ACT III
[A court house, of which only two sides are visible. The footlights would almost correspond with a line drawn from one angle to the opposite one. On the left to the front is the raised seat of the public Minister. Further back, to the left, the court. Facing the audience, successively, counsels’ bench; the defendants’ bench, a little raised; and the police bench.
[In the centre, facing the table on which lie the ‘pièces à conviction,’ is the witness-box.
[To the extreme right are three or four benches, of which a part only is visible, reserved for the public. The jury, which is not visible, would be in the prompter’s place.
[There are present the advocate-general: the president of the court and his assessors; also the counsel for the defence and some junior barristers. In the dock are Madame Thomas, Marie Caubert, Tupin, Madame Tupin and several policemen. Madame Chevillot is among the public.
PRESIDENT [authoritatively, to the counsel for the defence] Maître Verdier, you cannot speak now. I see what line you propose to take for the defence, and I give you fair warning that I shall use my whole power and authority to prevent you from making light of the criminal acts attributed to the defendants.
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. You are mistaken, M. le président. I have no intention of making light of them. On the contrary, I declare definitely that in my eyes abortion is a crime, because it deprives of life a creature already living; and to condone it would lead to condoning infanticide also. But what I propose to demonstrate is that in not permitting affiliation and in not respecting all motherhood, whatever its origin may be, society has lost its right to condemn a crime rendered excusable by the hypocrisy of custom and the indifference of the laws.
PRES. This is not the time for your address. Let the woman Thomas stand up. [To Madame Thomas] So you hunted up your clients in the provinces?
MME. THOMAS. No, M. le président. They came and found me.
PRES. We shall see. Usher, bring forward the witness—[he hunts for the name in his notes]—Madame Lucie Brignac.
MME. CHEV [among the audience, to her neighbor] Mustn’t Brignac be in a hurry to get his divorce!
Lucie has approached the witness-bar. She is thinner and older.
PRES [to the usher] Has the witness been sworn?
USHER. Yes, M. le président.
PRES [to Lucie] Was it of her own free will that your sister, the unfortunate Annette Jarras, in consequence of whose death the defendants have been arrested, came to Paris and placed herself in the hands of this woman?
LUCIE. Yes, M. le président.
PRES. Very well. Go and sit down. I will call you again presently. [Lucie retires to her place, sobbing]. Marie Caubert, come forward. [A small, thin woman rises]. Your name is Marie Caubert? How old are you?
SCHOOLMISTRESS. Twenty-seven.
PRES. Profession?
SCH. Schoolmistress.
PRES. You have come from the country, too: do you know what you are accused of?
SCH. Yes, M. le président.
PRES. What have you to say in your defence?
SCH. I did not know I was doing wrong.
PRES. Your levity amazes me. You are a schoolmistress, and you do not realize that the sacred mission with which you are entrusted, the mission of preparing citizens and citizenesses for the glories of the future, demands that your life should be exemplary. You are appointed to give the elementary course of lessons in civic morality: is it thus that you practise that morality? You have no answer? According to the notes I have here you insisted upon nursing your two children yourself. Do you love them?
SCH. It was just because I love them.
PRES. But you decided that two were enough. You ventured to limit the work of the Creator.
SCH. I should have liked nothing better than to have four or five children.
PRES. Indeed! Then allow me to inform you that you’ve not taken the best means for arriving at that desirable result. [He laughs, turning to his assessor on the right, who laughs also].
SCH. One must have money enough to bring them up.
PRES. Ah! Stop a moment. If some people were to make that bad excuse I might understand it. But from you, who enjoy the inestimable advantage of being under the protection of the State, I do not understand it. You are never out of work.
SCH. I earn 83 francs a month, and my husband, who teaches too, earns the same. That makes 166 francs a month to live on and to rear two children. When there were four of us we could just scrape along, but with five we couldn’t have managed it.
PRES. You forget to mention that when your children are coming you have a right to a month’s holiday on full salary.
SCH. Yes, at one time, M. le président, but not now. In 1900 a ministerial circular announced to us that there was not enough money, and we could practically only have holidays at half salary. To get the whole salary we must have a certificate from the inspector, giving reasons. One has to petition for it.
PRES. Well, then one petitions.
SCH. It’s hard to seem like a beggar simply because one has children.
PRES. Oho! You’re proud.
SCH. That’s not illegal.
PRES. And that’s why you went to the woman Thomas?
SCH. Yes, monsieur. My husband and I had arranged our expenses carefully. On the evening of the day we were paid our salary we used to divide the money into little portions and put them away. So much for rent, so much for food, so much for clothing. We just managed to get along by being most careful; and several times we cut down expenses it didn’t seem possible to cut down. A third child coming upset everything. We couldn’t have lived. We should all have starved. Besides, the inspectors and directresses don’t like us to have many children, especially if we nurse them ourselves. They told me to hide myself when I was suckling the last one. I only had ten minutes to do it in, at the recreations at ten o’clock and at two o’clock; and when my mother brought baby to me I had to shut myself up with him in a dark closet.
PRES. All that’s irrelevant.
COUN. DEF. No, M. le président, it ought to be known here how the State, which preaches increase of the population, treats its employés when they have children.
PRES [furious] You have no right to speak. [To the schoolmistress] Have you anything more to say?
SCH. No, M. le président.
PRES. Then sit down. Tupin, stand up.
TUPIN [a working man, mean and wretched] After you, Calvon.
PRES. What! What did you say?
TUPIN. I said ‘After you, Calvon.’ Calvon’s your name, isn’t it?
PRES. I warn you I shall not stand any insolence from you.
TUPIN. I say to you ‘After you, Calvon,’ as you say to me ‘Tupin, stand up.’ If that’s insolence, I didn’t begin it.
PRES. I shall have you turned out of the court. Stand up.
TUPIN [standing] There: I’m very glad to. It’ll take the stiffness out of my legs.
PRES. Your profession?
TUPIN. Electrician.
PRES. You were once. It is a long time since you worked regularly.
TUPIN. I can’t get work.
PRES. Because you look for it in the public house. The police reports about you are most unfavorable.
TUPIN. I never liked the police: I’m not surprised they don’t like me. [Laughter from the audience].
PRES. Silence! or I shall clear the court. [To Tupin] The name of your wife, Eugénie Tupin, has been found in the papers of the woman Thomas. Where is the woman Tupin? Stand up. [To Tupin] That will do, sit down. You attempted to conceal her from the police.
TUPIN. I thought they were not good company for her.
PRES [pretending not to hear and consulting his notes] You gave yourself up and declared that you yourself took her to this woman’s house.
TUPIN. You speak like a book.
PRES. You persistently accused yourself. Did you want to go to prison?
TUPIN. It’s not a bad place. One’s warm, and there’s food at every meal.
PRES. It is true that prison diet is better than your everyday fare.
TUPIN. Now you’re talking.
PRES [consulting his notes] When you were arrested you were both completely destitute. What remained of your furniture had been sold, and you were entering upon a state of complete vagabondage. No doubt you also will accuse society. You are an unruly person. You frequent Socialist clubs; and when you don’t affect a cynical carelessness in your language, as you are doing now, you like to repeat the empty phrases you have picked up from the propagandist pamphlets which are poisoning the minds of the working classes. But we know all about you; and if you are a victim, you are the victim of your vices. You drink.
TUPIN. I have taken to it lately. That’s true.
PRES. You confess it. Most extraordinary.
MME. TUPIN. What does that prove?
PRES. Your eldest daughter is on the streets and one of your sons has been sent to prison for a year for theft. Is that true?
TUPIN. Possibly.
PRES. Not quite so insolent now. I congratulate you. We will proceed. You took your wife to an abortionist. Why?
TUPIN. Because I considered that bringing seven miserable little devils into the world was enough.
PRES. If you had continued to be the honest and laborious workman that you once were you might have had another child, without that child being necessarily a miserable little devil.
MME. TUPIN. That isn’t true.
TUPIN. No, monsieur. After four it’s impossible.
PRES. I don’t understand you.
TUPIN. What I say is that a workman’s family, however hard they work and screw, can’t get along when there are five children.
PRES. If that is true there are—and this society you despise may be proud of it—there are, I say, many charities on the watch, so to speak, for the destitute; and they make it a point of honor to leave none without relief.
TUPIN [indignant] Oh, and that seems all right to you, does it? You say it’s a workman’s duty to work and to have a lot of children, and when he does it, fair and square, and it makes a beggar of him, it seems to you all right!
PRES. Ah, ha! Here’s the orator of the public house parlor. In the first place, we have only your assertion that a workman’s family cannot live when there are five children. But, thank God, there are more than one or two in that condition who have recourse neither to charity nor to an abortionist.
MME. TUPIN. That’s not true.
TUPIN. Shall I prove to you that you’re wrong?
PRES. That has nothing to do with the charge against you.
MME. TUPIN. Yes, it has.
TUPIN. I beg your pardon. If I prove it that will explain how I came to do what I did.
MME. TUPIN. I should think so!
PRES. Very well, but cut it short.
TUPIN. I gave my lawyer the month’s account. Please let him read it to you.
PRES. Very well.
The counsel for the defence rises.
COUN. Here it is.
PRES. Stop. You’re not Tupin’s counsel.
COUN. No, M. le président. But my learned friends, with a confidence which honors me, and for which I thank them, have begged me to take over the conduct of the case as a whole, reserving to themselves the right to discuss important matters affecting their several clients.
PRES. Then I give you permission just to read this document. But do not attempt to address the court. This is not the time. You can read the paper and that is all. Do you understand?
COUN. I perfectly understand, M. le président. [He reads].[2]
| DAILY EXPENSES. | ||
| For the Mother and Children. | ||
| Breakfast. | f. | c. |
| Milk, 20c., bread, 10c. | 0 | 30 |
| Dinner. | ||
| Bread | 0 | 70 |
| Wine | 0 | 20 |
| Vegetables and dripping for soup | 0 | 20 |
| Meat | 0 | 60 |
| A relish for the children | 0 | 25 |
| Supper for all the Family. | ||
| Stew | 0 | 90 |
| Potatoes, etc. | 0 | 20 |
| Wine | 0 | 40 |
| For the Husband. | ||
| Tramway return fare | 0 | 30 |
| Tobacco | 0 | 15 |
| Dinner (out) | 1 | 25 |
| ——— | ||
| Total for the Day. | 5 | 45 |
| Comes to 1989f. 25c. per annum. | ||
| YEARLY EXPENSES. | ||
| Rent, 300f. Dress.—Three skirts at 5f.; three bodices at 3f.; sixteenpairs of boots for the children at 4f. 50c. the pair; four forthe parents at 8f. Two hats at 2f. Underclothes for themother, 5f.; for the father, 15f.; for the children, 30f.Bedding and linen, 10f. Clothes of the father, 120f.Total, 312f. | ||
The expenses are therefore 2,600f. a year. Tupin, who was a capable workman, earned 175f. a month, or 2,100f. a year. There was therefore an annual deficit of 500f. As I promised, I abstain from comment. [He sits down].
[2] A shorter version of this document, for the theatre, will be found in a note at the end.
MME. CHEV [to her neighbor] There were three sous a day for tobacco that he might very well have saved.
COUN. Perhaps this document might be formally put in evidence.
PRES. It is quite useless. [To Tupin] I am not going to dispute your figures. I admit them, and I repeat there are charities.
TUPIN. And I repeat that I’m not a beggar.
PRES. You prefer to commit what is almost infanticide. A man who has a daughter on the streets and a son a thief may accept charity without degradation.
MME. TUPIN [outraged] Oh!
TUPIN [indignant] In those days they were not what they are now. If they fell so low it was because I had too many children and I couldn’t look after my boy; and because my girl was deserted and starving. But you must be made of stone to throw that in my teeth.
PRES. And if you took to drinking it’s not your fault either, I suppose?
TUPIN. I want to explain about that. When we began to get short in the house my wife and I started to quarrel. Every time a child came we were mad at making it worse for the others. And so—I needn’t make a long story of it—I ended up in the pub. It’s warm there, and you can’t hear the children crying nor the mother complaining. And besides, when you’ve drink in you you forget.
MME. TUPIN. It’s the sort of thing that it’s good to forget.
TUPIN. And that’s how we got poorer and poorer. My fault if you like.
PRES. And the last child, what about that?
MME. TUPIN. Oh, the last.
TUPIN. The last? He cost us nothing.
PRES [carelessly] Eh?
MME. TUPIN. No.
TUPIN. No, he was a cripple. He was born in starvation, and his mother was worn out.
PRES. And his father was a drunkard.
TUPIN. Maybe. Anyway that one, the sickly fellow, wanted for nothing. They took him into the hospital. They wouldn’t let me take him away.
MME. TUPIN. He was a curiosity for the doctors.
TUPIN. And they nursed him and they nursed him and they nursed him. They didn’t leave him a minute. They made him live in spite of himself. And they let the other children—the strong ones—go to the bad. With half the money and the fuss they wasted on the cripple they could have made fine fellows of all the others.
PRES. And was that the reason you did away with the next?
MME. TUPIN. For all the good he’d have got out of this world he might thank me for not letting him come into it.
PRES. He should never have been created.
TUPIN. That’s true.
PRES. If everyone was like you the country would soon go to the dogs. But you don’t trouble yourself much about the country, I expect.
TUPIN. Someone said ‘A man’s country is the place where he’s well off.’ I’m badly off everywhere.
PRES. You are perfectly indifferent to the good of humanity.
TUPIN. Humanity had better come to an end if it can’t get on without a set of miserable wretches like me.
PRES. The jury thoroughly appreciate your moral sense. You can sit down.
Evening has come. The ushers bring lamps.
PRES [to Madame Tupin] Have you anything more to say?
MME. TUPIN. I have to say that all this is not my fault. My husband and I worked like beasts; we did without every kind of pleasure to try and bring up our children. If we had wanted to slave more I declare to you we couldn’t have done it. And now that we’ve given our lives for them, the oldest is in hospital ruined and done for because he worked in a ‘dangerous trade’ as they call it!
PRES. Why didn’t you put him into something else?
MME. TUPIN. Because there’s no work anywhere else. They’re full up everywhere else. There are too many people in the world. My little girl is a woman now like lots of others in Paris. She had to choose between that and starving. She chose that. I’m only a poor woman, and I know what it means to have nothing to eat, so I forgave her. The worst of it is that sometimes she’s hungry all the same.
TUPIN. And they say God blesses large families!
PRES [from his notes] Two others of your children are dead. The two youngest are out at nurse.
MME. TUPIN. Yes. They were taken away as soon as they were born. All I know about them is the post-office order I send every month to the woman who’s bringing them up. Oh, it’s cruel! It’s cruel! It’s cruel! [She sits down].
PRES. We have now only to examine the case of Annette Jarras. Let the woman Thomas stand up. [To Madame Thomas] This was your victim. She was nineteen, quite young and in perfect health. Now she is in her grave. What have you to say?
MME. THOMAS [quietly] Nothing.
PRES. You don’t excite yourself. Oh, we know you are not easily moved.
MME. THOMAS. If I told you that it was pity made me do it, you wouldn’t believe me.
PRES. Probably not. But at any rate you might try. Every accused person has a right to say whatever he can in his own defence: of course under the control of the president of the court.
MME. THOMAS. It isn’t worth while.
PRES. Oh, yes. Let us hear. The gentlemen of the jury are listening.
MME. THOMAS [after a sign from her counsel] A girl came to me one day; she was a servant. She had been seduced by her master. I refused to do what she asked me to do: she went and drowned herself. Another I refused to help was brought up before you here for infanticide. Then when the others came, I said Yes. I’ve prevented many a suicide and many a crime.
PRES. So that’s your line of defence. It is in pity, in charity, that you have acted. The prosecution will answer that you have never failed to exact payment for your services, and a high payment.
MME. THOMAS. And you? Don’t they pay you for condemning other people?
PRES. Those you condemn to death and execute yourself are all innocent.
MME. THOMAS. You prosecute me, but you decorate the surgeons who trade in sterility.
PRES. Be silent. Sit down. Madame Lucie Brignac. [Lucie comes forward, in great emotion]. Calm yourself, madame, and tell us what you know. You are called for the defence.
LUCIE. It was I, monsieur, who asked to be heard.
PRES. Speak up, madame, I cannot hear what you say.
LUCIE [louder] It was I, monsieur, who asked to be heard. I wanted to defend the memory of my little one. I fear now I shall not have the strength. [She controls herself]. Annette was seduced by a man who had promised to marry her. She lived with us. When my husband knew that my sister was in a certain condition, he wished to send her away. I was indignant, and I left his house with her and my children. We went to Bordeaux. We had a few hundred francs, and we thought we could work for our living. [She stops].
PRES. Well?
LUCIE. Our money was soon spent. Annette was giving some music lessons; they guessed her condition and they sent her away. I did some sewing.
PRES. And earned some money?
LUCIE. I couldn’t always get work. When I got it, I was paid sevenpence-halfpenny for twelve hours. I was not a skilled worker. Some people get a shilling and a halfpenny. We were in despair, thinking of the child that was coming.
PRES. That was not a reason for leading your sister and her child to their deaths! [Lucie is seized with a nervous trembling and does not answer]. Answer!
COUN. DEF. Give her a moment to recover, M. le président.
LUCIE [controlling herself] I wanted to get her into a hospital, but they only take them at the end. It seems there are homes one can go to in Paris, but not in the provinces.
PRES. You could have applied for charity.
LUCIE. Six months residence was necessary. And then, what should we have done with the child?
PRES. As it was impossible for you to bring it up, your sister could have taken it to a foundling hospital.
LUCIE. Abandon it—yes, we thought of that. We made inquiries.
COUN. DEF. It is necessary to get a certificate of indigence, and then make an application to the board of admission. They inquire into the case and admit or reject. The child may die meanwhile.
LUCIE. And they make a condition that the mother shall not know where her child is. That she shall never see it or hear of it again. Only once a month she will be told if it is alive or dead. Nothing more.
PRES. Proceed, madame.
LUCIE. Then I brought my children back to my husband, because we had nothing left. I went to see the parents of the young man, who is the cause of everything. They practically turned me out of doors. The young man is going to be married.
COUN. DEF. May I say a word, M. le président?
PRES. You are sure it is only a word?
COUN. DEF. Yes, M. le président. All the guilty are not in court. I look in vain for the seducer of this poor girl. He is waiting anxiously in the provinces to hear the result of this trial, fearing his name may come out. I have received from him and from his family an imploring letter, entreating me to spare him and not to mention him by name during the proceedings. Until now, as a matter of fact his name has not been mentioned, and we are at the end of the trial. Well, I am going to make it known at once. I shall have no more pity for the family and the intended wife of this criminal, than he had for the woman who is dead, and for the woman whose life he has ruined. If there is no law in the Code of this country which can reach him, there will be at least indignation enough in the hearts of all honest people to prevent Jacques Bernin from enjoying in peace the happiness he has stolen! [Prolonged applause].
PRES [to Lucie] Proceed, madame. [Pause]. Kindly conclude your evidence.
LUCIE. I implored my husband to take us back, Annette and me. He wouldn’t. We came to Paris with a little money he gave me. It was too soon for them to take Annette into one hospital: in another, where they would have taken her, there was no room. My husband filed a petition for divorce.
PRES. Kindly tell us about what concerns the woman Thomas.
LUCIE [with growing emotion] Yes, monsieur. Annette was always reproaching herself with having accepted what she called my sacrifice. She kept saying she was the cause of all my troubles. [A silence]. One day they came to fetch me and I found her dead at this woman’s house. [In a burst of sobs, which become hysterical, she cries out] My little sister, my poor little sister!
PRES [kindly, to the usher] Take her back to her place, or, if necessary, take her outside and do all you can for her. [To the defendants] Then none of you has any more to say in your defence!
TUPIN [excited] Oh, if we said all we’ve got to say we should be here until to-morrow morning!
MME. TUPIN [the same] That we should!
TUPIN [shouting] We should never stop!
PRES. I call upon the counsel for the prosecution for his speech.
SCH. But, monsieur, you are not going to condemn me? It’s not possible. I haven’t said everything.
TUPIN. We’re not the guilty ones.
SCH. I’m afraid of getting a bad name. And we hadn’t the means to bring up another.
MME. TUPIN [violently, much excited] Shut up! As it’s like that—as that’s what they do to our children—as men have found nothing to change that—we must do it—the women must do it. We must start the great strike—the strike—the strike of the mothers.
Cries in the audience, ‘Yes, yes.’
PRES. Silence.
MME. TUPIN [shouting] Why should we kill ourselves to get wage-slaves and harlots for other people?
TUPIN. We’re not the guilty ones.
PRES. I did not—
MME. THOMAS. And all the men that seduced the girls I saved—have you punished them?
PRES. Sit down.
TUPIN. The guilty ones are the people that tell us to have more children when the ones we have are starving.
COUN. DEF. The seducers are the guilty ones; and social hypocrisy.
During the proceedings, anger, which rapidly becomes fury, has taken possession of the defendants. They are all on their feet except the schoolmistress, who goes on sobbing and murmuring to herself unintelligibly. The president, also standing, strikes his desk with a paper-knife, trying to impose silence. He shouts, but cannot make himself heard. The tumult increases until the curtain falls. The voices of the counsel for the defence and the defendants drown those of the president and the counsel for the prosecution.
MME. THOMAS. The fine gentlemen that get hold of them and humbug them!
PRES. I will have you taken back to prison.
MME. THOMAS. And the rich young man, and the old satyrs—and the men! The men! All the men!
COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. Police, can’t you silence these lunatics?
COUN. DEF. You have no right to insult the defendants.
TUPIN. They’ve been doing nothing else the whole time.
COUN. PROS. Keep this rabble quiet! The defendants must respect the law.
COUN. DEF. And you, sir, must respect justice.
COUN. PROS. You sympathize with their crime. I am outraged by it.
COUN. DEF. They are right. They are not guilty. You must respect—
COUN. PROS. I demand—
COUN. DEF. Our customs are guilty, which denounce the unmarried mother!
AUDIENCE. Bravo! Hear, hear!
COUN. PROS. I demand that the counsel for the defence—
COUN. DEF. Every woman with child should be respected, no matter what the circumstances are. [Applause].
PRES. Maître Verdier, by article forty-three of the regulations—
COUN. DEF. Their crime is not an individual crime, it is a social crime.
COUN. PROS. It is a crime against nature.
COUN. DEF. It is not a crime against nature. It is a revolt against nature.
PRES. Police, remove the defendants. [The police do not understand or do not hear]. Maître Verdier, must we employ force? [Tumult in the whole court].
COUN. DEF [rhetorically] It is a revolt against nature! And with all the warmth of a heart melted by pity, with all the indignation of my outraged reason, I look for that glorious hour of liberation when some master mind shall discover for us the means of having only the children we need and desire, release us for ever from the prison of hypocrisy and absolve us from the profanation of love. That would indeed be a conquest of nature—savage nature—which pours out life with culpable profusion, and sees it disappear with indifference. But, until then—
The tumult recommences.
PRES. Police, clear the court! Police—police, remove the defendants. The sitting is suspended. [The magistrates cover their heads and rise].
MME. THOMAS. It’s not I who massacre the innocents! I’m not the guilty one!
SCH. Mercy, monsieur, mercy!
MME. TUPIN. She’s not the guilty one!
TUPIN. She’s right. She’s not!
MME. THOMAS. It’s the men! the men! all the men!
The magistrates go out by the narrow door reserved for them, the backs of their red robes disappearing slowly during the last words.
TUPIN’S BUDGET (Condensed).
The daily food of the mother and the five children consists of a loaf of bread, soup made of dripping and vegetables, and a stew. Total cost, 3f. 75c.
The husband’s expenses are: tramway fare, 30c.; tobacco, 15c.; lunch, 1f. 25c.
General expenses of the family: rent, 300f.; clothing, linen, boots (sixteen pairs for the children at 4f. 50c. the pair, four for the parents at 8f.), are again 300f.
Annual total, 2,600f.
The Three Daughters
of M. Dupont
[Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont]
Translated by St. John Hankin
Cast of the original production before the Stage Societyat the King’s Hall, London, on March 12, 13 and 14, 1905. | |
| Mme. Dupont | Kate Bishop |
| Courthezon | Leon M. Lion |
| Caroline | Italia Conti |
| Julie | Ethel Irving |
| M. Dupont | O. B. Clarence |
| Justine | Lois Crampton |
| M. Mairaut | Arthur Chesney |
| Mme. Mairaut | Agnes Thomas |
| Antonin Mairaut | Charles V. France |
| Lignol | Lewis Casson |
| M. Pouchelet | G. M. Graham |
| Mme. Pouchelet | Dora Barton |
| Françoise | Florence Adale |
| Angèle | Gertrude Burnett |