Maître Tronson du Coudray, pleading for the widow, distilled the cause into a single tableau: a shepherd at the head of his clergy, robed in sacerdotal vestments, amidst a numerous flock, in the solemn apparatus of one of the most august offices of his ministry, outraging the memory of a departed nobleman to whom he was rendering the last duties.
The deceased was Louis-Auguste de Clervaux, knight, Lord of L’Houmelière. The pastor was the Sieur de Monclaud, curé of the parish of Augé. Between the two men, discord had festered for years; the nobleman and his kin had suffered at the priest’s hands, so counsel declared, every species of affront of which a fractious and sullen nature is capable.
The Sieur de Clervaux had long languished in sickness; his condition worsened from day to day; yet the curé allowed him to expire without a single pastoral visit. According to his last wishes, the body was to lie two days unburied, and thence be conveyed to the neighboring parish of La Chapelle-Bâton, the service having been performed at Augé.
The widow sent word entreating the curé to come receive the body; he consented only after protracted recalcitrance. Toward eleven in the morning, the cortege set forth, attended by the family and a great concourse of people. Upon reaching the bounds of the parish of La Chapelle-Bâton, the Sieur de Monclaud handed over the body to the local curé, the Sieur d’Argenton. In lieu of the customary compliments, he addressed him in Latin: “Dearest brother, into thy hands I deliver the fetid body of my bitter enemy; God grant that in death he work thee not as much ill as he devised against me in life.”
The widow lodged a complaint, in her own name and on behalf of her minor children, before the judge of Saint-Maixent. The curé admitted the essential facts, save for the word “fetid,” which he denied having uttered, though several witnesses, it was said, had distinctly heard it. At first he took refuge in hair-splitting over the meaning of his words, then retracted them by an instrument executed before notaries, and pronounced a recantation from the pulpit; this very apology he now sought to advance as a defense against the widow. The judge of Saint-Maixent remitted the parties to a plenary hearing; the Dame de Clervaux appealed.
The records of the suit do not tell who among the peasants following the bier understood Latin. But the Curé d’Argenton understood it well enough; and translated it must have been, for the scandal to reach the ears of the bench.
Gazette des tribunaux, 1777, case of the Dame de Clervaux against the Sieur de Monclaud, Curé of Augé (ruling of the Judge of Saint-Maixent of January 10, 1777, on appeal).