discordant voices might reach an orderly close.