A Book of the Cevennes

by S. Baring-Gould

In the house of Mme. de Prets a party of ladies was assembled. The Marquise rushed into the midst of them, followed by the Chevalier, crying out that she had been poisoned. The Chevalier declared before the ladies that his sister was insane, and they did not know at first what to make of this extraordinary scene. Mme. Brunette, the wife of the Calvinist preacher in the place, gave her some treacle, at the time supposed to be a sovereign remedy against poison. She swallowed it, but the fire of the poison made the Marchioness entreat for water. A tumbler was handed to her, but the Chevalier smashed it in her mouth as she was drinking. He succeeded in persuading the ladies that his unfortunate sister-in-law was out of her mind, and begged them to excuse such an unseemly irruption into their midst.

Then the poor creature implored to be allowed to go into the adjoining room; this was granted, but the Chevalier followed her, and with his rapier stabbed her twice in the breast. She cried out, ran to the door and entreated help. He followed, and, blind with rage, stabbed her five times in the back. The last time the weapon broke and left the blade sticking in her shoulder. She fell at the feet of the assembled ladies drenched in blood. The Chevalier then ran downstairs, and cried to his brother, "Away! away! the job is done!" But as they hurried down the street they heard the women at the window crying for help and for a surgeon. The Abbé, in the idea that the Marquise was still living, had the incredible audacity to go back, enter the house, thrust the women aside, and put the pistol to the breast of his victim. Mme. Brunette struck up his hand, and the pistol did not go off. Thereupon the Abbé hit Mme. Brunette on the head, and again attempted to kill his sister-in-law, this time by braining her with the butt-end. Now, however, all the women present fell on him, dragged, beat, thrust, and succeeded eventually in expelling him from the house.

It was nine o'clock at night when the murderous attempt was made. Darkness favoured the assassins; they knew that they would be pursued, so they fled to an estate that belonged to the Marquess at Aubernas, thence by boat down the river to the sea, and escaped pursuit by fleeing from France.

The unfortunate Marquise lingered nineteen days. The surgeon was obliged to plant his knee against her back in order to obtain leverage for the extraction of the broken blade; but she died of the result of the poison rather than of her wounds.

The two scoundrels before they fled had sent a message post-haste to Avignon to inform the Marquess that his wife had been so treated by them that she could not possibly live. He did not hurry himself to go to Ganges, and when he arrived expressed no sympathy with her, no concern for what had been done, but pestered the dying woman about her will, for in Avignon he had got wind of what she had done to protect it from being revoked.

The case was tried at Montpellier. The Marquess was decreed to have forfeited his title and estates, which reverted to the Crown. The Abbé and Chevalier were condemned to be broken on the wheel, but as they were beyond reach the sentence could not be carried into effect. The vicar, Perette, was sentenced to the galleys for life, and died on his way to them. Louis XIV. conferred the estates of the Marquess on the brother, the Count of Ganges; he held them till his nephew was of age, and then surrendered them to him. The Chevalier entered the service of Venice, and was killed by a Turkish bullet in Candia.

The Abbé escaped into Lippe, where, under the assumed name of Montellière, he passed as a Huguenot refugee, was received into favour, and was appointed tutor to the children of the Count of Lippe. He even aspired to the hand of a kinswoman of the Count. The latter demurred. He liked Montellière well enough, but objected that he was not noble.

"Oh! as to that, do not concern yourself," said the Abbé, "I am the Abbé de Ganges, of whom you may possibly have heard."

The horrible story was known—it had been bruited about Europe. The Count was horror-struck, and would have surrendered the miscreant to the authorities in France, but that the pupil of the Abbé pleaded for him, and he was allowed to escape into Holland, where the Count's cousin, who had lost her heart to him although knowing what a ruffian he was, followed him in disguise and married him. Six months after his marriage, a stranger accosted him in the streets of Amsterdam. "You are the Abbé de Ganges," he said. "I avenge the Marquise," and he blew out the miscreant's brains. Who the avenger was, was never discovered.

Near Ganges is the Grotte des Demoiselles, a cave that has so long enjoyed notoriety that the smoke of torches has somewhat spoilt its freshness. It was, in fact, discovered in 1780. There are other grottoes finer, as that of Dargilan. However, the great hall called that of the Virgin, which is one hundred and forty-five feet in height, is fine; in it is a stalagmite supposed to represent the Virgin, and another forms a natural porch, eighteen feet high and nine feet wide. It demands, I think, a special aptitude of the mind to appreciate caverns. I, for my part, am so fond of the light of day that I do not go underground before my time comes.