The judicial seals had been affixed at the domicile of Nicolas Courtois, known as Dupré, an old-clothes dealer, upon sundry effects belonging to private individuals. He broke them. A female neighbour remonstrated that he was running a terrible hazard; he retorted that he was master in his own house, and that, moreover, he would restore the seals whenever he pleased.
He carried off the valuables: a pair of gold earrings, a gold cross, a tortoiseshell knife mounted in gold, garter-buckles, sleeve-buttons, and silver clasps. In their stead, he substituted trifles of far lesser worth. He parted with the earrings to a female citizen for fifteen livres, and had a quantity of furniture, notably pier-glasses, removed to his brother’s lodgings.
The neighbourhood denounced him roundly to the police commissioner of the Section de la Réunion. When that magistrate arrived, Courtois had only just taken to his heels; he was overtaken and seized.
His defence deserves to be recounted in full, for it possesses a certain admirable quality of sheer invention. He was not, he declared, the keeper of the seals. The guilty party was a certain Martin, a volunteer now away with the army. This Martin had effects under the seals, articles indispensable for his departure; three times had he presented himself at the Section to urge their removal, and three times had he been bade to wait. He had therefore arrived one evening at ten o'clock, hewed the armoire to splinters with his sabre, paid Courtois fifteen livres that he owed him, and carried off his belongings.
As for the looking-glasses, Courtois had merely had them borne to the Rue Plâtrière, then to the Rue de la Jussienne, and sold them for one hundred and fifty livres to a countryman whose name and abode were alike unknown to him. The furniture conveyed to his brother belonged to his lodgers. He had fully intended to denounce Martin to his Section, but grief had unseated his judgment; to divert his mind, he had taken to drink, and wine had put his reason to flight.
They went in search of Martin; the jury, for their part, had no need of finding him. They found that Courtois had maliciously broken the seals, and abstracted the jewels with intent to steal. The tribunal sentenced him to eleven years in irons, following six hours on the pillory.
Of Martin, volunteer of the armies of the Republic, none can say whether he ever drew breath. Yet one envisions him still, in the ragman’s testimony: appearing at ten of the night, sabre in fist, paying his debts, and setting out anew for the frontier—the finest character in the entire affair, and the only one no eye ever beheld.
Gazette des nouveaux tribunaux, Criminal Tribunal of the Department of Paris: the case of Nicolas Courtois, known as Dupré, breaking of judicial seals.