On April 10, 1825, Paul-Louis Courier departed his country house to inspect his lands in the woods of Larçay. He did not return that evening. The following day, searches conducted around Véretz led to the discovery of his body. The first trial opened upon physical exhibits that appeared to point toward a domestic servant: lead was missing from a pipe found in the bedchamber of Louis Frémont, and the gun wad was fashioned from a newspaper Courier received, a specific issue of which was absent from Frémont's room. Yet this convergence failed to convince the jury. Nearly five years later, a young woman would assert that she had witnessed the murder; in the interval, the principal accused had already secured his acquittal.
Courier had been killed by a discharge from a shotgun or pistol in the small of his back. The body was discovered three-quarters of a league from his house, within the forest of his own estate. The post-mortem examination recovered the projectiles and paper fragments; no firearm lay beside him. Frémont, one of the domestic servants, was taken into custody. The inquest linked the lead extracted from the corpse to the missing portion of a pipe in his quarters. The wadding fragments matched an issue of the Feuilleton littéraire, dated August 13, 1824, devoted to the works of Jouy. In Frémont’s lodging, the issues for August 12, 14, and 15 were found; that of August 13 was wanting. To this was added a threatening utterance reportedly made on the morning of the crime.
The court of 1825 heard voices other than those of material exhibits. Madame Courier, twenty-two years of age, stated that she had arrived after the murder and had immediately suspected Frémont, in whom she had nonetheless once placed her trust. Her husband had wished to dismiss his gamekeeper, whose violent conduct and drunkenness were well known to him; the widow claimed to have protected him until then. Her testimony was marked by an earlier incident: Pierre Dubois, a dismissed former carter, had been observed near the house one night; Courier had subsequently come down into the courtyard with a gun and discovered his wife standing by the stable. She explained that she had been awaiting the servants' return and had conversed with Dubois for only a few minutes. She maintained that her suspicions concerning the murder fell upon Frémont alone.
Pierre Dubois and his brother Symphorien had already fallen under suspicion. They had been released after establishing that they were at their father’s home throughout the day of April 10. Pierre, however, had been driven from the estate following rumours regarding his relations with Madame Courier and an altercation with his master. Another deposition stated that a dark-haired man clad in a white smock had spoken with hostility of Courier six days before his death. Two witnesses also recalled a man in blue carrying a gun through the woods on the day of the crime; they did not recognize Frémont.
The prosecution was obliged to knit together these depositions, the comparisons of lead and newsprint, the strained relations between master and keeper, and the conduct of Madame Courier. The King's prosecutor insisted that the crime would not go unpunished regardless of the jury's verdict, yet his discourse left much in shadow. Counsel for Frémont contested the evidence, observing that the accused had no apparent motive to slay a master who had retained him in his service. He turned directly to Madame Courier, urging her to reconsider her conviction. The jury answered the question of guilt in the negative. On September 3, 1825, Frémont was acquitted.
Pierre and Symphorien Dubois were likewise set at liberty, the charges against them being deemed insufficient at that juncture. Yet the proceedings did not rest in the public mind. In December 1829, fresh charges were brought against Frémont and the Dubois brothers; François Arrault and Martin Boutet were implicated as well. However, the initial acquittal precluded any further prosecution of Frémont. As for Symphorien, he had died in 1827. The resumption of the inquiry thus did not open the same doors for every accused man.
What impelled the second docket forward was an offhand remark concerning a horse that had taken fright near the monument raised on the spot where Courier was killed. During the grape harvest, the young girl Grivault was working at Les Tartres. Sent to fetch rye at Le Chêne-Pendu, she rode past the monument and remarked upon her return that her mount had been as terrified as she herself had been when Monsieur Courier was slain. Her master demanded that she explain herself. Grivault then recounted that she had been in the woods of Larçay on April 10, 1825, in the company of a young man, within a thicket where the heather afforded concealment. She claimed to have seen Courier arrive with Frémont, who bore a gun, and Symphorien Dubois. According to her account, Dubois threw Courier to the ground and Frémont fired.
Grivault further maintained that she saw Pierre Dubois, Arrault, Boutet, and an unrecognised fourth man join the first two. Frémont, she related, had told them that Courier was dead and that they must disperse. She added that the three men had kept watch before the deed. The magistrates were unable to trace the young man said to have accompanied her. Honoré Veillaud denied ever having entered the woods with her, denouncing her as a liar. Frémont then acknowledged having fired the fatal shot, while denying that he had met with the other men she had named. Pierre Dubois denied all allegations concerning himself; Grivault held firm in her identification of Boutet and Arrault.
Frémont ultimately declared that he had indeed fired the shot, but insisted he had done so under duress, to prevent Pierre and Symphorien Dubois from taking his own life. He corroborated several details of Grivault's narrative, while continuing to deny any rendezvous with the other men she mentioned. This confession could not overturn the judgment that had already acquitted him. Madame Courier, also implicated by Frémont, was discharged after preliminary examination and did not attend the new trial, residing at the time near the Swiss border. Justice could not treat her as an accused party upon the sole word of the former gamekeeper.
The assize opened on June 9, 1830, and lasted six days. Grivault reiterated her deposition; Veillaud persisted in his denials. Frémont was repeatedly summoned to the bar; according to the chronicle, he trembled and appeared profoundly debilitated. His wife testified that he had refused all food for several days. The girl Grivault and the prisoners were thus brought face to face once more, but the jurors were tasked with judging only those men then under indictment, resting upon testimony of contested reliability and an account that set several figures upon the stage.
On June 14, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty for Pierre Dubois, Arrault, and Boutet; the court acquitted them and decreed their immediate release. This verdict resolved neither the contradictions between Grivault, Frémont, and the prisoners, nor did it undo the prior acquittal of Frémont. Three days later, a civil judgment ordered Frémont to pay ten thousand francs in damages to Courier’s children. On June 18, he died. The post-mortem reported no trace of poison, attributing his demise to an apoplexy resulting from cerebral fever. Champagnac conjectured that the strain of the trial had brought on this affliction; this remains an opinion of the chronicler, not a medical conclusion established in the chapter.
The affair thus left behind several irreconcilable rulings: Frémont was acquitted in 1825 and could not be tried anew; the Dubois brothers were first liberated, whereupon Pierre was re-indicted before being acquitted alongside Arrault and Boutet in 1830; Madame Courier was cleared of all charges. Frémont confessed to firing the shot, yet offered a justification that cast guilt upon other men. The belated testimony of Grivault implicated several individuals, but the jury acquitted all three men tried in 1830. The chronicle closes upon a death certified to be free of poison, and upon a burden of guilt that repeated proceedings, despite every renewal, could never transform into a conviction against the acquitted men.