THE D’ANGLADES.

 

THE D’ANGLADES.

A very flagrant judicial error was committed in Paris towards the latter end of the same century, through the obstinate persistence of the Lieutenant-General of Police in believing that he had discovered the real perpetrators of a theft. Circumstantial evidence was accepted as conclusive proof despite the unblemished character and the high social position of the accused.

  
 

BRANDING IRONS, FROM THE CHÂTELET PRISON. [5]

The Marquis d’Anglade and his wife lived in the same house with the Comte and Comtesse de Montgomerie; it was in the Rue Royale, the best quarter in Paris, and both kept good establishments. The Montgomeries were the most affluent, had many servants, and a stable full of horses and carriages. D’Anglade also kept a carriage, but his income was said to be dependent upon his winnings at the gaming table. The two families were on terms of very friendly intercourse, frequently visited, and accepted each other’s hospitality. When the Comte and Comtesse went to their country house, the D’Anglades often accompanied them.

  
 FRENCH CONVICTS “EN CHAÎNE.”
 (From a Drawing by Monet.)

It was to have been so on one occasion, but at the last minute the Marquis d’Anglade begged to be excused on the score of his wife’s indisposition. The Montgomeries went alone but took most of their servants with them. When they returned to Paris, a day earlier than they were expected, they found the door of their apartments open, although it had been locked when they left. A little later D’Anglade came in. Having been supping with other friends, and hearing that the Montgomeries were in the house, he went in to pay his respects. Madame d’Anglade joined him, and the party did not break up till a late hour. There was no suspicion of anything wrong then.

Next morning, however, the Comte de Montgomerie discovered that he had been the victim of a great robbery. His strong box had been opened by a false key, and thirteen bags of silver, amounting to 13,000 francs, and 11,000 francs in gold, had been abstracted, also a hundred louis d’or coined in a new pattern, and a valuable pearl necklace. The police were summoned, and their chief, the Lieutenant-General, declared that someone resident in the house must be the thief. Suspicion seems to have attached at once to the D’Anglades, although they readily offered to allow their premises to be searched. The search was made, and the whole of their boxes, the beds and cupboards, and all receptacles in the rooms they occupied, were thoroughly ransacked. Only the garrets remained, and D’Anglade willingly accompanied the officers thither. His wife, ill and weak, remained downstairs.

Here, in the garret, the searchers came upon seventy-five louis d’or of the kind above mentioned, wrapped in a scrap of printed paper part of a genealogical table, which Montgomerie at once identified as his. The police now wished to fix the robbery on the D’Anglades, and their suspicions were strengthened by the poor man’s confusion when desired, as a test, to count out the money before them all. He was trembling, a further symptom of guilt. However, when the basement was next examined, the part occupied by the Montgomerie servants, evidence much more incriminatory was obtained against the latter. In the room where they slept, five of the missing bags of silver were found, all full, and a sixth so. None of these servants was questioned, yet they were as likely to be guilty as the accused, more so indeed. But the police thought only of arresting the D’Anglades, one of whom was imprisoned in the Châtelet, the other in the Fors l’Evêque prison.

The prosecution was of the most rancorous and pitiless kind. Those who sat in the seat of justice prejudiced against the case in D’Anglade’s disfavor, and, as he still protested his innocence, ordered him to suffer torture to extort confession. He remained obdurate to the last, was presently found guilty, although on this incomplete evidence, and was sentenced to the galleys for life, and his wife to be banished from Paris, with other penalties and disabilities. D’Anglade was condemned to join the chaîne, the gang of convicts drafted to Toulon, and, having suffered inconceivably on the road, he died of exhaustion at Marseilles. His wife was consigned to an underground dungeon, where she was confined of a girl, and both would have succumbed to the rigors of their imprisonment, when suddenly the truth came out, and they were released in time to escape death.

An anonymous letter reached a friend of the D’Anglades, coming from a man who was about to turn monk, being torn by remorse, which gave him no rest. This man had been one of several confederates, and he declared that he knew the chief agent in the theft to have been the Comte de Montgomerie’s almoner, a priest called Gaynard, who had stolen the money, aided by accomplices, mainly by one Belestre, who, from being in great indigence, had come to be suddenly and mysteriously rich. Gaynard and Belestre were both already in custody for a street brawl, and when interrogated they confessed. Gaynard had given impressions of the Comte’s keys to Belestre, who had had false keys manufactured which opened the strong box. Belestre was also proved to be in possession of a fine pearl necklace.

The true criminals were now examined and subjected to torture when they completely exonerated D’Anglade. The innocent marquis could not be recalled to life, but a hefty sum was subscribed, some £4,000, to his wife, as slight compensation for the gross injustice done her. The Comte de Montgomerie was also ordered to make restitution of the property confiscated, or to pay its equivalent in money.