Peytel immediately drew the pistol, and fired, from the interior of the carriage, upon an individual whom he saw running by the side of the road.
"Not knowing, as yet, that his wife had been hit, he jumped out on one side of the carriage, while Madame Peytel descended from the other; and he fired a second pistol at his domestic, Louis Rey, whom he had just recognized.Redoubling his pace, he came up with Rey, and struck him, from behind, a blow with the hammer.Rey turned at this, and raised up his arm to strike his master with the pistol which he had just discharged at him; but Peytel, more quick than he, gave the domestic a blow with the hammer, which felled him to the ground (he fell his face forwards), and then Peytel, bestriding the body, despatched him, although the brigand asked for mercy.
"He now began to think of his wife and ran back, calling out her name repeatedly, and seeking for her, in vain, on both sides of the road.Arrived at the bridge of Andert, he recognized his wife, stretched in a field, covered with water, which bordered the Furans.This horrible discovery had so much the more astonished him, because he had no idea, until now, that his wife had been wounded: he endeavored to draw her from the water; and it was only after considerable exertions that he was enabled to do so, and to place her, with her face towards the ground, on the side of the road.Supposing that, here, she would be sheltered from any farther danger, and believing, as yet, that she was only wounded, he determined to ask for help at a lone house, situated on the road towards Rossillon; and at this instant he perceived, without at all being able to explain how, that his horse had followed him back to the spot, having turned back of its own accord, from the road to Belley.
"The house at which he knocked was inhabited by two men, of the name of Thannet, father and son, who opened the door to him, and whom he entreated to come to his aid, saying that his wife had just been assassinated by his servant.The elder Thannet approached to, and examined the body, and told Peytel that it was quite dead; he and his son took up the corpse, and placed it in the bottom of the carriage, which they all mounted themselves, and pursued their route to Belley.In order to do so, they had to pass by Rey's body, on the road, which Peytel wished to crush under the wheels of his carriage.It was to rob him of 7,500 francs, said Peytel, that the attack had been made."Our friend, the Procureur's Substitut, has dropped, here, the eloquent and pathetic style altogether, and only gives the unlucky prisoner's narrative in the baldest and most unimaginative style.
How is a jury to listen to such a fellow? they ought to condemn him, if but for making such an uninteresting statement.Why not have helped poor Peytel with some of those rhetorical graces which have been so plentifully bestowed in the opening part of the act of accusation? He might have said:--"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 honorable 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 neighbors, 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 neighborhood, 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, might have with his young wife upon the subject.) He always went to mass; it is in the evidence.
