The Dominici Affair

by Martin Kitchen

  Father Germain rejected his daughter’s suitor out of hand. There could be no question of his little Marie marrying an Italian bastard without a bean, who was known in the village as a pugnacious outsider. Gaston pleaded but all in vain. It was suggested to him that if he saved up a little money he might have a better chance. To this end he began to steal sheep from his employer, but he was soon found out and once again shown the door. He was now without a job, and it was unthinkable that he would ever be able to marry Marie.

  Then in August 1903 Germain suddenly announced that he would consent to the marriage. Gaston was so sure of himself that he attributed this remarkable change of attitude to his persistence rather than to any suspicious circumstances. On 3 October that year the mayor of Brunet joined together in marriage Gaston Dominici, a twenty-six-year old farm laborer, and Marie Germain, born in Les Mées on 28 July 1879. This bizarre union was witnessed by Marie’s cousin Norbert and the village baker. The groom’s witnesses were a local farm laborer and a retired policeman.

  It did not take long for the truth to be revealed. On their wedding night Marie admitted that she was three months pregnant. A drunken Gaston flew into a towering rage and beat her mercilessly, then wept for hours in an orgy of self-pity. He never forgave her for this deception. For the fifty years they stayed together, he treated her with spiteful contempt and brutal hatred. His smoldering fury terrified not only Marie but also the Germains. They thought it prudent to employ Gaston for their common safety.

  Marie’s child, Ida-Agnès-Marie, was born on 19 April 1904.22 On 25 June the following year she was joined by Clovis-Antoine-Justin. Augusta-Adrienne-Joséphine was born on 5 March 1907 and Gaston-Marie-Adrien on 25 February 1909. The simple shepherd was unable to provide for this rapidly expanding brood, which only kept going thanks to the generosity of the Germains. Gaston showed not the slightest gratitude to his parents-in-law. He continued to steal their lambs, using the money to rent a two-room apartment in the village. There he could maintain a semblance of independence and rule the roost as a caricature of a young patriarch.

  Gaston’s friend Seguin married Marie’s sister Rose and soon grew to despise his brother-in-law. As a result, when the Germains died, there was a fierce dispute over the inheritance. Also at this time a farm at Ganagobie was available for lease from Benoît Estrangin, a nephew of one of the last monks, who had begun restoring the monastery. It was here in May 1910 that Gaston decided to try his luck as an independent farmer.

  The plateau of Ganagobie, situated between the villages of Lurs and Peyruis, rises 2,132 feet above the Durance River. A Christian community was established here in the fourth century, but it soon vanished. Then in the tenth century the land came under the control of Cluny Abbey. The Benedictines remained there intermittently until the community was dissolved during the French Revolution. The beautiful Romanesque church was partly demolished and the stones used as building material. In 1891 a wealthy benefactor gave the land back to the Benedictines, and one or two monks lived there in seclusion. As a result of extreme anticlerical measures of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s government, and completed by that of Émile Combes, the Benedictines were expelled from France but returned in 1922 when a single monk lived among the ruins. The plateau was virtually inaccessible, and it was not until 1953 that work began to build an asphalt road up to the monastery.

  The farmhouse was a wretched stone building with an outside staircase. The land was infertile and wooded, but at least it was full of wild boars and hares with which Gaston, who was soon to become an expert poacher, could feed his rapidly expanding family. It would clearly take a considerable time and an inordinate amount of hard work to make a living out of this deserted spot. But at last he was his own master, with his own herd of sheep and a burning ambition to show the world that this Calabrian outcast was indeed a somebody.

  He might have hated his wife, but at least she offered relief for his exigent libido. Another daughter, Clotilde, was born on 17 June 1911, followed by Marcel on 6 April 1913, and Germaine on 30 April 1915. Gaston acted as midwife in all three cases. He had no choice. He did not have a telephone, and it would have taken several hours to reach a midwife or a doctor at Peyruis. He also practiced naturopathy, claiming to have cured his sciatica with rye infusions, and every morning he drank a concoction of rosemary mixed with white wine. This appeared to have been effective, for it was said that a doctor never visited the Dominicis. Gaston purchased a copy of Le Grand Albert, the work of the thirteenth-century Dominican Albert von Bollstädt. It was a compilation of magic spells and ancient remedies and represented for Gaston a canonical text.23 Because he had such a large family he was exempted from military service during the First World War. This privilege was the subject of certain underhanded remarks on market day that, in turn, provoked Gaston to outbreaks of uncontrolled rage. He was a difficult man with violent likes and dislikes. He was a passionate republican, but he had an obsession for the emperor Napoleon. He flatly refused to sell his fruits and vegetables to Yvan Jaillans, an innkeeper and greengrocer in Peyruis, whom he considered to be a reactionary.

  Although in no sense religious, Gaston was devoted to Joan of Arc, who was canonized in 1920. He presented a statue of the newly minted saint to the chapel at Ganagobie. When on death row in Marseille, he announced that he would never be guillotined. He would be burned like Saint Joan or crucified like Jesus Christ.

  At his trial Mayor Estoublon of Lurs summed up Gaston’s character succinctly, saying that he was a man who lived on society’s margins. He was an uncommunicative, inward-looking, domestic tyrant who brooked no contradiction. He exploited his children and treated his unfortunate wife with undisguised contempt, referring to her as “the sardine” or “that old bitch.” Tightfisted and mean spirited, he had a peasant’s cunning and suspiciousness, but he worked extremely hard and even in very strained circumstances managed to feed his nine children. He was very hard on others but unsparing of himself as well.

  An opportunity arose in 1915 when another tenant farm belonging to the priory, known as La Serre, became vacant. It was along the Durance valley in the direction of Peyruis at a spot known as Pont Bernard. Its soil was far richer than that of the rocky plateau of Ganagobie.

  No work was available for the Dominici girls, apart from helping their mother with the housework and making cheese. Gaston tended his flock. Young Gaston and Clovis cultivated their patch of rich alluvial soil on the banks of the Durance. But there was soon nothing more to be gained from this property, and it was clearly time to move on. In 1917 Gaston tried to buy a farm from a Madame Blanc, but she was unable to do anything without the permission of her son. Gaston played many a mean trick upon the unfortunate woman in an attempt to make her change her mind but to no avail. The birth of yet another child, Gustave, in 1919 made it imperative to find some more fertile land.

  The family was sealed off from the outside world until one by one the children left home to make their own lives. Meanwhile, they received an elementary education at a tiny school at Ganagobie run by Madame Muzy. She lived in Peyruis and picked up the children on her way. She left her bicycle at the Heyriès’ house near La Serre, where Gustave and Aimé Dominici would be waiting along with the two Heyriès boys. At the school they were joined by Paul and Pierre Maillet, whose father, Auguste, had moved the family from Brunet and was now the tenant of the priory farm at Ganagobie. The children were a wild bunch with no interest at all in learning. They were filthy. Their hair was tousled, and they were dressed in such rags that whenever a tourist passed by the ashamed Madame Muzy hid them from sight. The most that could be said of their parents was that at least the children had something to eat. Madame Muzy passed La Serre every day for years, but come rain, come shine, the family never invited her to enter. When there was extra work to do, the children stayed home, and poor Madame Muzy sat sobbing in her empty classroom. She left Ganagobie with great relief, having failed to teach her charges anything. They then went to school in Lurs, where the rudim
ents of an education were drilled into them.

  The Dominici children often slept on bales of straw rather than in their beds. They were roused very early and made to feed the animals. Gaston was unrelentingly strict with them, so they lived in a state of terrified obedience combined with a grudging sense of admiration and fear that was tempered by a growing resentment. All of this eventually served to make the family seriously dysfunctional. As his sons grew old enough to work, Gaston became increasingly idle, and now that he at last had his own vines, his intake of wine reached truly staggering proportions. He still skimped and saved, however, and in 1922 he was able to buy a farm close to La Serre for a derisory 10,000 francs ($820). This new property, with a ruined house and the land covered with undergrowth, was known as the Grand’ Terre. Gaston gradually renovated the farmhouse and tilled the soil. The Dominicis eventually moved from La Serre in 1931.

  Two incidents occurred during the Dominicis’ time at La Serre that showed different aspects of Gaston’s character, and both the prosecution and the defense used them during his trial. In 1923 he was involved in the arrest of a dangerous criminal. He was tending his flock when the man suddenly appeared. Gaston, who had already heard that there was an armed man on the run, had his gun at the ready. The bandit drew his revolver and fired. The bullet hit the barrel of Dominici’s gun. When the revolver jammed, Dominici leaped upon his assailant. A fight ensued, but the gendarmes soon arrived and took the man into custody. Gaston was awarded a certificate acknowledging his bravery, and the local gendarmerie was always afforded a warm welcome at his farm.

  The other incident was less creditable. Every year at Whitsun (Pentecost) there was a pilgrimage to the priory at Ganagobie to honor a vow made to Saint Roch when the plague struck Peyruis in 1720. After Mass the people held a picnic during which the wine flowed freely. On one such occasion Gaston picked a fight with his successor at the Ganagobie farm. Blows were exchanged. His opponent, Giraud, was flat on his back when Gaston suddenly seized an ax that was implanted in a chopping block. Giraud scrambled to his feet, rushed into the farmhouse, and bolted the door. Gaston hammered on the door and windows, yelled all manner of oaths and obscenities, and was clearly completely out of control. The crowd looked on in startled amazement. Father Lorenzi, the lone Dominican at Ganagobie, managed to calm him down. The festival continued, but Gaston’s murderous rage was not forgotten.

  In most instances Gaston’s violence was domestic. He was an extremely heavy drinker, and it was widely known that when he began to babble or start humming, it was wise not to contradict or annoy him. Poor Marie, as noted previously, was a frequent butt of his drunken outbursts.

  Situated on the banks of the Durance at the foot of the hill of Ganagobie, the Grand’ Terre had once belonged to the baker at Lurs named Louis Arniaud. His family lived in the farmhouse until 1903. They left because they preferred the security of the village to living in extreme isolation, miles from anywhere. They sold the farm to Monsieur Conil from Peyruis, who tended it well for many long years until he decided to sell it to Father Lorenzi at Ganagobie for 9,000 francs ($735). Gaston offered an extra 1,000 francs ($82), and Conil accepted. The mild-mannered Father Lorenzi never complained about being outwitted.

  It was a smallholding, consisting of a mere fifteen acres strung along the riverbank in a narrow strip. Only eight acres were eventually cultivated. With rich alluvial soil, it was some of the best land in the Basses-Alpes, but it was still only enough to scratch a bare living. Gaston grew wheat, potatoes, beetroot, grapes, olives, and fruit. He grazed his goats on the uncultivated land.

  Gaston, now aged fifty-four, was at last the owner of his own farm after years of hard work and sacrifice. Although on the threshold of old age and despite a habit of now drinking at least a gallon of his own red wine every day, he was still healthy and strong. But he still faced a serious problem: his sons began to leave him. It was of no concern to him when one of his daughters left the family home. Women were superfluous. After all, the Sardine could do all the housework, and the rest were simply useless mouths to feed. They were obliged to serve the men at the table and to eat standing up. The men, however, were another matter. They could relieve him of the burden of work so that he could enjoy a well-deserved rest after years of toil.

  Clovis was the first son to leave. He was the one who most resembled his father. He was strong, hardworking, stubborn, and quick tempered. Gaston hoped to leave the Grand’ Terre to him. Clovis first left home in 1924 to do his military service in the light infantry. When on leave he worked hard on the farm. When it was over, his father accompanied him to the railway station at Peyruis. He was proud of his son in his colorful uniform, but when Clovis finished his military service, Gaston received a severe shock. Clovis announced he was leaving the farm. He had taken advantage of the fact that the national railway company, SNCF, had fired many men after a recent acrimonious strike and took a job there. Gaston was bitter and unable to understand why Clovis was so naive and immature as to want to work for others rather than being his own man; but all was not lost. There were still Marcel, Gustave, and Aimé to follow in his footsteps. Although Clovis lived only about four miles away at Peyruis, he decided to break away completely and did not go home for six years.

  As the self-important owner of the Grand’ Terre, Gaston became more open and hospitable, welcoming passersby to taste his wine, of which he was inordinately proud, and to sample his cheese. At Christmas he hosted a vast family reunion. A sheep was slaughtered and roasted on a spit in front of an open fire, and the wine flowed while Gaston sang songs and recounted tales from long ago. But Gaston had not suddenly been transformed into a benign patriarch. His newfound generosity was his form of boasting. He still exaggerated his achievements, held court at insufferable length, and was given to outbursts of meanness and uncontrollable fury.

  The Maillets were frequent visitors to the Grand’ Terre even though Gaston took great delight in deriding them. Maillet had once been the proud owner of a café in Brunet at a time when Gaston barely had enough money for a glass of wine. Now Maillet had taken over the farm at Ganagobie, where Gaston had lived before moving to La Serre, and was considerably poorer. The Maillets had fallen on hard times, with both the father and the eldest son having had severe bouts of brucellosis, a singularly debilitating disease. Auguste Maillet was already a trifle senile, or fada, as one says in Provençal. His two sons no longer worked on the farm. Paul, like Clovis Dominici, worked for the SNCF, and Pierre was an apprentice mechanic in Manosque. The family was just about able to keep their heads above water, while the Dominicis, by comparison, were marginally better off. Boasting that he had made enough money out of the Ganagobie farm to become a property owner, Gaston attributed the Maillets’ straitened circumstances to indolence.

  It was Paul Mallet, however, who persuaded his friend and workmate Clovis to visit his parents. Paul first had to convince Gaston to allow the prodigal son to return, and he was fortunate to find him in a begrudgingly generous mood. Gaston gave his testy consent. Clovis duly went on this difficult errand, accompanied by his wife, Rose—a levelheaded and punctilious woman—and their baby boy, Gilbert. The visit went well. Clovis and his family were welcomed back and were henceforth included in all the festivities. Gaston, although constantly complaining about his son, had a certain admiration for his singleness of purpose and determination to go his own way.

  Gaston might have mellowed a little, but he had not changed into a human santon, or small “figurine,” much beloved in Provence, in traditional dress and used to decorate elaborate nativity scenes. Indeed, he remained an appalling egoist, harbored a host of grudges, terrorized those around him, and could not control his temper. Marcel was the next son to leave the family home. On 13 April 1939 he married a widow who was fifteen years older and moved to a farm at Notre-Dame-des-Anges, a place of pilgrimage at the base of the hill on which the village of Lurs is perched. His brothers Gustave and Aimé tilled their father’s soil, while Gaston simply te
nded his sheep. He gradually sold them off until he was left with a few goats, which are far less demanding animals.

  Berthe, Gaston’s half-sister, who was married to Cyrille Léotard, the postman at Lurs, was the person who was closest to him at this time. Their mother had died when she was very young, so she had spent her childhood in an orphanage. She worked as a maid from the age of sixteen and did not meet her brother until 1907. By a series of coincidences she ended up in Lurs, where every day she took the post to the railway station that was only 500 yards from the Grand’ Terre. On the way she brought her brother the newspaper. More often than not Gaston was off working. Marie used to sit silently in the kitchen, refusing to acknowledge her sister-in-law. When he was at home he was often yelling at Gustave and Aimé, whom he regarded as incorrigibly idle. Frustrated at his attempts to get them to bend to his will, he would stomp off down into his cellar and drink heavily.

  When Cyrille died, Berthe went to live in a tiny apartment in Forcalquier and gradually lost contact with the family. When her nephews and nieces got married, they did not bother to inform her, and the Grand’ Terre was too far from Forcalquier for her to visit. Gaston sometimes went to the market at Forcalquier and would usually visit his sister, who would cook him a meal, but they were no longer particularly close. Berthe was careful to keep out of the public eye during the murder scandal. Of her five children, one died in childhood, and one was killed in July 1940 when the British destroyed the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. The three surviving children all found good jobs in Paris.