“The conformity of opinion on this subject between Madame de la Chanterie and her daughter, and the daughter’s suitor, was one of the determining reasons of the marriage.
“The friend of the husband had commanded a body of Chouans at the time that hostilities were renewed in 1799; and it seems that the baron’s object (Madame de la Chanterie’s son-in-law was a baron) in fostering the intimacy between his wife and his friend was to obtain, through her influence, certain succor from that friend.
“This requires a few words of explanation,” said Monsieur Alain, interrupting his narrative, “about an association which in those days made a great deal of noise. I mean the ‘Chauffeurs.’[*] Every province in the west of France was at that time more or less overrun with these ‘brigands,’ whose object was far less pillage than a resurrection of the royalist warfare. They profited, so it was said, by the great number of ‘refractories,’ — the name applied to those who evaded the conscription, which was at that time, as you probably know, enforced to actual abuse.
[*] Chauffeurs. This name applies to royalists who robbed
the mail-coaches conveying government funds, and levied
tribute on those who bought the confiscated property of
emigres at the West. When the Thermidorian reaction began,
after the fall of Robespierre, other companies of royalists,
chiefly young nobles who had not emigrated, were formed at
the South and East under various names, such as “The
Avengers,” and “The Company of Jehu,” who stopped the
diligences containing government money, which they
transmitted to Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the
royalist troops. They regarded this as legitimate warfare,
and were scrupulous not to touch private property. When
captured, however, they were tried and executed as
highwaymen. — TR.
“Between Mortagne and Rennes, and even beyond, as far as the banks of the Loire, nocturnal expeditions were organized, which attacked, especially in Normandy, the holders of property bought from the National domain.[*] These armed bands sent terror throughout those regions. I am not misleading you when I ask you to observe that in certain departments the action of the laws was for a long time paralyzed.
[*] The National domain was the name given to the
confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from
time to time at auction to the highest bidder. — TR.
“These last echoes of the civil war made much less noise than you would imagine, accustomed as we are now to the frightful publicity given by the press to every trial, even the least important, whether political or individual. The system of the Imperial government was that of all absolute governments. The censor allowed nothing to be published in the matter of politics except accomplished facts, and those were travestied. If you will take the trouble to look through files of the ‘Moniteur’ and the other newspapers of that time, even those of the West, you will not find a word about the four or five criminal trials which cost the lives of sixty or eighty ‘brigands.’ The term brigands, applied during the revolutionary period to the Vendeans, Chouans, and all those who took up arms for the house of Bourbon, was afterwards continued judicially under the Empire against all royalists accused of plots. To some ardent and loyal natures the emperor and his government were the enemy; any form of warfare against them was legitimate. I am only explaining to you these opinions, not justifying them.
“Now,” he said, after one of those pauses which are necessary in such long narratives, “if you realize how these royalists, ruined by the civil war of 1793, were dominated by violent passions, and how some exceptional natures (like that of Madame de la Chanterie’s son-in-law and his friend) were eaten up with desires of all kinds, you may be able to understand how it was that the acts of brigandage which their political views justified when employed against the government in the service of the good cause, might in some cases be committed for personal ends.
“The younger of the two men had been for some time employed in collecting the scattered fragments of Chouannerie, and was holding them ready to act at an opportune moment. There came a terrible crisis in the Emperor’s career when, shut up in the island of Lobau, he seemed about to give way under the combined and simultaneous attack of England and Austria. This was the moment for the Chouan uprising; but just as it was about to take place, the victory of Wagram rendered the conspiracy in the provinces powerless.
“This expectation of exciting civil war in Brittany, La Vendee, and part of Normandy, coincided in time with the final wreck of the baron’s fortune; and this wreck, coming at this time, led him to undertake an expedition to capture funds of the government which he might apply to the liquidation of the claims upon his property. But his wife and friend refused to take part in applying to private interests the money taken by armed force from the Receiver’s offices and the couriers and post-carriages of the government, — money taken, as they thought, justifiably by the rules of war to pay the regiments of ‘refractories’ and Chouans, and purchase the arms and ammunition with which to equip them. At last, after an angry discussion in which the young leader, supported by the wife, positively refused to hand over to the husband a portion of the large sum of money which the young leader had seized for the benefit of the royal armies from the treasury of the West, the baron suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, to avoid arrest for debt, having no means left by which to ward it off. Poor Madame de la Chanterie was wholly ignorant of these facts; but even they are nothing to the plot still hidden behind these preliminary facts.
“It is too late to-night,” said Monsieur Alain, looking at his little clock, “to go on with my narrative, which would take me, in any case, a long time to finish in my own words. Old Bordin, my friend, whose management of the famous Simeuse case had won him much credit in the royalist party, and who pleaded in the well-known criminal affair called that of the Chauffeurs de Mortagne, gave me, after I was installed in this house, two legal papers relating to the terrible history of Madame de la Chanterie and her daughter. I kept them because Bordin died soon after, before I had a chance to return them. You shall read them. You will find the facts much more succinctly stated than I could state them. Those facts are so numerous that I should only lose myself in the details and confuse them, whereas in those papers you have them in a legal summary. To-morrow, if you come to me, I will finish telling you all that relates to Madame de la Chanterie; for you will then know the general facts so thoroughly that I can end the whole story in a few words.”
IX. THE LEGAL STATEMENT
Monsieur Alain placed the papers, yellowed by time, in Godefroid’s hand; the latter, bidding the old man good-night, carried them off to his room, where he read, before he slept, the following document: —
THE INDICTMENT
Court of Criminal and Special Justice for the Department of the Orne
The attorney-general to the Imperial Court of Caen, appointed to fulfil his functions before the Special Criminal Court established by imperial decree under date September, 1809, and sitting at Alencon, states to the Imperial Court the following facts which have appeared under the above procedure.
The plot of a company of brigands, evidently long planned with consummate care, and connected with a scheme for inciting the Western departments to revolt, has shown itself in certain attempts against the private property of citizens, but more especially in an armed attack and robbery committed on the mail-coach which transported, May — , 18 — , the money in the treasury at Caen to the Treasury of France. This attack, which recalls the deplorable incidents of a civil war now happily extinguished, manifests a spirit of wickedness which the political passions of the present day do not justify.
Let us pass to the facts. The plot is complicated, the details are numerous. The investigation has lasted one year; but the evidence, which has followed the crime step by step, has thrown the clearest ligh
t on its preparation, execution, and results.
The conception of the plot was formed by one Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, calling himself Chevalier du Vissard, born at the Vissard, district of Saint-Mexme, near Ernee, and a former leader of the rebels.
This criminal, whom H.M. the Emperor and King pardoned at the time of the general pacification, and who has profited by the sovereign’s magnanimity to commit other crimes, has already paid on the scaffold the penalty of his many misdeeds; but it is necessary to recall some of his actions, because his influence was great on the guilty persons now before the court, and he is closely connected with the facts of his case.
This dangerous agitator, concealed, according to the usual custom of the rebels, under the name of Pierrot, went from place to place throughout the departments of the West gathering together the elements of rebellion; but his chief resort was the chateau of Saint-Savin, the residence of a Madame Lechantre and her daughter, a Madame Bryond, situated in the district of Saint-Savin, arrondissement of Mortagne. Several of the most horrible events of the rebellion of 1799 are connected with this strategic point. Here a bearer of despatches was murdered, his carriage pillaged by the brigands under command of a woman, assisted by the notorious Marche-a-Terre. Brigandage appeared to be endemic in that locality.
An intimacy, which we shall not attempt to characterize, existed for more than a year between the woman Bryond and the said Rifoel.
It was in this district that an interview took place, in April, 1808, between Rifoel and a certain Boislaurier, a leader known by the name of August in the baneful rebellions of the West, who instigated the affair now before the court.
The somewhat obscure point of the relations between these two leaders is cleared up by the testimony of numerous witnesses, and also by the judgment of the court which condemned Rifoel.
From that time Boislaurier had an understanding with Rifoel, and they acted in concert.
They communicated to each other, at first secretly, their infamous plans, encouraged by the absence of His Imperial and Royal Majesty with the armies in Spain. Their scheme was to obtain possession of the money of the Treasury as the fundamental basis of future operations.
Some time after this, one named Dubut, of Caen, sent an emissary to the chateau of Saint-Savin named Hiley — commonly called “The Laborer,” long known as a highwayman, a robber of diligences — to give information as to the men who could safely be relied upon.
It was thus by means of Hiley that the plotters obtained, from the beginning, the co-operation of one Herbomez, otherwise called General Hardi, a former rebel of the same stamp as Rifoel, and like him faithless to his pledges under the amnesty.
Herbomez and Hiley recruited from the surrounding districts seven brigands whose names are: —
1. Jean Cibot, called Pille-Miche, one of the boldest brigands of the corps formed by Montauran in the year VII., and a participator in the attack upon the courier of Mortagne and his murder.
2. Francois Lisieux, called Grand-Fils, refractory of the department of the Mayenne.
3. Charles Grenier, called Fleur-de-Genet, deserter from the 69th brigade.
4. Gabriel Bruce, called Gros-Jean, one of the most ferocious Chouans of Fontaine’s division.
5. Jacques Horeau, called Stuart, ex-lieutenant in the same brigade, one of the confederates of Tinteniac, well-known for his participation in the expedition to Quiberon.
6. Marie-Anne Cabot, called Lajeunesse, former huntsman to the Sieur Carol of Alencon.
7. Louis Minard, refractory.
These confederates were lodged in three different districts, in the houses of the following named persons: Binet, Melin, and Laraviniere, innkeepers or publicans, and all devoted to Rifoel.
The necessary arms were supplied by one Jean-Francois Leveille, notary; an incorrigible assistant of the brigands, and their go-between with certain hidden leaders; also by one Felix Courceuil, commonly called Confesseur, former surgeon of the rebel armies of La Vendee; both these men are from Alencon.
Eleven muskets were hidden in a house belonging to the Sieur Bryond in the faubourg of Alencon, where they were placed without his knowledge.
When the Sieur Bryond left his wife to pursue the fatal course she had chosen, these muskets, mysteriously taken from the said house, were transported by the woman Bryond in her own carriage to the chateau of Saint-Savin.
It was then that the acts of brigandage in the department of the Orne and the adjacent departments took place, — acts that amazed both the authorities and the inhabitants of those regions, which had long been entirely pacificated; acts, moreover, which proved that these odious enemies of the government and the French Empire were in the secret of the coalition of 1809 through communication with the royalist party in foreign countries.
The notary Leveille, the woman Bryond, Dubut of Caen, Herbomez of Mayenne, Boislaurier of Mans, and Rifoel, were therefore the heads of the association, which was composed of certain guilty persons already condemned to death and executed with Rifoel, certain others who are the accused persons at present under trial, and a number more who have escaped just punishment by flight or by the silence of their accomplices.
It was Dubut who, living near Caen, notified the notary Leveille when the government money contained in the local tax-office would be despatched to the Treasury.
We must remark here that after the time of the removal of the muskets, Leveille, who went to see Bruce, Grenier, and Cibot in the house of Melin, found them hiding the muskets in a shed on the premises, and himself assisted in the operation.
A general rendezvous was arranged to take place at Mortagne, in the hotel de l’Ecu de France. All the accused persons were present under various disguises. It was then that Leveille, the woman Bryond, Dubut, Herbomez, Boislaurier and Hiley (the ablest of the secondary accomplices, as Cibot was the boldest) obtained the co-operation of one Vauthier, called Vieux-Chene, a former servant of the famous Longuy, and now hostler of the hotel. Vauthier agreed to notify the woman Bryond of the arrival and departure of the diligence bearing the government money, which always stopped for a time at the hotel.
The woman Bryond collected the scattered brigands at the chateau de Saint-Savin, a few miles from Mortagne, where she had lived with her mother since the separation from her husband. The brigands, with Hiley at their head, stayed at the chateau for several days. The woman Bryond, assisted by her maid Godard, prepared with her own hands the food of these men. She had already filled a loft with hay, and there the provisions were taken to them. While awaiting the arrival of the government money these brigands made nightly sorties from Saint-Savin, and the whole region was alarmed by their depredations. There is no doubt that the outrages committed at la Sartiniere, at Vonay, and at the chateau of Saint-Seny, were committed by this band, whose boldness equals their criminality, though they were able to so terrify their victims that the latter have kept silence, and the authorities have been unable to obtain any testimony from them.
While thus putting under contribution those persons in the neighborhood who had purchased lands of the National domain, these brigands carefully explored the forest of Chesnay which they selected as the theatre of their crime.
Not far from this forest is the village of Louvigney. An inn is kept there by the brothers Chaussard, formerly game-keepers on the Troisville estate, which inn was made the final rendezvous of the brigands. These brothers knew beforehand the part they were to play in the affair. Courceuil and Boislaurier had long made overtures to them to revive their hatred against the government of our august Emperor, telling them that among the guests who would be sent to them would be certain men of their acquaintance, the dreaded Hiley and the not less dreaded Cibot.
Accordingly, on the 6th, the seven bandits, under Hiley, arrived at the inn of the brothers Chaussard, and there they spent two days. On the 8th Hiley led off his men, saying they were going to a palace about nine miles distant, and asking the brothers to send provisions for them to a certain for
k in the road not far distant from the village. Hiley himself returned and slept at the inn.
Two persons on horseback, who were undoubtedly Rifoel and the woman Bryond (for it is stated that this woman accompanied Rifoel on these expeditions on horseback and dressed as a man), arrived during the evening and conversed with Hiley.
The next day Hiley wrote a letter to the notary Leveille, which one of the Chaussard brothers took to the latter, bringing back his answer.
Two hours later Rifoel and the woman Bryond returned and had an interview with Hiley.
It was then found necessary to obtain an axe to open, as we shall see, the cases containing the money. The notary went with the woman Bryond to Saint-Savin, where they searched in vain for an axe. The notary returned alone; half way back he met Hiley, to whom he stated that they could not obtain an axe.
Hiley returned to the inn, where he ordered supper for ten persons; seven of them being the brigands, who had now returned, fully armed. Hiley made them stack their arms in the military manner. They then sat down to table and supped in haste. Hiley ordered provisions prepared to take away with him. Then he took the elder Chaussard aside and asked him for an axe. The innkeeper who, if we believe him, was surprised, refused to give one. Courceuil and Boislaurier arrived; the night wore on; the three men walked the floor of their room discussing the plot. Courceuil, called “Confesseur,” the most wily of the party, obtained an axe; and about two in the morning they all went away by different paths.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 858