The Countess of Saint Geran: Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
General
The Countess of Saint Geran: Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
A few days afterwards la Pigoreau put out the child to nurse in the
village of Torcy en Brie, with a woman who had been her godmother, whose
husband was called Paillard. She gave out that it was a child of quality
which had been entrusted to her, and that she should not hesitate, if
such a thing were necessary, to save its life by the loss of one of her
own children. The nurse did not keep it long, because she fell ill; la
Pigoreau went to fetch the child away, lamenting this accident, and
further saying that she regretted it all the more, as the nurse would
have earned enough to make her comfortable for the rest of her life. She
put the infant out again in the same village, with the widow of a
peasant named Marc Peguin. The monthly wage was regularly paid, and the
child brought up as one of rank. La Pigoreau further told the woman that
it was the son of a great nobleman, and would later make the fortunes of
those who served him. An elderly man, whom the people supposed to be the
child’s father, but who Pigoreau assured them was her brother-in-law,
often came to see him.
When the child was eighteen months old, la Pigoreau took him away and
weaned him. Of the two by her husband the elder was called Antoine, the
second would have been called Henri if he had lived; but he was born on
the 9th of August 1639, after the death of his father, who was killed in
June of the same year, and died shortly after his birth. La Pigoreau
thought fit to give the name and condition of this second son to the
stranger, and thus bury for ever the secret of his birth. With this end
in view, she left the quarter where she lived, and removed to conceal
herself in another parish where she was not known. The child was brought
up under the name and style of Henri, second son of la Pigoreau, till he
was two and a half years of age; but at this time, whether she was not
engaged to keep it any longer, or whether she had spent the two thousand
livres deposited with the grocer Raguenet, and could get no more from
the principals, she determined to get rid of it.
Her gossips used to tell this woman that she cared but little for her
eldest son, because she was very confident of the second one making his
fortune, and that if she were obliged to give up one of them, she had
better keep the younger, who was a beautiful boy. To this she would
reply that the matter did not depend upon her; that the boy’s godfather
was an uncle in good circumstances, who would not charge himself with
any other child. She often mentioned this uncle, her brother-in-law, she
said, who was major-domo in a great house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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