Assassination of a public prosecutor in 1818
By topffer
@topffer (42156)
France
December 11, 2017 6:46am CST
There are many little jewels that can be found on Google books. I am reading a detailed reporting of a 1818 trial at the criminal court of Tarn of the murderers of a retired public prosecutor in Rodez, the small capital city of Aveyron.
Seen from an outsider, there is no difference between a Tarnais (an inhabitant of Tarn) and an Aveyronais (an inhabitant of Aveyron). Both are hard workers, which is not that common among Southerners, and have the reputation to be smart like foxes when it comes to business. They have the same accent, are speaking the same variant of Occitan, and historically they pertain to the same Celtic tribe, the Ruteni, i.e. the blondes, supposed to have migrated in this area from Germany in the 4th or 3rd C BC.
Now if you ask them, they are very different. The Tarnais are teaching to their young children to beware of the cunning of the greedy Aveyronnais, and the Aveyronais are telling to their children to beware of the trickery of the «potato beetles», the Tarnais.
Having Aveyronais judged by Tarnais, or the opposite, is a pledge for impartiality.
A few words about the facts : On March 20th 1817, at 6 1/2 AM a dead body is found floating on the Aveyron river in Rodez. The dead had the throat cut. It is identified as M. Fualdès, a recently retired public prosecutor. His walking stick is found in the Hebdomadiers street, far away from the banks of the Aveyron river, and the suspicions are falling on the Bancal house, which is «the only suspicious one in the street, because it is hosting a brothel.»
Then comes the public rumor. The public rumor knows always better than the police what has exactly happened :
«Mr Fualdès, kidnapped at the corner of the Hebdomadiers street by some men that had been seen roaming in the neighborbood from 7 to 9 PM, would have been carried to Bancal’s kitchen, put on a table that would have even bent on his weight, and bled by a knife that Bancal was using to cut his bread ; the blood would have been carefully collected in a tub, and abandonned later to a pig ; finally, this horrible drama would have been performed under the noise of two hurdy gurdies, whose players where stationed there on purpose.»
Music is good for the soul, but the public rumor is often wrong, and the investigation finds that many important local families seem involved in the assassination, families of officers, judges, rich land owners, businessmen... A public prosecutor who started his job in 1793 during the Terror and had important debts that he was not paying (although he was also owning several properties), had certainly not only friends in Rodez. The investigation seems to stop. Some public servants and lawyers ask to have the case investigated and judged elsewhere. The municipal council of Rodez sees the things differently : «(...)that some considerations of heavy weight require imperiously that the populace has to be dissilusioned of the dangerous idea that the condition and the fortune of the defendants can divert them from their natural judges ; that motives of public order and public benefit are forgathering to demand that the procedure carried out on this case has to be promptly judged in situ in order to reach an accurate understanding of the facts.»
The case is judged by the criminal court of Aveyron in August/September 1817, and results in several death penalties. A complaint is brought to the Cassation Court. The judges find several serious procedural mistakes made by the President of the criminal court during the trial, and send the case to be judged again to the criminal court of Tarn.
Detailed reporting of trials on criminal courts like this one are rare. Most of the time the public archives are keeping only the judgement, and with a bit of luck the investigation file, but only the media are reporting times to times what happened in the court, when the case is interesting enough for the public. This one is full of interesting details about provincial life in early 19th C France and very complete, including maps of the town and of the house where the crime was perpetrated. I give the link to the book (in French), printed in Toulouse in 1818.
MoreEven more from GoogleSign inHidden fieldsBooksbooks.google.comhttps://books.google.com/books/about/D%C3%A9bats_publics_sur_la_proc%C3%A9dure_instru.html?id=dpA9AQAAMAAJ&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareDébats publics sur la procédure instruite contre les préve
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6 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
12 Dec 17
It is rare to have a public prosecutor murdered, and even more rare to have important people involved in the murder. The case is known as a case of justice miscarriage, but I did not knew that a complete report of the second trial had been printed. Another proof that it was interesting many people.
2 people like this
@Letranknight2015 (51469)
• Philippines
11 Dec 17
That's a long story from a case that exist a hundred years ago.
2 people like this
@misunderstood_zombie (8143)
• United States
13 Dec 17
That is so interesting. I love all these tidbits of history, especially the farther back in time they appear.
1 person likes this