On January 3rd, 1867, sixteen of the young criminals were tried at Draguignan. Ferrendon was a boy little over thirteen, a lad with a soft expressive face. Allard was aged thirteen, with a hangdog, evil look. One of the accused was a lad from Paris, refined in appearance and with large, beautiful eyes. One was aged twenty. Coudurier, Fouché, Laurent, and Bérond were found guilty by the jury, not of murder, but of homicide, with extenuating circumstances, and were sentenced to life-long hard labour. Allard was condemned to be sent to a reformatory for ten years. Ferrendon was discharged as innocent! Guenau was also declared innocent. “Where, then, am I to sleep to-night?” he asked; whereupon the audience made up a handsome sum for him.
This was not the end of the matter. In prison one of these culprits murdered another of his fellow boy-convicts because he thought the latter had given evidence against him. It is hard to say which came out worst in this affair, the Director, Chaplain, and warders, or the jury at Draguignan.
Although M. de Pourtalès was willing to renew the experiment, the establishment was not restored, and of the reformatory only the ruins remain.
A CAROB TREE
CHAPTER VII
LES MONTAGNES DES MAURES
Exceptional character of the Maures—Warm quarters in the Southern nooks of the chain—A future for them—The cork tree—The carob—The mulberry—The Saracens take possession of the chain—King Hugh makes terms with them: his history—Marozia—S. Majolus—William of Provence—Le Grand Fraxinet—Grimaud—S. Tropez—The Bravade.
A HUNCH of granite heaved up, and carrying on its back the beds of schist and gneiss that had overlain it, stands up between the Gapeau and the Argens. Its nearest geological relations, not connexions, are the Cevennes and Corsica, all pertaining to the same period of upheaval. Only to the east does the granite assert itself above the overlying formations. This mass of mountain is of no great elevation, never rising above 1,200 feet, and extending over a superficies of 200,000 acres.