Monsieur Lépine, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Commission of
Inquiry, explained that he had hoped to get the whole matter settled
that same day, or at all events between the closing of one Bourse and
the opening of the next, so as to avoid news of the prosecution being
allowed to leak out and to be used as a basis for speculation. However,
Monsieur Monier told Monsieur Yves Durand that he would see Monsieur
Pichereau on the next day, Saturday, at two o’clock, and he informed
the Procureur Général and the Minister of Justice that a charge in due
form was to be laid against Rochette on the morrow. At ten o’clock the
next morning, Saturday, March 21, Monsieur Yves Durand went to Monsieur
Gaudrion at his office and told him that the Procureur de la République
would receive Monsieur Pichereau’s charge at two o’clock that afternoon
at the Palace of Justice. Monsieur Pichereau was in Monsieur Gaudrion’s
office, and had drawn up and signed his accusation against Rochette.
Monsieur Gaudrion read it through to Monsieur Yves Durand, who was not
in the least aware that Monsieur Pichereau was not the proprietor of
Nerva shares and Hella Gas Mantle shares as he stated himself to be in
his accusation, but that Monsieur Gaudrion was really the shareholder,
and that Pichereau was only a man of straw. Gaudrion was a speculator.
He had sold shares “short” in the Rochette enterprises, and seeing his
way to a Bourse _coup_ he had coached Pichereau in the part he was to
play, given him a few shares of his own with which to play it, and paid
him a thousand pounds so that he should be able to make the necessary
guarantee on bringing his action and have something over for himself.
Monsieur Yves Durand, who got himself into terribly hot water over
these preliminaries when the whole matter came to light, and who was
openly accused of speculating himself on the fall of Rochette shares,
declared that he was quite unaware of this dishonest combination, and
that he had been misled by Monsieur Prevet, who had told him that he
knew all about Gaudrion and about Pichereau as well. At a quarter-past
two that afternoon Pichereau laid his formal charge against Rochette
at the Palace of Justice, deposited £80 by way of guarantee for costs,
and signed a request to be a civil party to the action. The matter was
placed in the hands of the examining magistrate, Monsieur Berr, for
his immediate attention, and poor Monsieur Berr sat up all Saturday
night and all Sunday night, and worked through all day on Sunday at the
Rochette _dossier_. At ten o’clock on Monday morning, March 23, 1908,
Rochette was arrested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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