‘Monsieur Peytel is an eminent notary at Belley; he is a man distinguished for his literary and scientific acquirements; he has lived long in the best society of the capital; he had been but a few months married to that young and unfortunate lady, whose loss has plunged her bereaved husband into despair—almost into madness. Some early differences had marked, it is true, the commencement of their union; but these,—which, as can be proved by evidence, were almost all the unhappy lady’s fault,—had happily ceased, to give place to sentiments far more delightful and tender. Gentlemen, Madame Peytel bore in her bosom a sweet pledge of future concord between herself and her husband: in three brief months she was to become a mother.

‘In the exercise of his honourable profession,—in which, to succeed, a man must not only have high talents, but undoubted probity,—and, gentlemen, Monsieur Peytel did succeed—did inspire respect and confidence, as you, his neighbours, well know;—in the exercise, I say, of his high calling, Monsieur Peytel, towards the end of October last, had occasion to make a journey in the neighbourhood, and visit some of his many clients.

‘He travelled in his own carriage, his young wife beside him. Does this look like want of affection, gentlemen? or is it not a mark of love—of love and paternal care on his part towards the being with whom his lot in life was linked,—the mother of his coming child,—the young girl, who had everything to gain from the union with a man of his attainments of intellect, his kind temper, his great experience, and his high position? In this manner they travelled, side by side, lovingly together. Monsieur Peytel was not a lawyer merely; but a man of letters and varied learning; of the noble and sublime science of geology he was, especially, an ardent devotee.’

(Suppose, here, a short panegyric upon geology. Allude to the creation of this mighty world, and then, naturally, to the Creator. Fancy the conversations which Peytel, a religious man,[8] might have with his young wife upon the subject.)

‘Monsieur Peytel had lately taken into his service a man named Louis Rey. Rey was a foundling, and had passed many years in a regiment—a school, gentleman, where much besides bravery, alas! is taught; nay, where the spirit which familiarises one with notions of battle and death, I fear, may familiarise one with ideas, too, of murder. Rey, a dashing reckless fellow, from the army, had lately entered Peytel’s service; was treated by him with the most singular kindness; accompanied him (having charge of another vehicle) upon the journey before alluded to; and knew that his master carried with him a considerable sum of money; for a man like Rey an enormous sum, 7500 francs. At midnight on the 1st of November, as Madame Peytel and her husband were returning home, an attack was made upon their carriage. Remember, gentlemen, the hour at which the attack was made; remember the sum of money that was in the carriage; and remember that the Savoy frontier is within a league of the spot where the desperate deed was done.’

Now, my dear Briefless, ought not Monsieur Procureur, in common justice to Peytel, after he had so eloquently proclaimed, not the facts, but the suspicions, which weighed against that worthy, to have given a similar florid account of the prisoner’s case? Instead of this, you will remark, that it is the advocate’s endeavour to make Peytel’s statements as uninteresting in style as possible; and then he demolishes them in the following way:—

‘Scarcely was Peytel’s statement known, but the common sense of the public rose against it. Peytel had commenced his story upon the bridge of Andert, over the cold body of his wife. On the 2nd November he had developed it in detail, in the presence of the physicians, in the presence of the assembled neighbours—of the persons who, on the day previous only, were his friends. Finally, he had completed it in his interrogatories, his conversations, his writings, and letters to the magistrates; and everywhere these words, repeated so often, were only received with a painful incredulity. The fact was, that, besides the singular character which Peytel’s appearance, attitude, and talk had worn ever since the event, there was in his narrative an inexplicable enigma; its contradictions and impossibilities were such, that calm persons were revolted at it, and that even friendship itself refused to believe it.’

Thus Mr. Attorney speaks, not for himself alone, but for the whole French public; whose opinions, of course, he knows. Peytel’s statement is discredited everywhere; the statement which he had made over the cold body of his wife—the monster! It is not enough simply to prove that the man committed the murder, but to make the jury violently angry against him, and cause them to shudder in the jury-box, as he exposes the horrid details of the crime.

‘Justice,’ goes on Mr. Substitute (who answers for the feelings of everybody), ‘disturbed by the preoccupations of public opinion, commenced, without delay, the most active researches. The bodies of the victims were submitted to the investigations of men of art; the wounds and projectiles were examined; the place where the event took place explored with care. The morality of the authors of this frightful scene became the object of rigorous examination; the exigences of the prisoner, the forms affected by him, his calculated silence, and his answers, coldly insulting, were feeble obstacles; and justice at length arrived, by its prudence, and by the discoveries it made, to the most cruel point of certainty.’

You see that a man’s demeanour is here made a crime against him; and that Mr. Substitute wishes to consider him guilty, because he has actually the audacity to hold his tongue. Now follows a touching description of the domestic, Louis Rey:—