16th century true crime part 3.

Murders discovered by strange means, and punished.

Master Emery Bigot, the King's Attorney in the Parliament of Rouen, recounted the history following to me, with the names and surnames of the persons, which I have altogether forgotten, only the substance of the matter remains in my head. There was a Lucquois merchant, who having lived in England a long time, and desiring to end his days amongst his friends, requested them by letters to provide him a house, for that he meant to see them within six months at the farthest. About the same time he parts from England, followed by a servant of his a, Frenchman, with all his papers and obligations, and comes to the City of Rouen, where after he had made a little stay, he takes his way for Paris but being on the mountain near to Argentueil, his man, favored by the rain and foul weather that was at that time, murdered him, and threw his body into the vignes [vineyards]. As this was happening, a blind man came by, led by his dog, and hearing one groan, asked who it was? where to the murderer answered, that it was a sick man going to ease himself. The blind man went his way and the servant with his master’s money and papers gets him to Paris where he takes up a good round sum upon his master's bills and obligations: this merchant is expected at Luca a whole year together, and seeing that he came not, a fellow was dispatched away expressly to seek him out; coming to London he understood the time of his departure, and that he was bound for Rouen; there also in one of the ins he was told that about 6 months before a Lucquois merchant had lived there, and was gone to Paris. After that enquiry he made, he was never the nearer, nor by any means could hear any tidings of that he sought. Whereupon he complained to the Court of Parliament at Rouen, which began to embrace this affair, commanding the Lieutenant criminal to make diligent search within the City and Monsieur Bigot without. The first thing the Justice did, was to will one of his officers to enquire up and down the town whether there were any men that were within 7 or 8 months before had set up a new shop. The fellow failed not in his charge, but returning says he met with one, of whom having learned the name, the justice supposed an obligation, where by this new merchant binds himself body and goods to pay the sum of 200 crowns within a certain time, and by virtue thereof, being wild to pay the money, he answered that the bond was forged, for he owed no such debt. The Sergeant, taking this answer for a refusal, arrested him. and as they went along together, the merchant happened to tell him that he would answer this well enough: but is there no other matter said he? The Sergeant goes and reports how all had past to the Justice, who taking hold of those words, whither there were no other matter, commanded the prisoner to be brought before him: being come, he made the room to be voided, and with gentle speech told him, that he had sent away the rest, because he meant to deal kindly with him: that in truth he had caused him to bee arrested upon a supposed obligation, but that there was another matter in the wind. For he knew for certain, that the murder of the Luequois was committed by him, and thereof good proof was to be made, how-be-it he desired not to take any rigorous course: that the dead man was a stranger, altogether without friends, and therefore it was an easy matter to bury all things in oblivion, so that the prisoner would be wise, and do that which was fitting for himself. All this was spoken in such a fashion, as if the Justice had gone about to draw money from him. Herewith the prisoner solicited partly by the remorse of his conscience, partly by the hope he had to clear himself by a bride, answered the Judge, that herein appeared the very hand of God, seeing there was no other witness but himself, and yet the matter was come to light, and that upon the promise which had been made him, he would freely confess the truth. Thereupon the judge thinking he had got his desire, sent one for the Register. In the meantime the prisoner perceiving he had played the fool, when the judge would have had him confess the murder, he began to change his copy, and maintained that all this proceeding was full of slander and falsehood. The Justice, being somewhat frustrated by his hope, sends the merchant to prison, in expectation of more ample proof. But having had conference with other prisoners, who are craft masters in such affairs, he appealed from his imprisonment, and s[...]es both the Sergeant and the Justice. I leave you to think whether the cause was without appearance of reason. Forgery is objected against the obligation, and there needs no proof, for it is confessed. And indeed the Justice went directly to the Parliament, where he discoursed at large how all things had been carried. The Court, being well assured of the honesty of the Justice, suspended the course of this suit for a time. In the meantime Monsieur Bigot had incharge, to make enquiry all the way between Rouen and Paris, to see if he could come by any notice of the matter: which he executed with all diligence. At length passing by Argentueil, the bailiff told him, how not long before, they had found a dead carcass in the vines, half eaten by dogs and crows. Therewith came the blind man begging to the inn where Bigot lay, and understanding the perplexity they were in, told them all that he had heard about the same time on the mountain. Bigot asked him, whether he could know the voice again? The other answered that he thought he should. Whereupon he set him up on a horse behind another, and rode away with him to Rouen, where being alighted, and having given an acceptance of his commision, the Court determined to hear what the blind man could say, and after to confront him with the prisoner. He had then discoursed at full all that past in his hearing on the mountain, and the answer that was returned to him, being demanded, whether he could know the voice again? He replied that he did not think but he could. Therwith they showed him the prisoner from afar, and asked him, when the blind man was gone, whether he could take any exception against him. God knows what a case he was in then. For he said that there had never been such devices practiced to impeach the innocency of an honest man, as there had been against him. First the Justice by virtue of a false obligation to lay him in prison: then to make him believe how he had confessed that which never did: and last of all, to bring in a blind man for a witness against him, why it was past all rules of common sense.

Notwithstanding that, the Court seeing he had nothing else to say against him, caused 20 men to speak one after another, and still as they spoke, the blind man was asked whether he knew their voices, where he replied that it was none of them. At last when the prisoner had spoken, the blind man said that it was he who answered him on the mountain. The same confusion of voices having been two or three times reiterated, the blind man hit always on the right, and never missed. Take all the accidents of this process severally, and you shall find many that make for the prisoner. But when you have thoroughly considered the contrary, there are a number of circumstances which make against him: a new citizen which had set up a new shop a little after the Lucquois disappearing, the honesty of the Lieutenant known to all men, the deposition by him and the Sergeant made: but especially the miraculous encounter of the blind man, who was both at the murder, as afterward in the inn where Bigot lay: and finally that without any fraud he had discerned the murderers voice from many others. All these things duly weighed, were the cause of the wretched man's condemnation: who before he was executed, confessed all, to the discharge of the Judges consciences. E. PASQVIER in 5. booke des Recerches of France. Chap. 20.

Saint Oportunes church.

On Christmas eve 1551 a certain fellow brained a young woman with a hammer, hard by Saint Oportunes Church in Paris, as she was going to midnight mass, and took away her rings. The hammer was stolen the same evening from a poor smith thereby, who therefore suspected of the murder, was very cruelly handled, and put to an extraordinary kind of torture, by reason of the violent presumptions that made against him. In such a sort that he was quite lamed, and deprived of the means to get his living, where-by reduced into extreme poverty, he made a miserable end.

The murderer remained almost 20 years unknown, and the memory of the murder seemed to be buried with the poor woman in her grave. Now mark how it came out at length, though it was long first. John Flameng Sergeant of the subsidies at Paris, that was afterward chief usher in the Court of Aids, being one day in the Summer at Saint Leups, a village by Montmorency, whether he was sent to sit upon a commission, chanced among other talk at supper, to say before certain of the place, how he had left his wife at home sick, and nobody with her but a little boy. There was an old man then present named Moustier, and a son in-law of his: who immediately upon this speech went away that night, with each of them a basket of cherries, and a green goose [young tender goose], and came about ten of the clock the next morning to Flameng’s house: where knocking, the woman looked out at the window, and asked who it was. They answered that her husband had sent her a green goose, and a basket or two of cherries, whereupon the door being opened to them by the boy, they clapped it too again, and cut his throat. The poor child struggling with them, the woman heard the noise, and stepped out into a gallery joining to her chamber, to see what it was, where perceiving a stream of blood in the yard, one of them told her that it was the blood of the goose: In the meantime the other ran up the stairs thinking to surprise her. She distrusting the truth of the matter, got back again into her chamber, bolted the door within

and cried out of the window for help saying there were thieves in her house. The two wretches, seeing they had failed of their purpose, would have got away, but going to unlock the gate, they broke the key in the lock. So having no means to escape, they went to hide themselves. The youngest climbed up into the funnel of a chimney, the old man covered himself into the bottom of a cellar. There-with the neighbors came running to the house, and breaking open the dore, found the boy lying dead in the yard, where-upon they sought up and down every corner for the murderers; he in the chimney was taken first, and the other after long search was found in the well of the cellar with nothing but his nose above water. They were straight away carried to prison, and shortly after arraigned and condemned to death. Being on the scaffold at the place of execution, the old man desired to speak with the smith’s widow, of whom mention was made at the beginning. When she came he asked her forgiveness, and told her it was he that killed the young woman by St Oportunes Church. This confession of his being committed to record, they were executed as they deserved. E. PASQVIER in the same book and Chapter.