On the day following the murder, Ulbach wrote that he was more to be pitied than blamed. On the eve, Aimée Millot had bid a child fetch her mistress. Between these two appeals lay the vast gulf dividing the woman just struck down from the man already demanding that the world comprehend his misery.
The letter would be read before the Assize Court. In it, the murderer acknowledged the girl’s innocence, blamed his own jealousy, and then steered his sentences back toward his childhood, his remorse, and the scaffold awaiting him. Aimée could add nothing to this narrative. To recover what she had desired before she died, one would have to listen to a little goat-herd, a washerman, her mistress turned witness, and even the answers of the man who had refused to let her go.
A Refusal in the Neighbourhood
In May 1827, Ulbach was twenty years old. He worked in the service of Aury, a wine-merchant and caterer, to whose shop Aimée came to deliver eggs. She was a servant in the house of the Widow Detrouville and tended goats along the neighbouring boulevards of Ivry. These employments brought them together; their meetings multiplied. The gazette that would summarize the indictment presented their connection as a violent passion on the young man’s part.
Madame Detrouville opposed this liaison. She impressed its perils upon Aimée, who thereupon informed Ulbach that he must cease to see her. Gifts were returned, according to the depositions of the preliminary investigation recalled by the presiding judge at the hearing. The precise items matter less here than the gesture: that which had been accepted could be surrendered; a relationship once begun could be brought to a close. Ulbach was presented with a decision; he chose to discover in it an insult.
A tall youth, glimpsed in Aimée’s company, soon took the shape of a rival in his suspicions. Before the Assizes, he would admit to having believed this man was loved by her, whilst denying any design of taking vengeance upon him. Madame Detrouville was to supply a far simpler explanation: he was Aimée’s cousin, reared alongside her in her aunt’s home. Nothing permits us to say what Ulbach knew of this kinship. One observes only how jealousy can grant immense stature to a figure before even knowing his name.
The Knife and the Labour
On the 25th of May, Ulbach purchased a knife from an ironmonger. This fact he admitted before the bench after long hesitation. For what purpose was this purchase intended? For work, he replied. The presiding judge confronted him with the statements gathered during the preliminary inquiry: he had then purportedly confessed that the weapon was destined for Aimée. Ulbach insisted that his answers had been misconstrued.
The knife was placed before him. He identified it. The magistrate inquired whether he had tested it by striking a wooden board; he corrected the gesture, claiming merely to have pressed the blade against it. This distinction might seem infinitesimal to a courtroom already acquainted with the murder. Yet it played its part in the dispute over premeditation: the accused sought to invest the object with the utility of an implement, whilst the prosecution saw in it a weapon chosen in advance of the encounter.
Aimée, on that day, had left the house despite the objections of her mistress, who deemed the hour too advanced to drive the goats into the fields. Madame Detrouville would remember this unavailing resistance. She spoke with affection of a modest, well-behaved servant whom she loved singularly. The surviving witnesses know this peculiar torment: rediscovering, in an ordinary word of caution, the last occasion they believed they possessed to avert catastrophe.
The Edge of the Ditch
Aimée was with the little Julienne Saumon when Ulbach accosted them near the Rue Croulebarbe. The account published in Liège records that the child heard the two young people speaking with animation, without comprehending what they said. A storm was gathering; Julienne urged her companion to turn back.
According to her deposition, Ulbach dragged Aimée to the edge of a ditch, felled her with a blow of his fist, and then struck her repeatedly with the knife. The child reported that Aimée bade her go fetch Madame. She was sent to raise the alarm in the very house where, but moments earlier, they had sought to hold the girl back.
Alexandre, a washerman, heard a cry and saw Ulbach take to flight. When he drew near to Aimée, he questioned her. She half-opened her eyes; he caught sight of a tear and received no answer. Her head lay in the rut, her blood mingling with the rainwater. The summary of the indictment placed her death after the passage of an hour, recording that several thrusts had reached the lungs.
The account of the child and that of the washerman suffice: a young girl still able to cry out for aid, followed by a presence that no longer responds. Around her, the daily toil continued to exist—the goats, the house, the mistress who must be warned; not one of these familiar bonds could call her back.
The Murderer’s Letters
Ulbach wrote to Aimée on the very day of the assault. At trial, the presiding judge read this missive and presented to him the ring it enclosed—a ring he had received from her and was returning. Then came the letter of the following day to young Champenois. This time, the words left no ambiguity as to what he acknowledged having done: he had murdered an innocent woman.
He invoked his jealousy, spoke of insufferable remorse, and pleaded for tears of compassion. In the space of a few lines, the innocence of the woman he had slain became the mere point of departure for the misfortune over which he lamented. This was no absence of confession. It was a confession wherein the victim already risked forfeiting her place.
Another letter contained threats directed against Madame Detrouville. The reading of it visibly unsettled the accused, according to the gazette, which depicted him casting dark glances throughout the assembly. The reporter believed he was searching for Aimée’s mistress. Let us keep this observation within its proper bounds: one could perceive his glances; one could not know with certainty what they pursued.
Surrendering to the Commissaire
On the 3rd of June, while the police were seeking his hideout, Ulbach presented himself before Commissaire Roger. He inquired after particulars regarding the murder of the shepherd-girl of Ivry, and thereupon declared himself the perpetrator of the crime. He named the dealer from whom he had bought the knife and explained that he had wandered by day, sleeping by night in furnished lodgings.
Why had he come? He declared he had read in a newspaper that another young man had been arrested. He did not wish to add to his crime the ignominious death of an innocent soul. This was the motive he offered, recorded in the summary of the indictment; it authorizes us neither to invent the fate of that other man, nor to transform the surrender into an act of atonement. Aimée was dead. Ulbach had come only to render his own trial possible.
The Courtroom and the Verdict
On the 27th of July, the Seine Assize Court heard the case before a packed hall. Ulbach answered in so faint a tone that the jurors could scarcely hear him. He acknowledged the blows, disputed the intentions imputed to him, and occasionally set forgetfulness against the earlier statements read back to him. When Madame Detrouville had finished speaking, he answered merely that he had nothing to add.
The Advocate General de Broë sustained the accusation. Charles Duez, for the defence, sought above all to dismantle the charge of premeditation: he invoked an amorous frenzy that had supposedly robbed the prisoner of his reason. This was a line of defence, not a clinical diagnosis we might adopt as our own.
The jury found Ulbach guilty; the court condemned him to death. The account of September would specify that premeditation had been upheld. This same journal recalled how much persuasion had been required to bring him to lodge an appeal in cassation. He who had already written of his scaffold must now endeavour to escape it.
What Remained to Await
At Bicêtre, his counsel and the chaplain visited him. Ulbach stated that he could die without regret since Aimée was no more; yet he confessed that he still harboured thoughts of his future. He begged forgiveness by letter of his former master and of Madame Detrouville. He undertook the narrative of his life, only to tear up the opening page. The Gazette celebrated his return to religion; the steps taken are duly recorded, but the exact measure of his contrition is not ours to judge.
In September, following the rejection of his appeal, he was conducted to the Conciergerie. During the preparations, his knees buckled, and he pressed a handkerchief moistened with vinegar to his face. His hands were bound. A crowd awaited him; the reporter observed tears among them. At the foot of the scaffold, he prayed, then ascended. A hush fell over the throng, as though an address were expected. He uttered none. He was executed.
His silence did not efface the words he had written. But one may close his file by returning to that other appeal, the one remembered by a child: Aimée was asking that someone fetch Madame. She was not seeking to make the world understand a destiny. She was still seeking help.