Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine
the house, the Count had pretended to be unable to say where Coulon lived. It was also true that de Milleville had repeatedly visited Coulon's house during the course of the intrigue, and that it was immediately after Coulon had been at Milleville's house that his wife was sent to buy the rat poison.
Coulon pretended to have heard M. de Milleville say that "This affair might cause a complete change in the situation in France, when tidings of what had been done were published." Moreover, he said that he had been despatched to the Archbishop of Rheim's with the message "Le coup est manqué."
But it is impossible to believe that the emigré court can have fabricated such a plot by which to cast on the name of Napoleon the stain of attempted assassination. The whole story reads like the clumsy invention of a vulgar adventurer. Coulon's second confession is obviously that of his true motives. He was in debt, he was losing his clientelle by the departure of the Count, and it is precisely what such a scoundrel would do, to invent a lie whereby to enlist their sympathies for himself, and obtain from them some pecuniary acknowledgment for services he pretended to have rendered. The little court was to blame in its gullibility. Its blind hatred of Napoleon led it to believe such a gross and palpable lie, and, if doubts arose in any of their minds as to the verity of the tale told them, they suppressed them.
Coulon was found guilty by the court and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. The judgment of the court was that he had acted in concert with certain members of the retinue of the Count de l'Isle, but it refrained from naming them.
The Murder of Father Thomas in Damascus
The remarkable case we are about to relate awoke great interest and excitement throughout three quarters of the world, and stirred up that hatred of the Jews which had been laid asleep after the persecutions of the Middle Ages, just at the time when in all European lands the emancipation of the Jew was being recognised as an act of justice. At the time the circumstances were imperfectly known, or were laid before the public in such a partial light that it was difficult to form a correct judgment upon them. Since then, a good deal of light has been thrown on the incident, and it is possible to arrive at a conclusion concerning the murder with more unbiased mind and with fuller information than was possible at the time.
The Latin convents of Syria stand under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, and are, for the most part, supplied with recruits from Italy. They are very serviceable to travellers, whom they receive with genial hospitality, and without distinction of creed. They are nurseries of culture and of industry. Every monk and friar is required to exercise a profession or trade, and the old charge against monks of being drones is in no way applicable to the busy members of the religious orders in Palestine.
In the Capuchin Convent at Damascus dwelt, in 1840, a friar named Father Thomas, a Sardinian by birth. For thirty-three years he had lived there, and had acted as physician and surgeon, attending to whoever called for his services, Mussulman or Christian, Turk, Jew or Frank alike. He set limbs, dosed with quinine for fever, and vaccinated against smallpox. Being well known and trusted, he was in constant practice, and his practice brought him, or, at all events, his order, a handsome annual income. His manners were, unfortunately, not amiable. He was curt, even rude, and somewhat dictatorial; his manners impressed as authoritative in the sickroom, but were resented in the market-place as insolent.
On February 5th, 1840, Father Thomas disappeared, together with his servant, a lay brother who always attended him. This disappearance caused great commotion in Damascus.
France has been considered in the East as the protector of Christians of the Latin confession. The French Consul, the Count Ratti-Menton, considered it his duty to investigate the matter.
Father Thomas had been seen to enter the Jews' quarter. Several Israelites admitted having seen him there. No one saw him leave it: consequently, it was concluded he had disappeared, been made away with, there. As none but Jews occupied the Ghetto, it was argued that Father Thomas had been murdered by Israelites. That was settled as a preliminary. But in the meantime the Austrian Consul had been making investigation as well as the Count Ratti-Menton, and he had obtained information that Father Thomas and his servant had been noticed engaged in a violent quarrel and contest of words with some Mohammedans of the lowest class, in the market-place. No weight was attached to this, and the French Consul pursued his investigations in the Jews' quarter, and in that quarter alone.
Sheriff Pacha was Governor of Syria, and Count Ratti-Menton required him to allow of his using every means at his disposal for the discovery of the criminal. He also requested the Austrian Consul to allow a domiciliary visitation of all the Jews' houses, the Austrian Government being regarded as the protector of the Hebrews. In both cases consent was given, and the search was begun with zeal.
Then a Turk, named Mohammed-el-Telli, who was in prison for non-payment of taxes, sent word to the French Consul that, if he would obtain his release, he would give such information as would lead to the discovery of the murderer or murderers. He received his freedom, and denounced, in return, several Jews' houses as suspicious. Count Ratti-Menton at the head of a troop of soldiers and workmen, and a rabble assembled in the street, invaded all these houses, and explored them from attic to cellar.
One of the first names given by Mohammed-el-Telli was that of a Jewish barber, Negrin. He gave a confused and contradictory account of himself, but absolutely denied having any knowledge of the murder. In vain were every means used during three days at the French Consulate to bring him to a confession; after that he was handed over to the Turkish authorities. They had him bastinadoed, then tortured. During his torture, Mohammed-el-Telli was at his side urging him to make a clean breast. Unable to endure his sufferings longer, the barbar declared his readiness to tell all. Whether what he said was based on reports circulating in the town, or was put into his mouth by his tormentors, we cannot tell. According to his story, on the evening of February the 5th a servant of David Arari summoned him into his house. He found the master of the house along with six other Israelitish rabbis and merchants, to wit, Aaron and Isaac Arari, Mussa Abul Afia, Moses Salonichi, and Joseph Laniado. In a corner of the room lay or leaned against the wall Father Thomas, gagged and bound hand and foot. The merchants urged Negrin to murder the Capuchin in their presence, but he stedfastly refused to do so. Finally finding him inflexible, they bought his silence with 600 piastres (hardly £6) and dismissed him.
Thereupon, the governor ordered the arrest of David Arari and the other Jews named, all of whom were the richest merchants in the town – at all events the richest Jewish merchants. They, with one consent, solemnly protested their innocence. They, also, were subjected to the bastinado; but as most of them were aged men, and it was feared that they might succumb under the blows, after a few lashes had been administered, they were raised from the ground and subjected to other tortures. For thirty-six hours the unhappy men were forced to stand upright, and were prevented from sleeping. They still persisted in denial, whereupon some of them were again beaten. At the twentieth blow they fainted. The French Consul complained that the beating was inefficient – so the Austrian Consul reported, and at his instigation they were again bastinadoed, but again without bringing them to confession.
In the meantime, David Arari's servant, Murad-el-Fallat, was arrested, the man who was said to have been sent for the barber. He was dealt with more sharply than the others. He was beaten most cruelly, and to heighten his pain cold water was poured over his bruised and mangled flesh. Under the anguish he confessed that he had indeed been sent for the barber.
That was an insufficient confession. He was threatened with the bastinado again, and promised his release if he would reveal all he knew. Thereupon he repeated the story of the barber, with additions of his own. He and Negrin, said he, had by command of the seven rich merchants put the Father to death, and had then cut up the body and hidden the remains in a remote water conduit.
The barber, threatened with fresh tortures, confessed to the murder.
Count Ratti-Menton explored the conduit where the two men pretended the mutilated body was concealed, in the presence of the servant and barber, both of whom were in such a condition through the barbarous treatment to which they had been subjected, that they could not walk, and had to be carried to the spot. And actually there some bones were found, together with a cap. A surgeon pronounced that these were human bones. It was at once concluded that these were the remains of Father Thomas,