this suggestion there grew up in the minds of the profound politicians who played their whist at the hotel Graslin a belief that the viscount and the young wife had based certain hopes on the ill-health of the banker which were now frustrated. The great agitations which marked this period of Veronique’s life, the anxieties which a first childbirth causes in every woman, and which, it is said, threatens special danger when she is past her first youth, made her friends more attentive than ever to her; they vied with each other in showing her those little kindnesses which proved how warm and solid their affection really was.
V. TASCHERON
It was in this year that Limoges witnessed a terrible event and the singular drama of the Tascheron trial, in which the young Vicomte de Grandville displayed the talents which afterwards made him procureur-general.
An old man living in a lonely house in the suburb of Saint-Etienne was murdered. A large fruit-garden lay between the road and the house, which was also separated from the adjoining fields by a pleasure-garden, at the farther end of which were several old and disused greenhouses. In front of the house a rapid slope to the river bank gave a view of the Vienne. The courtyard, which also sloped downward, ended at a little wall, from which small columns rose at equal distances united by a railing, more, however, for ornament than protection, for the bars of the railing were of painted wood.
The old man, named Pingret, noted for his avarice, lived with a single woman-servant, a country-girl who did all the work of the house. He himself took care of his espaliers, trimmed his trees, gathered his fruit, and sent it to Limoges for sale, together with early vegetables, in the raising of which he excelled.
The niece of this old man, and his sole heiress, married to a gentleman of small means living in Limoges, a Madame des Vanneaulx, had again and again urged her uncle to hire a man to protect the house, pointing out to him that he would thus obtain the profits of certain uncultivated ground where he now grew nothing but clover. But the old man steadily refused. More than once a discussion on the subject had cut into the whist-playing of Limoges. A few shrewd heads declared that the old miser buried his gold in that clover-field.
“If I were Madame des Vanneaulx,” said a wit, “I shouldn’t torment my uncle about it; if somebody murders him, why, let him be murdered! I should inherit the money.”
Madame des Vanneaulx, however, wanted to keep her uncle, after the manner of the managers of the Italian Opera, who entreat their popular tenor to wrap up his throat, and give him their cloak if he happens to have forgotten his own. She had sent old Pingret a fine English mastiff, which Jeanne Malassis, the servant-woman brought back the next day saying: —
“Your uncle doesn’t want another mouth to feed.”
The result proved how well-founded were the niece’s fears. Pingret was murdered on a dark night, in the middle of his clover-field, where he may have been adding a few coins to a buried pot of gold. The servant-woman, awakened by the struggle, had the courage to go to the assistance of the old miser, and the murderer was under the necessity of killing her to suppress her testimony. This necessity, which frequently causes murderers to increase the number of their victims, is an evil produced by the fear of the death penalty.
This double murder was attended by curious circumstances which told as much for the prosecution as for the defence. After the neighbors had missed seeing the little old Pingret and his maid for a whole morning and had gazed at his house through the wooden railings as they passed it, and seen that, contrary to custom, the doors and windows were still closed, an excitement began in the Faubourg Saint-Etienne which presently reached the rue de la Cloche, where Madame des Vanneaulx resided.
The niece was always in expectation of some such catastrophe, and she at once notified the officers of the law, who went to the house and broke in the gate. They soon discovered in a clover patch four holes, and near two of these holes lay the fragments of earthenware pots, which had doubtless been full of gold the night before. In the other two holes, scarcely covered up, were the bodies of old Pingret and Jeanne Malassis, who had been buried with their clothes on. The poor girl had run to her master’s assistance in her night-gown, with bare feet.
While the procureur-du-roi, the commissary of police, and the examining magistrate were gathering all particulars for the basis of their action, the luckless des Vanneaulx picked up the broken pots and calculated from their capacity the sum lost. The magistrates admitted the correctness of their calculations and entered the sum stolen on their records as, in all probability, a thousand gold coins to each pot. But were these coins forty-eight or forty, twenty-four or twenty francs in value? All expectant heirs in Limoges sympathized with the des Vanneaulx. The Limousin imagination was greatly stirred by the spectacle of the broken pots. As for old Pingret, who often sold vegetables himself in the market, lived on bread and onions, never spent more than three hundred francs a year, obliged and disobliged no one, and had never done one atom of good in the suburb of Saint-Etienne where he lived, his death did not excite the slightest regret. Poor Jeanne Malassis’ heroism, which the old miser, had she saved him, would certainly not have rewarded, was thought rash; the number of souls who admired it was small in comparison with those who said: “For my part, I should have stayed in my bed.”
The police found neither pen nor ink wherewith to write their report in the bare, dilapidated, cold, and dismal house. Observing persons and the heir might then have noticed a curious inconsistency which may be seen in certain misers. The dread the little old man had of the slightest outlay showed itself in the non-repaired roof which opened its sides to the light and the rain and snow; in the cracks of the walls; in the rotten doors ready to fall at the slightest shock; in the windows, where the broken glass was replaced by paper not even oiled. All the windows were without curtains, the fireplaces without mirrors or andirons; the hearth was garnished with one log of wood and a few little sticks almost caked with the soot which had fallen down the chimney. There were two rickety chairs, two thin couches, a few cracked pots and mended plates, a one-armed armchair, a dilapidated bed, the curtains of which time had embroidered with a bold hand, a worm-eaten secretary where the miser kept his seeds, a pile of linen thickened by many darns, and a heap of ragged garments, which existed only by the will of their master; he being dead they dropped into shreds, powder, chemical dissolution, in fact I know not into what form of utter ruin, as soon as the heir or the officers of the law laid rough hands upon them; they disappeared as if afraid of being publicly sold.
The population at Limoges was much concerned for these worthy des Vanneaulx, who had two children; and yet, no sooner did the law lay hands upon the reputed doer of the crime than the guilty personage absorbed attention, became a hero, and the des Vanneaulx were relegated into a corner of the picture.
Toward the end of March Madame Graslin began to feel some of those pains which precede a first confinement and cannot be concealed. The inquiry as to the murder was then going on, but the murderer had not as yet been arrested.
Veronique now received her friends in her bedroom, where they played whist. For several days past Madame Graslin had not left the house, and she seemed to be tormented by several of those caprices attributed to women in her condition. Her mother came to see her almost every day, and the two women remained for hours in consultation.
It was nine o’clock, and the card tables were still without players, for every one was talking of the murder. Monsieur de Grandville entered the room.
“We have arrested the murderer of old Pingret,” he said, joyfully.
“Who is it?” was asked on all sides.
“A porcelain workman; a man whose character has always been excellent, and who was in a fair way to make his fortune. He worked in your husband’s old factory,” added Monsieur de Grandville, turning to Madame Graslin.
“What is his name?” asked Veronique,
