The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (14 page)

‘Do not let yourself be beguiled by the beauty of this unnatural mother,’ he bellowed, ‘the rose laurel is imbrued with a cunning poison, beauty is often only the veil of treachery. Do not let yourself be taken in, gentlemen of the jury, it is your duty to set an example and so discourage the rise in the number of infanticides. Gentlemen, justice requires you to show no mercy!’

Apolline’s lawyer conducted the defence with unusual skill. His plea in mitigation would have wrung tears from a tiger, but the jury was unmoved and the prosecutor replied in the most savage manner.

When poor Apolline had gathered her senses, she stood up abruptly and, pointing her finger at the prosecutor, M. de l’Argentière, cried out:

‘That is the man! That is the man who raped me! I recognise his voice. That is the man of whom we are speaking! That is the man I saw in the moonlight, sallow-faced, red-haired, hollow-eyed …’

Then, bursting into tears, she began to howl at him.

‘The girl is demented,’ M. de l’Argentière remarked coldly, and his gloomy physiognomy presented not the slightest trace of emotion.

‘Take the accused away,’ ordered the judge. ‘Gentlemen of the jury, it is time for you to retire and deliberate on your verdict.’

After a quarter of an hour, the jury returned with a positive reply to all the questions that had been put to them. The judge delivered the sentence which condemned Apolline to the supreme penalty.

She listened to the sentence with dignity and, turning towards the public prosecutor, said only:

‘Those who send others to the guillotine are those who deserve to be sent themselves.’

Her counsel, distraught at the verdict, took her into his arms and hugged her, much to the scandal of the court, who enquired whether she requested leave to appeal.

‘Yes,’ Apolline replied, ‘but only before the court of God.’

The next morning a priest was sent to administer the sacraments and he stayed with her the rest of the day. She naïvely recounted the story of her life, and the poor man began to weep desperately so convinced was he of her innocence. He called her a poor martyr and kissed her as one kisses a reliquary. He dared not speak of the justice and goodness of his God, so greatly had Apolline’s fate compromised His providence.

At four o’clock the jailer came in to tell her they were waiting. She prepared herself and came down, supporting her confessor.

The cart immediately moved off. It looked as if the entire population of Paris had packed itself into the streets between the Palais-de-Justice and the Grève. The houses on both sides of the road were crammed with spectators avid to catch a glimpse of her. The news spread in waves through the throng: ‘There she is! There she is!’

How beautiful she seemed on top of the tumbrel. Unhappy Apolline! What dignity she had! What resignation! Her skin was whiter than the gown that covered her, and her hair blacker than the cassock of the priest weeping beside her. She cast her eyes wearily over the crowd. Haggard old women shook their fists at her, sentimental young men blew her a kiss. At last, the cart pulled on to the Grève. Climbing the ladder to the scaffold, Apolline caught sight of the face of M. de l’Argentière staring coldly at her from a window. She uttered a long scream of horror and sank helpless into the arms of one of the executioner’s assistants. The crowd surged and shouted all around her. Rain started to fall. ‘Stop blocking the view with your umbrellas! We can’t see anything from back here!’ voices shouted on every side. ‘Your umbrellas! Your umbrellas!’ a chorus of women’s voices joined in. ‘We can’t see anything!’

The throng, standing on tiptoe, craned its neck.

As the blade fell, there was a muffled clamour; and an Englishman, leaning out of a window he had rented for 500 francs, uttered a long
Very well!
as he clapped his hands.
⁹

  
1
   
Vignola.
Celebrated Renaissance architect whose
Traité des cinq ordres
was still taught to architecture students, whose ranks had included Borel but a few years earlier, in the 1830s.

  
2
   
Venninx.
Dutch painter, celebrated for his still-lifes. Borel has corrupted his name slightly.

  
3
   
Watteau … Oudry.
Borel praises an eclectic group ranging from painters to landscape gardeners: Antoine Watteau (1684–1721); Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743); Carle Van Loo (1705–1765); André Le Nôtre (1613–1713); Hyacinthe Rigault (1659–1743); François Boucher (1703–1770); Edelinck (1640–1707); and the eighteenth-century painter of animals Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

  
4
   
Hampden.
In fact, Sir John Hampden (1594–1643), who was brought to trial during the reign of James I for refusing to pay the Ship Money levy.

  
5
   
Père Duchêne
. Revolutionary journal noted for its virulence.

  
6
   
Lucretia
. i.e. Lucretia Borgia (1480–1519), doubly celebrated for her beauty and her murderous proclivities.

  
7
   
Father Cassandre
. Harlequin’s traditional role was as valet to Cassandre.

  
8
   
La Bourbe.
A lying-in hospital of dreadful reputation. In
The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman
, Jules Janin wrote: ‘At the Bourbe misery engenders misery, prostitution engenders prostitution, crime engenders crime. The children brought into the world on its wretched beds have no other inheritance to expect but the hulks or the scaffold.’ (Ch. XXVI).

  
9
   
An Englishman
. Mario Praz, in
The Romantic Agony
(1933), traces the legend of the sadistic Englishman in French Romanticism back to George Selwyn (1710–1791). Indeed, Selwyn is said to have travelled to France in 1757 to see the execution of Damians. On being asked by a French nobleman whether he was the executioner, he apparently replied: ‘No, sir, I do not have that honour. I am merely an enthusiast!’

… Meanwhile, the clerk remained in the tavern, seething with rage.

He overheard a couple of soldiers telling each other that some of the villagers had seen the brigands carrying one of their ringleaders, killed in a skirmish, to the cemetery. According to what was said, it was none other than Jehan Charrot. They had hidden the body in a grave to stop it being exhibited on the gallows at Montfaucon.

Olivier took in all these details avidly, without missing a single one; then he decided that he would make his way to the cemetery, unearth the body, and claim the reward that the Provost of Paris had offered to anyone who handed over, dead or alive, a member of the vast gang known as the
Mauvais Garçons
. To put this charming scheme into operation though, he decided to wait until sunset – which, with the greatest impatience, is just what he proceeded to do.

As soon as it was dark, the covetous clerk, equipped with a pickaxe, rope, and a short ladder, started to make his way towards the cemetery. He stole out of the miserable huddle of thatched cottages which was all the village of Bourget comprised, looking over his shoulder to make sure that nobody had spotted him. Silence reigned over all those peaceful dwelling; the only sounds to be heard were the muffled rattle of stones under his feet, the whistle of the biting cold wind, and the plaintive bark that was transmitted from each dog safely locked up in a farmyard to the next, alternating with the screech of owls. Not a star was anywhere to be seen; great, low clouds flitted across the sky, occasionally uncovering the white cusp of the moon, and plunging the earth in turn into shadow or light.

At last, after having skirted the darkened walls of a tiny chapel, he reached the cemetery. It was merely a small plot of land adjoining the church and enclosed by crumbling walls made of stone and mud. The entrance was barred by a wooden gate, the key to which never left the sexton’s pocket. By day, it was possible to read a charming Latin inscription, full of the consolations of religion and spelling mistakes; by night, all that could be seen was a tiny wooden cross, crudely hewn and fixed to the lintel, and which stood out ominously in the moon light.

The weakling first tried to break down the door with his spade, but gave up after a few attempts for fear that the noise would attract attention, and consequently, that he would be prevented from carrying through his project. So, instead, he mounted his ladder at the lowest point in the wall, straddled the summit, and, after pitching his pickaxe and rope into the sinister enclosure, let himself down on the other side.

He blew in his hands and waited for the beating of his heart to subside, though he was trembling less from fear than from the exertions of getting over the wall. Then off he went, pickaxe in hand, back bent double, eyes and nose scanning the ground like a dog following a scent, trampling all over the hallowed land with an ungodly lack of concern, desecrating the last remains of those poor villagers for whom a simple wooden cross adorned by greenery was their only memorial.

Eventually, by the corner in the wall, he came across some freshly turned earth and stopped … Three strokes of his pickaxe were all that were needed to bring an enormous head to the surface: it was that of the brigand. Olivier, trembling at the sight of it, stooped down, and when he had identified it beyond doubt, broke out into a laugh so low and sinister that it seemed to come more from the lips of the corpse than from his own …

‘Ho! ho! Now I’ve got you, you villain,’ he muttered, spitting into his hands all the better to grip his pickaxe. ‘Now I’ve got you, my beauty, buried though you may be in consecrated ground, just like an honest man; this is no place for the likes of you, friend Charrot – you should have been left to rot hanging in the open air at Montfaucon.

‘Come on, come on. Let’s be having you out of this grave as smartly as possible! … No more amorous shenanigans for you; nor will you be getting your thieving fingers on anyone else’s money – not where you’re going. Here you come, here you come!

‘A thousand devils take you! What a weight you are, you old rascal!’

The whole body was now uncovered, and Olivier started to drag it by the arms.

When he reached the point in the wall where the ladder was planted, he stood it straight and attached the rope around the waist. At that moment, a shaft of moonlight broke out from behind the clouds, bathing the mossy stones in the wall and the hideous face of the bandit, which had become fixed in the rictus of death, in a pallid glow.

Olivier laughed to himself and swore:

‘By the belly of Saint Yves, friend Charrot, nobody could have wished to find an uglier mug than mine tonight! … Somehow though, matey, you’ve managed to go one better than me … All I ask of you is that once you reach hell, you hide yourself behind a thousand devils, or under Proserpina’s petticoats – she’s used to it … The more I look at you, chum, the more admiration I have for the blow which has left such a lovely expression on your face … The only thing that niggles me a bit is that I wish it had been mine … Frankly, present circumstances notwithstanding, I wouldn’t half have minded getting even with you, squaring up the account, so to speak, for all the knocks and blows you and your cronies bestowed on me … Don’t think I’ve forgotten them … Any more than I have all those beautiful pieces of gold you’ve cheated me out of at dice, you old sharper! … Well, it’s my turn now! He who laughs last laughs loudest! You can’t get away this time. I’m banking on your hide bringing me in twice as much as all my losses and knocks … A nice little legacy you’ve left me – thirty pieces of silver, no sweat! Thirty? Should get at least that. Cash down, you old skinflint. Bit of moonlighting tonight, tomorrow we’ll be painting Montfaucon red …’

Still laughing, chattering away to himself, and speculating about the size of the reward offered by the Provost of Paris, the clerk had once again mounted the steps of his ladder. Straddling the top of the wall, he pulled over the ladder; then, with one foot on the top rung and his chest pressed against the wall, he got down to the work of hauling up the heavy, inert body.

Nothing could be more laborious than this operation.

Olivier was trying, with no assistance other than that of his own meagre strength, to raise a giant. Great drops of perspiration fell from his body while he swore for all he was worth. Pull as hard as he liked, the rope, with nothing to check it, slipped through his hands, and the bandit fell back on the other side with a thud. At last, he hit on the idea of wrapping the rope several times around his own shoulders and neck to serve as a counterpoise. This system worked marvellously. He had already lifted Jehan Charrot off the ground, and the enormous head was on a level with his own, above the top of the wall; all he had to do now was to keep his balance, lay the body flat on the top of the wall, and let it down the other side.

Suddenly, Olivier heard a strange noise. He immediately turned his head in the direction it came from, lost his footing, and the ladder started to shift from under him. Trying to retain his hold, he let go of his load, and the rope became tighter and tighter round his neck which was caught in one of the loops. The weight of the body, which had fallen to the ground, held the motionless and perfectly lifeless body of the clerk suspended in mid-air. He had been strangled; the dead had hanged the living.

We are in Spain. There still lingered a smell of incense in a church, its source a thurible swung about two magnificent corpses. In all the naves there was still to be heard the fluttering of the voices that had followed them to their end; the holy water had not yet settled in its fonts; the bells had been scarcely lulled after tolling at their loudest, when two small side doors, directly facing one another in this church, were opened at the same moment, and a man and a woman entered through each of them, each proceeding towards the choir. But when they saw one another they stopped, fell on one knee, and lowered their heads as if in contemplation. They knew one another; it was not chance that brought them to the same place and made them act the same way.