When the neighbors reached the door, their instinct was to shame the husband. Screams echoed from within the lodging, and Pierre Ferret, so they presumed, was in the midst of beating his wife. She, in truth, was elsewhere. The man they stood berating was struggling to draw sufficient breath to cry for help, while an assailant rained down blows upon him with a hammer. The misunderstanding endured but a few moments; it might well have cost him his life. Through the heavy timber, Ferret had first to disabuse his rescuers: he was striking no one—he was being murdered.
He was sixty-two years of age; his wife, twenty-eight. This disparity was quite enough for the chronicler of 1833 to explain in advance the misfortunes of the household; it does not exempt us from examining the facts. A former mason, Ferret labored in Paris and had, since October 1811, rented lodgings in Puteaux. Marguerite-Aubierge Parez, his wife, resided there alongside a servant girl, Denise Lavé. He was accustomed to joining them at the week’s end. This household, divided between two abodes, had its settled routines, its expected visits, and its grievances over money. It was from the fabric of these ordinary circumstances that a snare was laid.
On Monday, February 17, 1812, Denise came to seek Ferret in Paris. Her mistress complained of not having seen him during the preceding two days; she was ailing and in want of money. Ferret possessed but a single fifteen-sol piece. He entrusted it to the maidservant, promising to arrive that very evening. He kept his word, reaching Puteaux before nightfall, shortly before Denise herself returned. His wife received him coldly, rehearsed her grievances anew, and bade the stove be lit. Thereupon, she dispatched the servant to fetch a candle, while she herself went out under the pretext of delivering a mended pair of trousers to a certain Lenormand.
The husband remained alone—or so he believed. Waiting in vain for either woman to return, he resolved to go out and meet them. As he crossed the apartment, he heard a closet door swing open. A man burst forth and struck him down. Ferret later declared that he had recognized Charles Homo by his voice, and subsequently by the fur-trimmed cap he felt while defending himself. The name was not unfamiliar to him: rumors had reached his ears regarding an intrigue between this man and his wife. In the fury of the struggle, there was no longer any question of verifying gossip. It was merely a matter of preventing the other from finishing his work.
Ferret cried out, fought back, and bit the hand pressed hard against his mouth. The assailant attempted also to strangle him; the cravat wrapped around his neck offered, according to the chronicle, a measure of protection that helped preserve his life. The outcries finally reached the landlord, Pouthaux. Well aware of the rumors whispered in the neighborhood, he drew his immediate conclusion: the husband was surely maltreating his wife. He sent his own wife and daughter to see what was amiss. A neighbor, Meunier, accompanied them. They heard a man begging for mercy. Yet the very first word addressed to Ferret was still a reproach.
His desperate reply shattered that presumption. Meunier threw his weight against the bolted door. It yielded partially, but the hammer, wedged beneath it, initially prevented it from opening wide enough. By the light of the candle borne by Madame Pouthaux, he caught sight of a man scrambling toward the window and fleeing across the rooftops. With renewed effort, they forced their way inside. Ferret knelt upon the floor, drenched in blood, beside a shelf beneath which he had crawled for shelter. Help had arrived; it had arrived only after those who offered it were forced to abandon what they thought they knew of the house.
Meanwhile, Marguerite lingered at Lenormand’s. She had maintained that her husband was not in Puteaux. Denise joined her there, and the two returned together. Outside the lodging, a gathering crowd informed her that Ferret had been taken to the mayor’s residence. There, the wounded man denounced her, accusing her of having orchestrated her absence and that of the servant to afford Homo his opportunity. She fainted away. The mayor then escorted the couple back to their dwelling, inspected the scene, and saw that the husband received medical attention; he ordered the arrest of both Marguerite and Denise. The latter had carried the message and run the errands. This placed her in the orbit of the events, without in itself establishing that she was privy to the plot.
The man glimpsed at the window could not linger long upon the roofs. At approximately the moment of his flight, a neighbor, Madame Guilbert, returning with a lantern, encountered Homo upon the landing of her house. She cried out; he bade her hold her tongue, then vanished. She placed this encounter at half-past six. For his part, he made his way to Suresnes, showed himself at a wigmaker’s shop, then at a wine merchant’s, and secured lodgings for the night. On the morrow, he sought to labor alongside his host at a farrier’s forge. The gendarmerie was already on his trail; he was arrested that same day, February 18.
Teeth marks and a laceration to the finger were noted upon his left hand. Ferret had recounted the bite he dealt his attacker; the apprehended hand bore the undeniable imprint. Homo nevertheless offered an alibi. He claimed to have departed Puteaux at half-past five, reached Suresnes toward six, and retired to bed around seven. The testimony of Madame Guilbert could hardly be reconciled with this early departure. The defense was left attempting to reconcile two hours that stood obstinately apart, while the physical injuries bound the prisoner’s flesh to the combat described by the survivor.
Denise spoke as well. She recounted her mistress’s remarks concerning her husband’s age, regarding Homo, and the prospect of wedding him once Ferret was dead. She further revealed that Marguerite, held in custody beside her, had threatened her should she dare disclose their affair. The admissions, followed by the retractions, of the two principal accused complicated the preliminary examination. To acknowledge an illicit liaison was not equivalent to admitting an attempted murder; the question remained as to who had resolved upon, prepared, and executed the assault. The maidservant supplied words; the layout of the scene, the witnesses, and the marks of violence provided the rest.
On the eve of the Assize trial, Homo summoned the presiding magistrate and confessed to the facts. He maintained his confession before the judges, while contending that Marguerite had incited him to the crime, plied him with drink, and furnished the hammer. His advocate argued that he had acted under an overpowering influence that deprived him of true free will, disputing the charge of premeditation. Marguerite was defended by the young advocate Mérilhou. Homo’s narrative was thus more than a confession; it apportioned the blame and sought to diminish his own. The jury would retain certain elements of it and discard another.
After several hours of deliberation, the jury declared Homo guilty of attempted murder with premeditation and lying in wait, while acknowledging the existence of an external influence. They found Marguerite guilty as an accomplice for having given instructions and facilitated the execution; they did not find that she had provided the hammer. The distinction appears slight, yet it forbids mistaking the condemned man’s self-serving narrative for the established truth of the verdict. On May 22, 1812, both were sentenced to death. The Court of Cassation annulled the judgment on grounds of a procedural defect, and the cause was remitted to the court at Versailles.
The second trial concluded, on July 27, with a renewed sentence of capital punishment. Champagnac subsequently notes the execution of both convicts, though without recording the precise date. Ferret had survived; the record remains one of an attempt, notwithstanding the sentence of death pronounced against its authors. It endures, above all, as the tale of a man whose desperate cry was misconstrued before it was truly heard. The neighbors had carried to his very threshold a ready-made conviction. They saved his life only at the moment they finally consented to let it fall away.