Cévennes Mountains (France); France -- Description and travel
The murder had been committed on the night of the 12th October. On the
25th, thirteen days after, the authorities began to bestir themselves,
and as every trace pointed to the inn, the Mayor of Lanarce,
accompanied by a party of young men, went to Peyrabeille to institute
inquiries. On entering the kitchen, Marie Martin informed him that the
Juge de Paix of Coucouron was already there in the parlour, and would
speak with him. No one knew what passed between these magistrates, but
presently the mayor came out and said to his attendants: "Gentlemen,
you may depart, there is nothing to be done"; and, in fact, nothing
was done. No search was made; some politenesses passed between the two
officials and the hostess, and they retired with bows. Yet the corpse,
all the while, was within a few yards of the house. It was discovered
in a startling manner.
Philemon Pertuis, son-in-law of the Martins, who had left the house
in which he had been for a few years at Peyrabeille, had retained the
little farm about it, and employed the sheds and stable and cellars for
his crops, etc.
One day he sent his servant, Jean Testud, with a tumbril to fetch away
his potatoes that were in the cellar. Testud went in with a lamp and
saw in a corner a barrel of bran. He was aware of an unpleasant smell
in the cellar, which he could not explain. On one of his journeys the
lamp went out, and he returned to grope for it. In so doing he put his
hand into the barrel and encountered the cold remains of a human body.
Frozen with horror, he staggered to the inn, sank in a chair, and said
he was ill, and must go home to his parents at Banne.
Pierre Martin and his wife were uneasy. They went to the cellar and
found there the lamp of Testud, and at once saw that the corpse must be
removed. This was done during the night on the back of a mule, and was
conveyed to a precipice at Lespéron and flung over it, so as to give an
idea that Anjolras had fallen accidentally.
The body was discovered on October 26th, was identified and examined,
and it was soon seen that this was no case of an accidental fall, but
of murder. On November 1st, Martin and his wife and his nephew André,
and after that Jean Rochette, were arrested, but were not brought
to trial for three years, as the prosecution met with extraordinary
difficulty in getting together evidence against them, so timorous were
the peasants, so afraid of appearing in court and being subjected to
cross-questioning, and of incurring the resentment of the relatives of
the Martins, who were numerous. The two daughters were not arrested.
Nothing could be wrung from the girl Marie Arnaud, who preserved
throughout remarkable self-possession and self-restraint. André, as
already said, was acquitted, but Pierre and his wife and Jean Rochette
were guillotined close to the inn on October 2nd, 1833.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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